Who directed Poltergeist? October 9, 2007
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Artfully Deranged, The Film Industry , trackback
The issue of who actually made the 1982 classic horror film Poltergeist has raged ever since an article appeared in the L.A. Times questioning who was directing the movie. On the day of the newspaper’s on-set visit Steven Spielberg was directing some on-location shots with Hooper no where to be seen.
It’s no secret the film came from a Spielberg idea – in fact, the genesis for Poltergeist came from the Oscar-winning director’s Night Skies project about a family terrorised in their home by an evil alien. This eventually became a story about a decent and loving creature from outer space - E.T: The Extraterrestrial - with Spielberg adapting the idea around a troublesome evil spirit instead, creating Poltergeist.
The problem that has always troubled me is how Poltergeist feels like a Spielberg movie – a Spielberg script, directed with a Spielberg mentality. It follows the same themes the director has probed his entire career – childhood, family, loss, the supernatural. The film is a far cry from Hooper’s low-budget shocker The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it isn’t as implicitly violent, it features far more special-effects (albeit, the film had a much bigger budget), and it has a much more mainstream, less documentary-inspired feel about it. It’s also, when you look at Tobe Hooper’s career post-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the likes of such rubbish Invaders From Mars and The Mangler dominating his C.V., far too good to be Hooper film.
Aside from aesthetic evidence there has always been some ambiguity from people who worked on the set – the actors and the production staff – about who was running the show. Indeed, Spielberg produced so many films he didn’t direct yet Poltergeist is the only one where his role is unclear.
Of course, filmmaking is a collaborative effort, you only have to look at the eight minute end of movie credit sequences to know that. Yet, the imaginative and creative force behind a film has to come from the person directing it, and the ambiguity surrounding Poltergeist arises because Hooper’s creative force was either seriously diminished under Spielberg or rendered practically null and void.
Hooper and Spielberg had creative differences right off the bat and rarely did Hooper get his way. Dominque Dunne who played Anna Freeling in the movie said that she was directed by Spielberg and that in one scene he asked her to have a hickey on her neck. She argued against it but Spielberg got what he wanted. Dunne has also mentioned how it was Spielberg who comforted little Heather O’Rourke when she became frightened during scenes.
There is another story from the set that concerns Oliver Robins who, during the scene where the clown attacks him, it was Spielberg who told him to ‘keep going’ as he was so authentically acting. When Spielberg realised the actor was actually being strangulated by the puppet, he ran to Robins, saving his life.
But perhaps this only suggests Spielberg helped out with the young actors and added a few creative touches here and there, however, it only adds to the speculation. Why, for example, does the Turner Classic Movies documentary feature both Spielberg and Hooper on set yet no shots of Hooper actually doing any direction.
But most illuminating and perhaps the most definitive idea of who directed Poltergeist comes from Zelda Rubinstein who played Tangina in the movie. Rubinstein told Ain’t It Cool news: ‘I can tell you that Steven directed all six days I was there. I only worked six days on the film and Steven was there. Tobe set up the shots and Steven made the adjustments.’
Consider the fact that due to a contractual agreement with Universal Studios, Spielberg could not ‘direct’ another movie while preparing E.T: The Extraterrestrial. Spielberg’s vague but interesting comments point to the idea that Hooper wasn’t a force on the movie, as he says, ‘Tobe isn’t… a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that become the process of collaboration.’
The Director’s Guild of America even opened an investigation into whether the ‘directed by’ credit was valid, and the film’s co-producer Frank Marshall said, ‘the creative force of the movie was Steven. Tobe was the director and was on the set every day. But Steven did the design for every storyboard and he was on the set every day except for three days when he was in Hawaii with Lucas.’
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that because Spielberg couldn’t contractually direct another movie while E.T. was being prepped, he simply hired another director to stand in for the credit, and directed it anyway. Poltergeist is an excellent supernatural-horror film, so why all the fuss? Well, it’s one of those Hollywood controversies, the sort of story that gives the industry a mystique it loves to manipulate. After all, the Poltergeist set was haunted, and the actors were cursed…but that’s a whole other story.
Poltergeist 25th Anniversary Edition DVD is released on the 15th Oct.
Comments»
Nice article, Daniel. Poltergeist certainly seems more like a Spielberg film than a Hooper and, regardless of how much actual direction Hooper undertook, the creative influence seems to have been sourced primarily from Spielberg’s brain. I don’t think, however, that everything Hooper has done since Texas Chainsaw has been complete rubbish: Salem’s Lot is a great traditional spooker, and Eaten Alive (AKA Death Trap) had the same kind of insane gritty nastiness to it even if it wasn’t quite up there with his most well known film - a pretty unique excursion into American backwoods madness. I also thought that Funhouse, while basic, was a pretty good slasher.
For anything Poltergeist related you should revert to David Furtney who runs a website for each movie www.poltergeist.com
In particular he has researched the third film extensively and found interesting info that contradicts the people who made it, in relation to an alternate ending.
It’s interesting how this topic is still going on 27 years later! Now maybe someone could clear up the “jump cut” during the kitchen scene. Do yopu know there’s still people out there on internet message boards that think it wasn’t done on puropose, lol. Anyway great page. Thanks fro sharing the insightment into Poltergeist.
There’s quite a bit of contention about how much of The Goonies Spielberg directed too, iirc.
In defense of Hooper, I think it’s worth pointing out that his next movie, “Lifeforce”, was done in a style very similar to Poltergeist and although not nearly as good as Poltergeist, Lifeforce does show that Hooper could “do” the Spielberg style.
My opinion is it was an amalgym of reasons. If you watch any Tobe Hooper film, you barely know he was even behind it unless you see his name in the credits. Compare Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for example, which felt like a terrible cash in sequel by a completely different director…but no, that was aparantly closer to his vision. Thank God his vision was skewed enough for the first Texas Chainsaw movie to be maybe one of three movies he’s ever directed that were even worth watching. Salem’s Lot and Poltergeist are the only other two good movies he’s done and none of the three share ANYTHING in common style wise. He seems like the kind of guy who probably doesnt know what the Hell he wants and lets others make choices for him. In the case of Poltergeist, I’ll bet Spielberg knew what kind of a director he was, knew he had his own limitations with E.T. going on, wanted a horror directors name behind the project given the subject matter and voila! Solution: Tobe Hooper was a beard and was probably too naeve to even notice.
It’s no different to Spielberg and Lucas directing Raiders Of The Lost Ark or any of the Star Wars films. The real reason this got started is becuase it’s so differerent to everything else Tobe Hooper directed before it. But as you say Lifeforce is very similar in star/ special effects. Also worth noting is that Frank Marshall said “Tobe directed Poltergeist and Steven produce it. Steven was teh driving force behind the production”. So there’s your answer.