POLTERGEIST Video

The Poltergeist movies are a trilogy of horror films produced in the 1980s. Steven Spielberg co-wrote and co-produced the first Poltergeist, with Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) as the director. Brian Gibson directed Poltergeist II: The Other Side, while Poltergeist III was directed, co-written, co-produced and storyboarded by Gary Sherman.

Michael Grais and Mark Victor co-wrote the first film with Spielberg, wrote the second film on their own and also co-produced it. Brian Taggert and an uncredited Steve Feke co-wrote the third film.

Spielberg's long-time friends (and then-married couple) Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy co-produced the first film. Freddie Fields and Lynn Arost co-produced the second film, and the third film was co-produced by Barry Bernardi.

The scores of the first two films were composed by Jerry Goldsmith. H.R. Giger did conceptual designs for the second film.

Films
Poltergeist (1982)
In the first and most successful film (released on June 4, 1982), a group of seemingly benign ghosts begin communicating with five-year-old Carol Anne Freeling in her parents' suburban California home via static on the television. Eventually they use the TV as their path into the house itself. They kidnap Carol Anne, and most of the film involves the family's efforts to rescue her. Eventually they do, but then the spirits, led by a demon known only as The Beast, go on a rampage.
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
This sequel exists to explain in much greater detail why Carol Anne was targeted in the first film. As it turns out, the Freelings' house in the first movie was built over a massive underground cavern that was the final resting place of a utopian cult that died there in the early 1800s. This cavern was even below the graveyard that wasn't relocated in the first film. The cult was led by Rev. Henry Kane, who did not have the best intentions. He was power hungry, and anxious to control the souls of his followers in both life and death.
Poltergeist III (1988)
Apparently, between the second and third films, the Freeling family has had quite enough of all supernatural activity, and have decided to cut it off at the source: Carol Anne is now living with her aunt Pat (whom Carol Anne insists on calling Trish, a common nickname for Patricia; this is important later in the film as a way of identifying an impostor Carol Anne) and uncle Bruce Gardner in the John Hancock Center where Bruce also works in downtown Chicago.