Night 17 of "The 31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest"

I've joined in the fun over at Domestic Witch's October Blog Party. You can find a list of participating blogs that are having fun celebrating the season of Halloween. When you're done here take a broom ride over to her site and you'll see the list of blogs on the right side bar.

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Here at The Lounge we will have a "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest". Check back each day to see which movie is featured and some days you may get more than one. They will be a random selection of my favorites. You can see all past selections on the sidebar.

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Make sure to leave a comment for each movie as one lucky person will win their choice of pendant from Laughing Vixen Lounge at the end of the film fest. Please see rules at end of post.

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Night 17...."Poltergeist"

I remember seeing this at a friends birthday party and yes, it scared me!

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Directed by Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem's Lot and Body Bags) and written by Steven Spielberg and released on June 4, 1982 by MGM/UA. The Freeling family starts to experience some "odd" going ons in their house. It's interesting until their little girl goes missing. Not knowing what to do the family brings in a group of paranormal experts to help. Can they help find Carol Ann before it's too late.

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I enjoy watching this movie. By today's standards it wouldn't be considered very scary but I think it's a nice mix of creepy and childhood scary. Meaning it plays on lots of childhood fears. The fear of the dark, the thing under the bed and of course the monster in the closet. Plus it has good actors and good effects. And really...who doesn't think that clown is freakin' scary looking?!!

I also found myself extremely nostalgic looking at all the toys in the kid's bedroom and at all the 80's electronics/fashions/etc. If you haven't seen it for awhile it might be a nice treat.

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Some trivia about the movie...

1. The hands which pull the flesh off the investigator's face in the bathroom mirror are Steven Spielberg's.

2. As an homage to his friend George Lucas, Spielberg populated the children's bedroom with Star Wars toys. He did the same in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

3. Heather O'Rourke, who played the little girl Carol-Anne, and Dominique Dunne, who played the teenage daughter, are buried in the same cemetery: Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Dunne was strangled into brain-death by her boyfriend in 1982, the year of the film's release. Six years later, O'Rourke died of intestinal stenosis.

4. The film was originally given a R rating, but the filmmakers protested successfully and got a PG rating (the PG-13 rating did not exist at the time).

5. The sound effect for the beast that attacks the house at the end of the movie is the source for the current MGM lion roar.

6. The house used to film this movie is located in Simi Valley, California where it still stands today. The family who owned it when this movie was filmed still live there today.

7. A common translation of the German word "Poltergeist" is "rumbling spirit".

8. Stephen King was briefly approached to write the screenplay. It would have been the first written by King directly for the screen, but the parties could not agree on the terms.

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Rules for pendant giveaway...

(1) comment about a movie per movie.

(1) extra entry by following this Blog and (1) extra for following on Twitter (You can only take the blog and twitter entries once for the whole contest).

(1) extra entry for Tweeting about this. Please use this message -Check out the "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest" to win your choice of pendant from @LaughingVixen http://bit.ly/179JkS -- 3 Tweets a day max and no more than 1 an hour.

(1) extra entry for guessing the next film. I will tweet hints on Twitter about the next days movie and you can post your guess as a comment. Doesn't have to be right just your best guess.

Make sure to post each entry as an individual comment on any of the movies comment pages. You can comment on past movies. Make sure you can be contacted from your post.