Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Poltergeist proved such a success in 1982 that a sequel seemed an inevitability for the financially struggling MGM, whose president, Freddie Fields, regarded the property as a check waiting to be cashed. Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg discussed an idea for a follow-up involving the National Guard quarantining Cuesta Verde, and scientists would enter the realm of the dead.  However, financial troubles put MGM into turmoil and by the time they got some bearings, Spielberg and Hooper had moved on to other things.

Fields stepped away from MGM in 1984 to return to independent producing but remained as the Poltergeist sequel’s executive producer. As Spielberg was unavailable, Fields pursued the credited co-screenwriters of Poltergeist, Michael Grais and Mark Victor, to write a continuation. Grais and Victor had been working on the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire when they were approached to script Poltergeist II. They accepted on condition they could also produce, as well as carte blanche to do what they wanted with the story, including ditching the Freelings and starting with a different family if the actors wouldn’t return.

The writers approached JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson but neither seemed interested. Nelson was busy with his TV series, “Call to Glory,” and didn’t want to interrupt that to return to a role he considered fairly superficial. Williams declined because she felt that Poltergeist may have typecast her in Hollywood into generic “mother” roles.

Grais and Victor felt they could entice Williams and Nelson by allowing them to shape their own characters. Nelson had once been broke, quit acting, and moved his family to a rural area near Mount Shasta in California. He’d gotten to know a shaman there that he felt would be a new twist to bring in a different spiritual guide. Grais studied shamanism and read numerous Carlos Castaneda books on the subject, and incorporated some anecdotal interactions Nelson provided. The writers also felt that, after the mother does the saving in Poltergeist, this time it should be the father, whose lack of self-confidence has spurred the family’s trajectory of downward mobility, who needs to take charge. The plot is built on the premise that the father’s life is falling apart because he thinks things are beyond his control. Now, it’s the women in the family with the power, and Steve must man up and take charge of his family by destroying Kane before he seduces them to their destruction.

Williams had just lost her grandmother, so she was strongly feeling that component to her thinking about the afterlife. The more they incorporated their suggestions into the new script, the more invested they would feel. They got to work on a new story featuring the Freelings without knowing if this was a sure thing, determining a deeper and more enriching story rather than rehash the formula.

Although Poltergeist had not been made with sequels in mind, Grais and Victor realized that the underlying reason for the ghost attacks was not resolved in the first film, which ends with the Freelings moving away from their home in Cuesta Verde. Drawing from their experience working with Spielberg on Poltergeist, they set about scripting the sequel beginning with background information that didn’t make the final film, including the nature of the restless spirits being settlers who were massacred by Native Americans back in the 19th Century.

The writers devised that the youngest child in the Freeling family was wanted by the spirits, a cult from which the spirits culminated, headed by a minister called Kane.  Kane manifests himself in human form, tenacious in pursuing Carol Anne to her grandmother Jess’s house in Phoenix.  Tangina Barron, the paranormal investigator from Poltergeist, sends out a Native American shaman to help protect the family after discovering the cave under Cuesta Verde where Kane and his followers died.

Nelson liked the new script, especially that they incorporated his suggestions for the structure of the story that would infuse a more spiritual journey. In fact, Nelson thought it was better than the one for Poltergeist and was sufficiently different that it could work as a standalone film. He signed on. They also pursued the child actors for the Freeling children, Heather O’Rourke and Oliver Robins. Robins eagerly signed on just to get out of school, where he was getting bullied constantly.

Fields and his producers made several trips to Nevada to woo Williams, who was busy shooting Desert Bloom. Although it incorporated her suggestions, but she was still unsure. Her friends encouraged her to take the role; the money offered was generous and they truly did want to know what happened to the Freelings after the conclusion of Poltergeist. With the other actors returning, Williams determined that she couldn’t stomach thinking about seeing another actress in the role, especially one that she essentially created and with changes in the revisions that incorporated her ideas. She felt a strong proprietary interest in seeing it happen, so she finally accepted.

Poltergeist‘s Richard Edlund returned to handle the special effects along with over a hundred of his technicians from his new venture beyond Industrial Light & Magic, the Boss Film Company. They began work before the script had been finished. After reading the first script, Edlund estimated the effects would cost about $12 million to perform, which exceeded the entire budget of the first Poltergeist. Victor and Grais revised their script to get the effects budget down to $5 million. The total budget was set at $18.5 million.

For the director, Grais and Victor didn’t want to copycat Hooper and Spielberg. They met with a number of potential directors looking for an innovative approach before settling a British documentary director who once made medical/scientific documentaries worked for the BBC, Brian Gibson. Gibson’s only prior feature credit was a little-seen 1980 new wave riff of A Star is Born called Breaking Glass that didn’t fare so well. After this, his career was relegated mostly to directing commercials and music videos. Gibson had been hired to work on another film that fell through and an MGM executive said they should meet Gibson to see if he could work with them. Gibson won the job because he came in the most prepared, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic.

