Poltergeist (1982)

The safest place in the world can become the most terrifying, when the danger comes from right inside your own home. "Poltergeist" brought together an unlikely pair: director Tobe Hooper, of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," and family-friendly producer Steven Spielberg, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Grais and Mark Victor. It's the story of a haunted house in a cookie-cutter California subdivision much like the Arizona neighborhood where Spielberg spent part of his childhood. Released the same summer as Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," the two films seemed to reflect his mixed feelings about growing up in suburbia, one a dream and the other a nightmare. The script taps into primal childhood fears: monsters under the bed, creatures in the closet, creepy clown dolls and the gnarled tree outside the window. Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams play Steve and Diane Freeling, a happy couple whose youngest daughter, 5-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), begins talking to unseen presences through the static of the family TV. At first, the strange happenings in the house seem harmless, even funny, but they grow steadily more menacing, until Carol Anne is snatched away by the spirits and held captive in another dimension, setting off a spectacular effects-driven climax. Zelda Rubinstein is unforgettable as the tiny, confident medium who helps the family get her back. It isn't as frightening as Hooper's landmark shocker or the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street," which arrived two years later, but it's one of the smartest, most entertaining horror films of its era, and it earned three Oscar nominations.