Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!!! Today is dedicated to an iconic and terrifying ghost tale, Poltergeist. Poltergeist set the bar for a scary and fascinating haunted house story. So chop down that tree next to your window, make sure your house is ACTUALLY clean, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Heather O’Rourke got to keep the pet goldfish that her character, Carol Anne had in the film.
• Both of the things that Robbie (Oliver Robins) were deathly terrified of were inspired by the film’s producer, Steven Spielberg’s own childhood fears: clowns and a creepy tree outside of his window.
• When Steve (Craig T. Nelson) told the psychiatrists everyone’s ages, he mentioned that Diane (JoBeth Williams) was 32 and Dana (Dominique Dunne) was 16. This led fans to believe that Diane was only 16 when she had Dana. However, the film’s novelization revealed that Diane is actually Steve’s second wife and Dana is her stepdaughter.

• During filming, James Karen (Mr. Teague) was a commercial spokesman for Pathmark supermarkets. After the film was released, Karen received lots of hate mail from people who said that they would never shop there again because of what his character did in the film.
• Drew Barrymore was considered for the role of Carol Anne. Steven Spielberg wanted someone more angelic and went with Heather O’Rourke. However, Barrymore’s audition for this film landed her the role of Gertie in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
• There was only ever one scene that truly terrified Heather O’Rourke while filming. It was when Carol Anne held onto her headboard for dear life as everything around her was blown into the closet behind her. She broke down after filming the scene. Steven Spielberg stopped everything, took her in his arms, and promised her that she would not have to do that scene again.

• The filmmakers felt that because it would be too expensive and complicated to make fake skeletons, real skeletons were used for the film. JoBeth Williams had no idea they were real until AFTER she filmed the pool scene with them. Many speculate that the use of real skeletons is what brought on the infamous “Poltergeist Curse.”
• Heather O-Rourke was discovered and asked to audition by Steven Spielberg. She initially botched her audition because she kept laughing when she was supposed to act scared. Spielberg still saw some potential in her and asked her to audition again. This time, he asked her to bring a scary book with her. She was also asked to scream during the audition and she screamed until she cried. That audition was the one that landed her the role.
• In the original plot, Carol Anne was going to pass away in the film’s first act, and haunt the house in the second act. Steven Spielberg and the film’s director, Tobe Hooper understandably felt this would be too dark, so it was changed to Carol Anne getting kidnapped by spirits.

• Steven Spielberg originally offered Tobe Hooper the script for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, but Hooper reclined. Spielberg then gave Hooper this unfinished script and directed E.T. himself.
• Although they play parents and daughter, Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams were only 15 and 11 years older than Dominique Dunne.
• Zelda Rubinstein (Tangina) filmed her scenes in only six days.

• Zelda Rubinstein later admitted that she didn’t like working with Tobe Hooper because she could see that he had a drug problem.
• Many of the actors experienced supernatural phenomena while filming. Whenever JoBeth Williams went home after filming, all of her pictures were crooked and when she’d fix them, they’d shift again. Zelda Rubinstein had a vision that her dog came to her and said goodbye to her. Hours later, her mom called her and told her her dog passed away.
• Stephen King was originally approached to write the script. However, the parties couldn’t agree on terms, so the deal fell through.

• Zelda Rubinstein auditioned 4 different times before she got the part of Tangina.
• In Robbie’s room, there is an Alien poster. This is a nod to Jerry Goldsmith who was the composer for both this film and Alien.
• The last scene to be filmed was when Marty (Martin Casella) had the hallucination in the laundry room.

• Originally, instead of hallucinating ripping his face off, Marty saw himself as a corpse rotting in a coffin.
• Joanna Cassidy, Susan Sarandon, and Tuesday Weld were all considered to play Diane.
• Because there were large amounts of electrical equipment surrounding the pool, JoBeth Williams was very hesitant to film the pool scene with all the water. In order to make her feel at ease, Steven Spielberg crawled into the pool with her for the scene, and he said, “Now if a light falls in, we will both fry.” This helped Williams complete the scene.

• When Robbie was being strangled by the clown, the clown’s arms started to actually tighten around Oliver Robins’ neck. He tried to tell Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper that he couldn’t breathe, but they thought he was just ad-libbing, so they just told him to look at the camera. However, Spielberg noticed that Robins’ face began to turn purple and he ran to him and pried the clown arms off.
• The hands that pulled Marty’s face off in the laundry room were actually Steven Spielberg’s.
• In order to achieve the stacked chairs effect, an already set pyramid was created and while the camera was panned and focused on JoBeth Williams, several crew members removed the other chairs and quietly placed the pyramid on the table.