"They're here."
That phrase, uttered by the late child actress Heather O'Rourke in the horror classic "Poltergeist," has sent chills up moviegoers' spines for 25 years. And undoubtedly, they'll do it once more Thursday, as the Motion Picture Academy's Science and Technology Council presents a "Prime Tech" screening at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
Cinefex founder and publisher Don Shay will host the anniversary screening, which will feature a newly struck 35-mm print from the Academy Film Archive and a panel discussion with key members of the crew, including visual-effects supervisor Richard Edlund, who received an Oscar nomination for his work.
With two additional Oscar nods -- for sound effects editing and Jerry Goldsmith's score -- "Poltergeist" revolved around a happily married, pot-smoking couple who live with their three adorable children in a picture-perfect housing development. But setups like that are made to be fractured, and soon the house is invaded by evil poltergeists -- "ghosts" who want (and eventually get) the youngest daughter (O'Rourke), a girl who communicates with "the other side" via the TV set.
Steven Spielberg produced the film and Tobe Hooper directed, though it's no state secret that Spielberg had a hand in directing some of the scenes. "Poltergeist" was released the same time as Spielberg's landmark "E.T.," which offered a far more bucolic, endearing look at life in the 'burbs.
" 'Poltergeist' was kind of my coming-of-age movie, I think, in visual effects," recalls Oscar-winner Edlund. "It was so difficult to do. I had done the three 'Star Wars' movies and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' 'Raiders' was kind of a semi-fantasy, but 'Poltergeist' was like next door -- it was your neighborhood."
His main concern was "what does a ghost look like? How do you disarm the audience with effects without it looking hokey?
"It was all optical," says Edlund, adding that the visual-effects shots were much more difficult than on the "Star Wars" movies or "Raiders."
"Poltergeist" went into production before Edlund and his team had designed any of the effects. "There was a Directors Guild strike that was supposedly going to happen," he said. "The directors were rattling their sabers."
If the strike had happened, Edlund explains, the director wouldn't have been available to work with Edlund on the visual effects. "Because Steven was the producer, he would be free to work with us on that. So we worked closely with Steven throughout. In fact, he came back the weekend before we started shooting with a new script. He rewrote the script. So he had a lot to do with the movie."
