Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2567 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-15
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It’s been a long time coming, but at last the digitally remastered version of the original 1982 horror movie has arrived. Tobe Hooper, the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, teamed up with family-oriented producer Steven Spielberg to make Poltergeist, about a haunted suburban home in a development very much like the Arizona one in which Spielberg was raised. (Because it came out the same summer as Spielberg's E.T., it was tempting to see both movies as representing Spielberg's ambivalent feelings about childhood in suburbia. One was a fantasy, the other a nightmare.) Spielberg also co-wrote the screenplay, which taps into primal, childlike fears of monsters under the bed, monsters in the closet, sinister clown faces, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. At first, some of the odd happenings in the house are kind of funny and amusing, but they grow gradually creepier until the film climaxes in a terrifying special-effects extravaganza when five-year-old Carole Anne (Heather O'Rourke) is kidnapped by the spooks and held hostage in another dimension. Though not nearly as frightening as Hooper's magnum opus, or the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, which came along two years later, Poltergeist is one of the smartest and most entertaining horror pictures of its time. --Jim Emerson

DVD Description
Suburbanites Steve (Nelson) and Diane (Williams) suddenly experience paranormal activity in their home. What begins as minor excitement quickly turns into nasty ghostly encounters. The disappearance of their daughter Carol Anne (O’Rourke) forces the Freelings to bring in parapsychologists and a professional exorcist to exorcise their home.

Special features
Two-part documentary "They Are Here: The Real World of Poltergeists Revealed"
Part I: Science of the Spirits
Part II: Communing with the Dead

Synopsis
A peaceful suburban home suddenly becomes a gateway for enraged ghosts who kidnap a little girl and take her to their twilight world. Hiring paranormal experts, the girl's family attempts to discover why she was taken and how to get her back. Great performances by all in this superlative ghost story.

Customer Reviews

5* Film, but special edition?????
Whilst Poltergeist is probably one of my favourite films ever, I am rating this as a "Special Edition" DVD.

I looked forward to this, and what do we get for a 25th Anniversary edition. A documentary. Thats it. No extras about the film. No commentary. No cast interviews. No trailers, nothing. 25 years they've had to come up with this DVD. And all we get is a documentary about Poltergeists. There's one of these shown every day on Sky!

I think they are pushing it a bit far to call this a special edition.

If you want it for the film alone, then I cannot name a better thriller/horror than this. Fantasic film. 5 out of 5. But this package. A total and utter letdown.

Finally at long last this classic is available on region 2 DVD or is this a dream?
I just want to make one important comment before I comment any further so I don't mislead anybody who has never seen this before, it is not a blood and guts type of horror movie but still has every right to be classed as a horror movie. It is mostly about a little girl called Carole Anne (Heather O'Rourke who tragically died at a very young age) that disappears through a television and the suffering and helplessness of the rest of the family.

This is a superb horror film and I genuinely can't remember the last time this was shown on terrestrial TV or even freeview, so if it has been shown in the last few years then I must have missed it, even more amazing is the fact this has taken so long to be released on region 2 DVD when it has been out for years on region 1, I just cannot understand why, better late than never though.

I was very young when I first saw this Tobe Hooper directed (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and Steven Spielberg produced gem in the early 1980's but if you have never seen this then don't expect it to be like the film I have just mentioned otherwise you will be extremely disappointed. Overall this has the feeling of a cosy bedtime ghost story type horror movie. It is about a family that moves into a nice but normal looking house on a normal street full of houses (not an isolated type house) and everything seems fine until suddenly little things start to happen for example, imagine you are at home on your own in your kitchen, you then go out for about ten seconds, you go back into the kitchen and there in front of your very eyes, all the kitchen chairs are stacked on the table. This is not exactly what happens but it is a similar sort of thing that happens in this, certainly in the first half of the film and at times it is incredibly creepy. But my only personal criticism of this film and it is probably just me but I have always loved the first two thirds a lot more than the final third. Like I have said the first two thirds is all about ghostly things slowly starting to happen and the family then bringing in a team of paranormal investigators, there is one scene in particular involving one of the team (I think it is the camera man) that always sticks in my mind when I think of this film, which is truly horrible.

About roughly the final third of this film is just too over the top in my opinion (enjoyable, just not as creepy), with more of the feeling of a mainstream hollywood blockbuster (love the final scene though), which is a shame as this could have been even better than it already is, but anyway, this is still an essential movie of it's type and I still give it five stars overall. A HAUNTED HOUSE CLASSIC.

At long last.....Speilberg & Hooper's classic on Region 2 DVD!!
I'm just going to write a review of the Dvd, not the film, as most people interested in buying it will know what to expect!

Poltergeist was one of the classic films of the 1980's, and it's utterly ridiculous that it's taken so long for it to be released on dvd in the UK, especially as Region 1 have had a dvd version for several years.
I'm disappointed this release is only one disc, as it's totally lacking in the extras department, (just a documentary & thats not about the film!) but as the transfer to disc and sound are of the highest quality I'm not going to grumble too much.....at least not until the obligatory ultimate edition arrives at some point down the line and I've got to pay out again!!

I've given this release 5 stars for the film. The Dvd gets 2 stars as it's nothing more than a basic release.