Gibson ordered major changes to the work done prior to his arrival. Some walked out due to the changes, including production manager Austen Jewell, frustrated by the lack of experience by Grais and Victor. He was replaced by Ted Haworth, who worked with the producers on Death Hunt. Gibson revised the climax for being too highbrow and expensive, which the effects crew despised for negating the ending’s emotional impact, where the Freeling family vanquish the demon through the power of their love for each other. The love aspect was changed to Taylor’s ceremonial spear that Steve would hurl into the body of the Great Beast to seal his transformation back to being the head of the family.  The laid-back Gibson had experience with actors but effects technicians needed more concrete instructions than Gibson gave, who preferred having all options open. Edlund grew incensed when what Gibson shot didn’t match with what the effects crew had been told would happen, forcing complete redos of weeks of work. Gibson was also frequently unavailable to answer questions, resulting in the Boss Film team consulting Freddie Fields or editor Tom Noble, further creating inconsistencies. When no one was available, they made their own decisions, which made the producers furious.

Gibson was a surprising choice, having no experience with horror wasn’t particularly a fan. Early in 1983, Gibson had sought out a psychic advisor named Jill Cook, desperate for any sign of life to his struggling career. She told him that in autumn of 1984, he’d be offered a feature film with a spiritual subject matter. The offer to helm Poltergeist II came unsolicited in his mail in November of 1984. Gibson was so amazed by Cook’s abilities, she was hired by Gibson to advise him on problem-solving during the production.

One of Cook’s greatest contributions was in helping to cast Will Sampson as Taylor, the Native American spiritual guide. Sampson happened to be a real-life shaman for the Muscogee (Creek) tribe. The producers originally pursued Harry Dean Stanton, but he didn’t like the subject matter. Sampson advised the writers to avoid dishonest Native American stereotypes.

Grais had met Beck when he attended his Living Theater in Lima, Peru. The studio wouldn’t insure Beck because he was gravely ill but Cook advised Gibson to cast him, sensing that he needed Poltergeist II to accept the inevitability of his death. He died from stomach cancer within days after the film’s wrap at the age of 60 to the surprise of his co-stars, to whom he never revealed his illness and often talked about future plans. Voice actor Corey Burton provided the voice of Kane as needed in post-production looping.

Beck plays the eerily gaunt and toothy Reverend Kane. The writers came up with the character of Kane as a Jim Jones-type preacher with the demeanor and appearance of Robert Mitchum as Reverend Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter; both Kane and Powell sing hymns as they approach a house. He wants Carol Anne because her aura shone brighter than anyone else that had entered the astral plane. Grais said that Beck’s performance was so masterful as the agent of evil that if someone watched the movie and remembered nothing else, they would remember Beck’s presence within it.

Gibson wasn’t as open as Hooper or Spielberg on improvisation, preferring they stick with his vision. Robbie was originally scripted to be attacked by bees after the children’s bedroom gets filled with several feet of goop after their lava lamp overflows. However, Robins was allergic to bees, so they concocted a sequence where he’d be attacked and cocooned braces. Robins wore a retainer to look like he had real braces, but he couldn’t speak without a lisp with it in his mouth. They hired a vocal acting coach to work through the issue, but much of the lisp had the be cleared up with ADR.

One original cast member not returning was Dominique Dunne, who played the eldest Freeling child. Dunne was murdered by her former boyfriend shortly after the release of Poltergeist. Poltergeist II is dedicated to her memory, although there’s no mention of her character within the film.

JoBeth Williams found the experience draining. As effects weren’t in place, she conjured emotions by imagining painful things happening to people she loved. She especially disliked getting violently thrown around for a rape scene involving her demonically possessed husband. Nelson also found the sexual assault attempt uncomfortable to perform. His character’s drunken state hit close to home’ Nelson had recently gone sober following years of alcohol and drug abuse.

Williams grew unnerved after learning that they used real skeletons, purchased from India, for the cavern sequence, something reportedly also done for the first film. Reportedly, Sampson initiated a burial ceremony to quell the spirits. Williams was disappointed that her favorite scene was cut from the finished film. It involved Diane and Steve making breakfast, startled when the toaster begins floating. Steve jams the bread into the feisty toaster and the toaster flips upside down, dumping the slices on his head. Williams enjoyed working with Nelson, hoped that she could collaborate on a lighter film that didn’t involve decomposing skeletons. It never came to pass.

It was physically painful too. The actors hung in harnesses in front of a blue screen screaming for 3 1/2 weeks while someone shined a flashlight in their faces. The harnesses were time-consuming to get on so the actors held from going to the bathroom for seven hours a day. Lamb’s wool protected sensitive body areas, but hurt from prolonged wear, especially when lifting upwards.

Gibson hired Swiss artist H.R.Giger, famed for his xenomorph design for 1979’s Alien. Giger worked with Gibson before on a sci-fi/horror project called The Tourist that Universal Pictures scrapped when they decided to make E.T. . Gibson told Giger to design something that would scare him most. Giger thought of worms growing under his skin or living inside his body and he throws them up. Giger’s creature begins as a worm ingested through Steve’s bottle of mescal.

