Poltergeist III (1988)
Before the completion of Poltergeist II, MGM made plans for a third entry. As both Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams were paid exorbitantly to return for the second feature, but neither actor was enough of a box-office draw to justify their escalating price tag. Cheaper were actors like Heather O’Rourke, Zelda Rubenstein, and Julian Beck, who were mostly unknown outside of the franchise. If they could put these characters in a different situation, they could maintain franchise credibility while not overspending on the talent that didn’t help the bottom line.
Poltergeist co-writers and Poltergeist II writer/producers Mark Victor and Michael Grais declined to continue, so MGM courted Gary Sherman. Sherman was someone originally sought for Poltergeist II but was too busy making the 1986 actioner, Wanted: Dead or Alive. Sherman had a low-budget horror pedigree through efforts like Raw Meat and Dead and Buried, but he’d been trying to branch out into other genres, so he wasn’t particularly keen on the idea, especially since it was a sequel that would likely suffer by comparisons to Steven Spielberg. However, MGM’s president Alan Ladd Jr. and head of film production Jay Kanter gave Sherman his first break in films with his 1973 debut, Death Line, aka Raw Meat. They were Sherman’s mentors to whom he couldn’t simply say no, but he did have conditions. First, Sherman wanted to film entirely in his hometown of Chicago. Second, he wanted to set the film at the John Hancock Center, a place he’d planned on staging a heist movie for some time but had stagnated to develop. Lastly, he had long wanted to do an effects movie where all of the effects were done live, without post-production opticals.
Sherman reasoned that the first film was set in suburbia, the second in a rural location underground, so the third should be urban. Sherman grew up in a high-rise Chicago apartment building that seemed like a contained city. He could draw from his childhood experiences and the trouble he’d get into within the building confines. One story challenge was that the hauntings in the prior films tied into bodies buried in the ground, so a new building in a different city wouldn’t work. However, he found a loophole after observing that modern buildings were full of mirrored surfaces. Like Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass”, mirrors could serve as portals to the “other side”.
With the only non-budgetary story requirement from MGM being that it centered on Carol Anne, Sherman hired Brian Taggert, who rewrote Wanted: Dead or Alive to co-script. As the original film had the catchphrase, “They’re Here” and the second, “They’re Back,” their initial title was We’re Back: Poltergeist III. This later evolved to We’re Back: Poltergeist Continues, then Poltergeist III: We’re Back. Marketing determined the phrase, “We’re Back” didn’t connect with audiences, so they changed it to Poltergeist III: The Final Chapter before settling simply on Poltergeist III.
In their story, Carol Anne is staying for some time with her biological aunt Patricia, her new husband Bruce Gardner, and Bruce’s teenage daughter, Donna. The Gardners live in a newly built multipurpose Chicago high-rise where Bruce also works as the superintendent. Carol Anne is enrolled in a school for gifted but troubled kids. The school’s skeptical therapist, Dr. Seaton, thinks Carol Anne is hypnotizing people into believing her delusions. Seaton forces her to speak about her experiences, bringing to light her involvement with the dreaded Reverend Kane, who begins contacting her again, drawing power from their building, eventually crossing dimensions through its many mirrors. Psychic Tangina Barrons telepathically senses Carol Anne’s danger, returning to save the child from being stolen to the other side by Kane once again.
Prior to filmmaking, Sherman was an associate professor for animation and optical effects at the Illinois Institute of Technology, also working part-time at a Chicago optical effects house. He’d tap into his knowledge to concoct clever illusions involving duplicate sets, different kinds of mirrors, and optical flats of various densities, allowing varying amounts of pass-through light and reflection. Images were added to mirrored surfaces using beam-splitting technology common in optical printers. Extensive instructions and storyboarding involving maps, floor plans, shot lists, smoke effects, and lighting instructions were meticulously designed before filming. As scenes were set up, the actors would spend hours rehearsing timing and movements. Body doubles were also employed for mirror illusions, with reverse make-up, hairstyles, and wardrobe from their acting counterparts.
