Sometimes, the people who make movies don’t always get the credit they deserve. Carrie Fisher served as an uncredited script doctor on the 1998 Adam Sandler movie The Wedding Singer, and Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite of the Saturday Night Live sketch-turned-movie It’s Pat. This is more common with writers than directors, but it can happen to directors, too. For example, Richard Donner, who helmed the 1979 masterpiece Superman, shot a good deal of the sequel Superman II, but was fired partway through the movie. Richard Lester, who replaced him, received full credit. And while all the details about it still aren’t really known, there’s a certain 1982 horror film that many speculate was directed by someone other than the guy in the credits.
Poltergeist, which is currently available to stream on HBO Max, follows an ordinary suburban family who begin to experience strange things in their home. Furniture and toys move on their own, a glass of milk shatters out of nowhere, and the youngest child in the family, five-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke), begins to communicate with beings through the television. At first these events are dismissed, but during a thunderstorm one night, a tree outside the windows of the kids’ room crashes in and snatches the boy. Then, a portal opens in their closet, sucking Carol Anne into another dimension. With help from some paranormal investigators, the family tries everything to bring her back.
Who really directed Poltergeist?
The credited director on Poltergeist is Tobe Hooper, who is best known for directing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other gruesome scary movies, as well as a couple sci-fi horror films like Lifeforce. The movie was also produced by Steven Spielberg, and to this day, there’s an ongoing debate about which of the two men was the real director.
The contradictions between the two parties begin as far back as the very beginning of production. Originally, after Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg wanted to do a sci-fi horror film called Night Skies, which was basically about a handful of aliens landing on Earth and terrorizing a family. Eventually Spielberg reworked that idea into the heartwarming E.T., which was much more suitable to his sensibilities. Still, he wasn’t entirely cool with letting go of Night Skies, so he brought in director Tobe Hooper to maybe direct it. Some say Hooper changed Night Skies into Poltergeist, substituting ghosts for aliens, while Hooper himself has said he shot down Night Skies and came in with the entirely original idea of Poltergeist, which he’d been working on for years.
Regardless, Poltergeist went into production with Hooper at the helm while Spielberg was continuing work on E.T. Yet Spielberg was also on set a lot for Poltergeist and seemed to micromanage the production. With Spielberg’s vocal, enthusiastic style versus Hooper’s quieter approach to directing, it gave the impression of two directors on set.
For example, John Leonetti, who worked as a camera assistant on the movie and is the brother of Poltergeist cinematographer Matthew Leonetti, has said Spielberg was really directing the movie. Meanwhile, stars JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson, who played the parents in the movie, have confirmed Hooper as the director (while also acknowledging that Spielberg was very hands-on as a producer). Zelda Rubinstein, who played medium Tangina Barrons, said it was a joint venture, but that Spielberg had a bit more control than Hooper.
Contemporary interviews with Spielberg also muddy the picture. He told The Los Angeles Times in 1982: “Tobe isn’t what you’d call a take-charge sort of guy. He’s just not a strong presence on a movie set. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump up and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that became the process of the collaboration.”
It didn’t help that Poltergeist and E.T. were released just a year apart in 1982 and many took to calling it “Spielberg Summer.” MGM and United Artists also touted Spielberg’s name over Hooper’s in promoting the film. The Director’s Guild even looked into the matter and determined that the studio had denigrated Hooper’s title; the studio was forced to pay Hooper $15,000.
Then there’s the question of style. Some say the movie’s suburban family focus and high level of polish point to Spielberg’s direction, as Hooper’s work was scrappier and more horrifying. Then again, Hooper rarely had the kind of budget he did on Poltergeist. Particularly scary scenes, like when one of the paranormal investigators peels off his face, and another scene where Williams’ character falls into a muddy pit of bodies, also feel much more like Hooper’s touch.
In truth, the final result is probably the clearest proof that the movie was, indeed, a collaboration. Poltergeist does have an accessible, almost heartwarming family element to it that makes you really care about the characters in the way you would in a great Spielberg film. And there are moments of genuine terror that remind you of Hooper. There’s also a masterful sense of tension in the movie, something that both directors excelled in, which can be seen in the first half of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Hooper at the helm, as well as the first half of Spielberg’s Jaws. Perhaps, had they been credited as co-directors, there would be no controversy so many decades later. Regardless, Poltergeist is one of the best films from the 1980s, and it’s sure to appeal to fans of both Hooper and Spielberg.
Poltergeist is available on HBO Max.