Location, location, location

Poltergeist

(1982)

When will people in scary movies get it through their thick skulls that it's never a good time to take a bath or shower? Just stay dirty until you see the end credits start to roll.

This is better than I remembered from the last time I watched it, 5-6 years ago, which in turn was probably 3-4 years after I bought the DVD way cheap, during one of the phases of my life when I was buying the DVD of every movie about which I had moderately positive memories as long as I could get it way cheap. Though the special effects are hokey, there are quite a few convincing scares--better than I remembered, but still deaccessionable, free to the first claimant.

Important things I'd forgotten:

1. the Spielberg connection: not only did he produce, he contributed the story and cowrote the screenplay. Furthermore, the suburban setting is identical in spirit and look to that of the same year's E.T., though if we're to credit the flora and the mention of I-74, this probably takes place in North Carolina.
2. that the family's motel-savvy, hickey-wearing 16-year-old daughter was played by the tragic Dominique Dunne (actually 22 when the film was made, but with no more birthdays ahead of her).