- Directed by Tobe Hooper
- Written by Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, Mark Victor
- Stars JoBeth Williams, Heather O’Rourke, Craig T. Nelson
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 54 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eZgEKjYJqA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a big-budget horror movie that doesn’t get enough credit. It builds up nice and slow, letting us get to know the family and root for them before the bad things happen. The cast is great – even the kids, the story is really good, and the special effects still hold up. If you’ve never seen this, you really should.
Synopsis
We watch the TV station signing off with the National Anthem as credits roll, followed by static. As the dog roams through the house, we see Steve, Diane, Dana, Robbie, and Carole Anne Freeling, all asleep in their beds. Carola Anne, the little girl, wakes up and goes downstairs, attracted to the flickering on the TV. She talks to whoever’s in there. Everyone wakes up and watches; there’s no one on the TV, but Carol Anne is having a conversation with them.
The next day, we get a view of the housing project they all live in, hundreds of brand-new homes. Diane notices the pet bird, Tweety, has died. She and Carol Anne bury the bird in the backyard. Meanwhile, Robbie climbs the creepy old tree in the backyard. He is kind of afraid of the tree, especially at night in the rain. He also doesn’t like the creepy clown toy in his bedroom. Steve mentions that he works for the company that built the neighborhood.
When the TV signs off that night, Carol Anne goes to the screen again and talks to the static. This time, smoky hands come out of the TV and explore the room. Then the room shakes like an earthquake, waking everyone up. “They’re here,” states Carol Anne. The next morning, they notice spoons are bent and other strange things. The dog starts acting up, and the chairs in the kitchen have a life of their own. When Steve gets home, Diane and Carol Anne have a whole little “ghost demonstration” for him. She’s been playing with the ghosts all day.
That night, a storm rolls in. The tree reaches through the window and pulls Robbie outside. A light comes on in the closet, beckoning Carol Anne inside. Eventually, she gets sucked right in and vanishes. They hear her calling through the static on the TV.
Soon, at the nearby university, Steve explains the problem to Dr. Lesh, a paranormal expert. He takes her and her two assistants to see Carol Anne’s room. They are quickly convinced. Quickly. Lesh thinks that it might be a poltergeist instead of a standard haunting. Carol Anne calls and says there’s someone there with her. One of the assistants gets bitten by something large. Dr. Lesh explains about Heaven and “going into the light” and some people that resist going into the light. A light comes on upstairs, and a very visible ghost comes down the stairs into the living room. When they play back the video recording, they see dozens of ghosts there.
The next morning, Robbie goes to stay with grandma. Dr. Lesh says she’ll bring help when she comes back. Steve’s boss, Mr. Teague, wonders why Steve hasn’t been at work. Teague shows Steve the next phase of the development; he offers him a house to be built on the hill and a partnership in Phase Five. There’s a big cemetery up there, but they’re going to relocate it, just like they did with the older developments. Steve’s house is located on what used to be a cemetery.
Dr. Lesh invites Zelda, a small medium, to sense what’s in the house. She explains that Carol Anne is distracting a bunch of spirits that can’t find the real light. Carol Anne must help them to cross over. Also, there’s something terrible in there with her that will try to stop her.
Zelda tells Diane to call Carol Anne and tell her to go into the light. They go into Carol Anne’s room, and the closet is full of flashing lights. Zelda throws a tennis ball into the closet and it comes out through a portal in the living room ceiling. They throw a rope through the portals; Diane ties herself to the rope and goes through the portal.
Zelda tells the spirits to go into the light, and Steve doesn’t want Carol Anne to go, so he pulls on the rope. He gets a facefull of demonic entity for his trouble. On the other end, Diane and Carol Anne fall through the ceiling; they are back. “This house is clean,” declares Zelda.
Next morning, they’re packing up and moving out. Steve’s going to the office to resign, and the rest of the family gets ready for the night. Diane takes a bath while the kids go to bed– in their bedrooms in the haunted house. Robbie tries to cover the stupid clown toy with his jacket, but it falls off. After a few minutes, the clown is gone. Where is it? Under the bed! It attacks Robbie and pulls him under the bed as Carol Anne watches. In her own room, Diane gets rolled up the walls and across the ceiling as Carol Anne’s closet door opens again. Once again, the closet starts sucking things in.
Diane runs for help but falls into the under-construction swimming pool. Corpses and a casket float to the surface. There are bodies down there! Back inside, the closet has become a full-scale portal to Hell, still trying to suck in the children. She manages to pull them out just in time.
Steve and Teague arrive outside and watch the electrical disturbances. They both get to experience a bunch of corpses as well. Steve curses Teague for just moving the headstones; he left the bodies there! Everyone piles into the car and drives away. The whole neighborhood goes batshit as they drive away. Then the house implodes as Teague watches.
Steve, Diane, and the kids go to stay at the Holiday Inn. They put the TV outside the room.
Commentary
Why would they spend any time at all in the house after getting Carol Anne back? Let the movers pack their stuff up. No, they decided to stay the next day into the evening. The kids are even in pajamas!
I saw this several times when it first came out in the theaters. It’s still one of the best haunted house movies ever. The fact that it was a big-budget Spielberg movie is probably one of the reasons it doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a horror film.
I think part of the reason this is so good is that we get lots of time with the family before the weirdness starts, and then it builds up slowly, but consistently to a very tense climax. Everything gets explained in the end, and it all more or less makes sense. There’s plenty of silly humor early on, but it all gets very serious once the story gets going. Oh, the special effects are top-notch and still hold up nearly forty years later.