Giger sent art director Cornelius ‘Conny’ DeFries to advise the effects crew for the worm’s metamorphosis into the “Great Beast” that becomes the nemesis during the film’s climax. Originally, the Beast was to be a ghostlike monster with spirit energy surrounding him, but they lacked the budget for the optical effects. They decided to make it a mechanical creature with more simplified designs. Noble Craig, a paraplegic who lost an arm and both legs in the Vietnam War, was in the monster suit, dubbed the Horrorbaby, with the face of Kane (fans of Giger have noted similarities to the xenomorph lifecycle in Alien, which also involved a character named Kane).  Giger despised what they did with his designs, many never used in the film. Giger says his creatures are terrifying in the realm of reality, but the makers threw them into fantasy, where they weren’t as scary.

Poltergeist II was partially filmed in Chatsworth, CA, where, reportedly, they ended up shooting atop a real Native American burial ground. Luckily, no strange incidents occurred there, but they did experience recurring difficulties at the studio. Lighting and camera equipment frequently had mishaps and the crew felt there seemed to be bad energy as if there were an unseen poltergeist among them causing trouble.  Sampson volunteered to visit the set at 4 am each day during the cave sequence to perform a shaman purification ritual. Few knew, but the vibe changed immediately and the production ran remarkably smoothly afterward.

A private residence in Altadena, CA served as the exterior of Grandma Jess’s Phoenix abode. A full-size replica was constructed on the MGM lot to allow pitching and shaking simulating the haunting experience. The house’s second story was built atop a device that rocked around like a mechanical bull. A miniature of the neighborhood was created for overhead shots.

Many scenes were excised from the original script. One involved a subplot of Kane first appearing in Carol Anne’s dreams, one where he tears into his chest to pull out his heart for her to touch, stopped by Taylor, who can also enter dreams. Others involved Tangina’s obsession with Cuesta Verde, getting the assistance of Dr. Lesh from the original Poltergeist to excavate the Freeling lot, discovering a cave system and Native markings. Dr. Lesh and others soon enter too far within the cave system, venturing into the “Other Side” and never returning. There was also more backstory in the script for Taylor’s character about his tribal ancestors who once believed in Kane’s spiritual mission becoming disillusioned and leaving prior to doomsday-spewing Kane trapping his flock within the cave leading to their deaths. The staff that kills Kane at the end is supposed to have been passed down from those ancestors. Much of this is in James Kahn’s novelization from an earlier script.

Jerry Goldsmith returned as the composer. Goldsmith grew frustrated with the erratic decisions causing frequent post-production changes. This resulted in rushed compositions, mostly regurgitating themes he’d done for the first film. He was especially saddened to see many of the child-grandmother elements cut from the final film where he delivered emotionally strong compositions were strong.

MGM was deeply in debt and needed Poltergeist II to be a smashing success. Gibson’s 130-minute rough cut was too soft and lacking scares. MGM ordered reshoots with additional jolts. Gibson was very unhappy, so the studio had Boss Film’s art supervisor John Bruno film additional jump-scares, such as a decaying Carol Anne in the astral plane and momentary zombie attacks imagined by the family. They trimmed the run time to 90 minutes to maximize theatrical showings. Sequences giving more relationship with Grandma Jess and Taylor were scaled back significantly, as well as confrontations between Kane, Tangina, and Taylor. Many scenes were jumbled in the process. MGM invested in a $10 million advertising campaign to blanket the American market. Alas, despite a big opening week, the film faded fast and only made $40 million domestically.

As with Poltergeist, the visual effects earned an Academy Award nomination. Zelda Rubinstein received the dubious accolade of a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie nomination.

Not nearly the mesmerizing scare-fest that Poltergeist had been, this sequel finds new wrinkles but not quite enough fresh material to sate those hungry for Spielbergian heights.  Nevertheless, is has a solid cast and the special effects are still top-notch for a mid-1980s release.  The creep factor is high, particularly when some of the gorier effects come into play late in the film, but director Brian Gibson is never able to generate the requisite suspense and tension to make this anything more than an occasionally uneasy shocker.

Bringing back Grais and Mark Victor keeps the characterizations consistent with the first film, but without Spielberg’s genius, the delivery is less than remarkable.  While Poltergeist easily featured a handful of memorably scary scenes and moments of genuine intrigue, Poltergeist II only stands out for Beck’s formidable performance. His whose harrowing face and imposing demeanor make him a good foil for the naive family.  The effects are the real show and while occasionally gruesome, they aren’t always terrifying.  A chainsaw attacks the family’s station wagon, Robbie’s braces come alive, and other mild jolts, but your hands won’t cover your eyes out of fear, with the exception of the Giger-designed vomit monster.

It isn’t a dud, but it’s certainly a disappointment, only of interest for curious fans of the first film’s back story.  Poltergeist II isn’t as bad as its reputation would have you believe, but, if anything, it does prove that the grass isn’t always greener on “the Other Side”.

Qwipster’s rating: B-

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for scary images, violence, and language
Running Time: 91 min.

Cast: Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Heather O’Rourke, Julian Beck, Oliver Robins, Zelda Rubinstein, Will Sampson, Geraldine Fitzgerald
Director: Brian Gibson
Screenplay: Michael Grais, Mark Victor