Nancy Allen’s agent suggested the role of Patricia Gardner after a film she’d been doing in Rome had its financing collapse. She didn’t like the second film so her impulse was to turn it down, but after reading the script, she liked that she’d be playing a different character than she was typically offered, a sophisticated and glamorous career woman, and found the story intriguing enough to potentially restore the luster of the franchise. Allen was chosen over Season Hubley, who starred in Sherman’s 1982 thriller Vice Squad because Sherman felt that more believable as JoBeth Williams’ sister. Williams gave Allen advice to stay in shape because of the physical demands of a Poltergeist movie. Allen found the physicality nerve-wracking, especially being wet most of the time, but that O’Rourke and her professionalism had a calming effect on the other actors.
Tom Skerritt took the uncle part because liked the script, which reminded him somewhat of Alien, and he respected Sherman. He wasn’t a fan of the persistent waiting for things to be effects set up. The warehouse “movie set” was isolated, not allowing him to walk off and have fun elsewhere to wait things out. Skerritt also found the shoot physically challenging, dubbing the daily feats the “Poltergeist Olympics”. Skerritt also made jokes that co-star Allen found offensive, resulting in friction between them. Allen says it’s the only instance of personal strife with a fellow actor in her career.
This marks then 17-year-old Lara Flynn Boyle’s first film role. Sherman had cast her in the “Sable” pilot and thought she’d work well for the film. For the psychiatrist, they envisioned a Dirk Bogarde/Louis Hayworth type. They filled the role with Chicago-based actor and playwright Richard Fire, a longtime acquaintance of Sherman’s.
MGM rented portions of the John Hancock Center for a week, which was difficult since the rest was open to the public. The film fictitiously renames it the George Wellington Streeter Center, in honor of the shady, eccentric entrepreneur who became a beloved Chicago historical figure. Also renamed was Donna’s high school, from the Frances W. Parker school to the Edward F. Ledding School, named after the film’s production manager who often put his name into his films. Shooting on the massive window washing rig a hundred stories up also proved unnerving, especially with the Chicago winds. Eventually, they needed more time and space than available, so they recreated selected corridors and rooms, complete with furnishings, at a nearby warehouse within a Chicago factory complex that became their makeshift studio.
Doing the film entirely in Chicago, they lacked the luxury of Hollywood resources. Astro, Chicago’s largest motion picture lab, was used to process and display the dailies. As he viewed them, he loved the cleaner aesthetic of knowing film would not go through the extensive post-production processes that degrade the image, clarity, and resolution of modern visual effects dominant films.
Although intended to be economical, Sherman’s live-effects techniques saved little money in the end. Despite meticulous preparation, mishaps abounded, including for Sherman, who broke his foot during a dolly tracking shot gone awry. He was saddled in a wheelchair for a week, unable to move around the set without being carried, and then hobbling in crutches after that. His foot throbbed madly from the liquid nitrogen used for fog effects. The mishaps included the weather for scheduled exterior work. Sequences atop the high-rise were plagued by fog, requiring hours of waiting. When the fog dissipated, it grew too sunny to match the gloomy look needed, resulting in additional postponements.
The schedule also jumbled when Zelda Rubinstein suddenly became unavailable for a week after her mother’s passing. With Rubinstein’s departure, they moved the Carol Anne and Reverend Kane scenes up in the schedule, requiring a rush job for make-up consultant Dick Smith, and his proteges he’d worked with on 1983’s The Hunger, John Caglione and Doug Drexler. As Julian Beck died just after finishing Poltergeist II, the role of Kane required recasting. Smith determined Chicago actor Nate Davis, father of director Andrew Davis, had a similar facial structure to Beck. With prosthetic skin, hair, and teeth, he could pass as Kane, except in his voice. Davis was dubbed uncredited voice actor Corey Burton, who replaced Beck’s voice in ADR as needed for Poltergeist II. Burton smoked cigarettes before recording to give his voice the raspy nature required. Sherman also wrote in occasions that required Carol Anne to appear with Kane’s facial features. Smith felt that baby-faced O’Rourke looking evil would be more silly than scary; her full cheeks didn’t lend well to prosthetic applications, so Sherman hired body doubles for more elaborate makeups.
