The 1982 horror blockbuster that made America afraid of its own homes. We explore Spielberg's (or was it Hooper's?) masterpiece of suburban terror, the tragic deaths that haunted the production, and why the ghost story moved from Gothic castles to tract housing. From white flight to TV static, from swimming pool graves to the bodies buried under the American Dream—this is Poltergeist, the film that said: you're not safe at home. You never were.
Content warning: Discussion of domestic violence, child death, and suburban existential dread.