A scene in an underground parking garage proved the most challenging. The cast and crew hated the claustrophobic conditions, fans kicking up swirling dust and smoke. Visibility for the stunt drivers was nearly nonexistent. The worst day came when the cars covered in polystyrene (to simulate frost) that were supposed to catch fire in the underground parking garage ignited an unexpected explosion and heaps of black smoke that caused about $250,000 in structural damage. The blast injured a maintenance worker and two firefighters, while about 150 members of the crew had to be evacuated.
Falling behind in time and expenses, dialogue scenes were hastily revised by Sherman himself, as co-writer Taggert’s services were unavailable during the shoot. When he had no dialogue he had them shout, “Carol Anne!” an overuse of her name so absurd there are popular YouTube videos counting the 121 instances. Some scenes were abridged and others never filmed, mainly character moments involving the family that referenced the prior films. Ambitious action sequences, one involving Bruce battling a Japanese statue from Patricia’s art gallery that reveals itself as Kane, were replaced or removed.
The worst sacrifice for Sherman was his intended lengthier, more elaborate ending spotlighting Carol Anne and Tangina, culminating in them switching bodies using a tricky make-up illusion where they tear their faces off while traversing the mirror dimension, Carol Anne morphing into Tangina and vice versa. MGM deemed this as too costly and ordered Sherman to devise a scaled-back ending. Sherman’s new ending involved Patricia finding her family encased in ice and Kane nearly victorious. Tangina had some emotional moments with a tearful Carol Anne before sacrificing herself by escorting Kane into the light, restoring the family. Sherman loathed it but was hopeful MGM would see agree and allow him to proceed with his ending in reshoots.
Indeed, once Poltergeist III wrapped, test audiences reacted poorly to the early cut, especially this ending. The effects were unconvincing, the scares nearly nonexistent, and the acting by O’Rourke and Rubinstein was not strong enough to carry the emotional weight required. Despite attempts to edit around these weaknesses, Rubenstein would receive her second Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress as Tangina. MGM still wanted Sherman to do some additional work on fixing the ending’s issues and making it scarier, but it had to wait until after Sherman’s commitment to NBC for “Sable”. After the hiatus, preparation for re-shoots began and that’s when the bottom dropped out.
On February 1, 1988, Heather O’Rourke, tragically died. Heather was rushed to the hospital after complaining of abdominal pain, dying on the operating table during intestinal surgery. The official cause was cardiac and pulmonary arrest from the septic shock caused by congenital stenosis of the intestine. It was a severe blockage of an abnormally narrow portion of her bowels she had since birth but went undiagnosed. Many were concerned that this wasn’t caught sooner, given that O’Rourke had been taken to the hospital for illness shortly before the shoot and also failed the cast physical. Physicians at various times diagnosed her malady as the flu, an insect bite reaction, a parasite infestation from untreated well water, and early-stage Crohn’s disease (the cortisone treatments caused her swollen cheeks and neck evidenced in the film). O’Rourke’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital months later which was settled in arbitration for an undisclosed sum.
Most of O’Rourke’s pallbearers were professionals she worked with: Henry Winkler (who worked with Heather on TV’s “Happy Days”), her manager Mike Meyer, her agent and family friend David Wardlow, and Poltergeist III‘s director Gary Sherman and producer Barry Bernardi. Sherman called the day of her funeral the worst day of his life. Following Dominique Dunne’s murder and Julian Beck’s terminal cancer, O’Rourke’s was the third death of a prominent actor connected to the release of a Poltergeist film. Fourth, if you count Poltergeist II‘s Will Sampson, who passed away during a heart-lung transplant while they were shooting Poltergeist III. Unsurprisingly, rumors quickly spread of a cursed franchise.
Given that Sherman couldn’t film the ending he wanted without O’Rourke and the dismal scores for what existed, Sherman and the studio heads pondered shelving the film indefinitely. Ladd loved children and didn’t want to market a film with a dead twelve-year-old in it and Sherman couldn’t stomach looking at footage of Heather while in the cutting room tinkering with revisions.
However, MGM was in dire straits and its board of directors felt they’d invested too much. They insisted the film be completed on time with a new ending that didn’t show a lifeless O’Rourke. They were going to proceed with or without Sherman. Sherman hated returning but hated more the thought of someone else butchering his film, so he reluctantly agreed to the reshoot. Working existing footage of O’Rourke into a better ending was deemed impossible by Sherman, as well as demoralizing. His sorrow turned to hatred of this situation and apathy for the fate of the film. After doing add more intense moments with Kane, he slapped together a quick pick-up shot, using a body double for O’Rourke that didn’t show her face. It was an ironic twist for Heather O’Rourke to literally be replaced by a lookalike after passing to the other side. Scott, Donna’s love interest in the film, remains on the other side at the end of the film because they neglected to ask actor Kip Wentz to return to film the scene.
However, this new cut fell short of the required length for delivery. Rather than have to do additional reshoots, Sherman slowed the speed of the credits and cobbled together material using outtakes and previously discarded segments to pad the run time. Sherman knew this would throw off the pacing of the movie and leave holes in the story, but he just wanted it put behind him.
Meanwhile, MGM’s marketing department encountered additional dilemmas. MGM performed test screenings to gauge the audience’s reaction to seeing the deceased young star on the screen and the dedication to her in the film’s closing credits. They struggled to sell the film without seeming exploitative or offending potential audiences. They removed a shot of Heather from their first trailer performing the line, “Guess who’s back in town?” They held back the stars from interviews to avoid morose questions about O’Rourke’s death or any curse on the franchise. Skerritt thought the studio hiding O’Rourke was exacerbating an already awkward situation much more awkward, because the film is dedicated to her memory and that she’s wonderful in it. Her work should be celebrated rather than hidden.
Test screening reactions were negative overall, but the criticism was not related to O’Rourke. The movie was just terrible. Rather than spend any more movies fixing something likely to be permanently broken, MGM decided to dump it into theaters and recoup what they could. Although proud of some of the techniques he pulled off, Sherman proclaimed Poltergeist III a major disappointment and the least favorite of his films.
Poltergeist III received little fanfare, debuting at number 5 before falling out of the top ten in the US, earning a lowly $14 million. Unfortunately, this entry would be known more for being O’Rourke’s passing, and interest in continuing the franchise waned. Deservedly so, given the problems this endeavor, which puts most of its scares into strobe lighting effects and fog machines, literally using “smoke and mirrors” to drum up frights, less terrorizing than your neighborhood mock haunted house on Halloween. The original 1982 Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg film had been an A-list production. The second was a significant step-down but was a respectable effort to try to continue the story. Poltergeist III is merely a studio cash-in while there were still embers in the fire, and the lackluster quality washed the last flickers out.
Smoke and mirrors can’t disguise that Poltergeist III remains a poorly written and ill-conceived excuse for scares, barely worthy of a straight-to-video release. Outside of the nifty camera tricks, it’s a difficult film to watch, and outside of the unfortunate demise of the child star, it’s close to impossible to remember long after.
- In January 1989, “Poltergeist: The Series” was announced as a syndicated show in development but was never made.
- In the early 1990s, there was discussion of a fourth Poltergeist film, a prequel showing Reverend Kane’s rise and earthly demise.
- In 1996, Showtime ran three seasons of “Poltergeist: The Legacy” followed by one season on Sci-Fi Channel. The show didn’t tie into the movies, despite Sherman serving as co-executive producer for the 1997 season, including writing and directing an episode.
- In 2015, a substandard remake of the 1982 film came out starring Sam Rockwell
- In 2019, the Russo Brothers announced they were considering Poltergeist into a TV show
Qwipster’s rating: D-
MPAA rated PG-13 for scary images, teen drinking, and some language
Running time: 98 min.
Cast: Heather O’Rourke, Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen, Lara Flynn Boyle, Zelda Rubenstein, Kip Wentz, Richard Fire, Henry Davis
Director: Gary Sherman
Screenplay: Gary Sherman, Brian Taggert