R'LYEH REVIEW

Issue 007

copyright © 1982 by Robert M. Price
reprinted by permission of Robert M. Price

Poltergeist
Directed (and just about every­thing else) by Steven Spielberg

(Reviewed by Robert M. Price)

Steven Spielberg can frighten --- Jaws was proof of that; but mostly he flabbergasts. Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark proved that. Which is Poltergeist evidence for? Maybe both, but probably just the latter.

Spielberg challenges the spectral competition with a tale that claims greater authenticity than its competitors --- it is billed as "the first real ghost story." Whatever else this is meant to refer to (perhaps a swipe at Peter Straub?), it probably implies that Poltergeist embodies a lot of research into genuine experiences of poltergeists (note: not necessarily genuine poltergeists), just as Close Encounters drew heavily from "real" UFO cases. This should serve to make the film as scary as any ghost story that has cost you a case of goosebumps around a campfire. But it doesn't.

On the whole this movie is a showcase for special effects, which are effectively provided by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. Despite occasional unconvincing gimmicks (the purple jell, for instance, looks like purple jell instead of clotted gore), the effects are dazzling. In particular, one thinks of a climactic scene where an apparition takes shape from swirling ectoplasm.

But most of the effects are so well done that you are liable to find yourself more admiring the skill that produced them than frightened by them. And as they pile up near the end of the film, a curious sensation emerges. You may find yourself thinking you are in some elaborate 2-D "house of horrors" at an amusement park. The maw of hell gapes before you, a skeletal monster threatens you, corpses and coffins shoot up through the lawn in front of you like price digits in an old-time cash register. Golly (shiver) this is fun! What's going to come next? All this glues your attention, but because it is interesting more than suspenseful.

Another technique designed at piquing your aboriginal nightmare-fears is to show those fears coming true. Thus one of the kids in the film actually gets attacked and nearly swallowed by the gnarled tree outside his bedroom window. And an evilly-grinning stuffed clown (I always did hate those things!) jumps him and drags him under the bed. But Spielberg's intent is almost too obvious, and one is again liable to be left remarking to oneself "now that was a clever idea," instead of being scared.

And then there's the matter of the humor. There's too much of it. The movie begins, you would swear, as an out-and-out comedy. And it is genuinely funny. But the legit laffs set the tone a bit too strongly; once the supernatural stunts commence, you are tempted to laugh at them too, as if they are only more outrageous sight-gags. Unlike Close Encounters, in this film Spielberg doesn't know when to stop. Humor can be effective in pointing up the incongruities and seeming absurdities that would result if the mundane routine were rent by the paranormal (Roy Neary's neighbors would have thought him a nut). But some of the lines in Poltergeist almost demand a laugh-track. For instance, in a key scene, an exorcist tries to dissuade the heroine from entering a psychic warp to find her lost daughter: "You've never done this!" Mom replies, "Neither have you!" The exorcist, in a line worthy of Ralph Kramden: "You're right --- you go!" Come on.

The plot of the film, to mention it at long last, is pretty simple: a housing development has been built over a cemetery and the disturbed spirits take revenge on the main real estate man. But a note of confusion enters at this point, since the vengeful spooking which ensues would seem to fall into the category of "hauntings" rather than "poltergeist phenomena", a distinction drawn in the film itself. Incidentally, this bit of information is supplied by a team of parapsychologists who are presented as pompous buffoons in the film, a far cry from the assured competence of Messieur Lacombe in Close Encounters. But UFO purists even had complaints about that film, and you can imagine what real parapsychology buffs (I am not one of them) are going to say about this one.

But after all one may say about it, Poltergeist is surely a fine film. Even if it is not exactly the kind of movie you would expect from the advertising, it is the kind of movie you'd expect from Steven Spielberg --- a technically excellent and dazzingly entertaining film.

The Gunslinger
Stephen King
Donald M. Grant, Inc., 1982, 224 pp., $20.00 (limited edition $60.00)

(Reviewed by Robert M. Price)

In the seemingly endless flood of Stephen King volumes (a flood, incidentally, in which many of us do not mind bathing), one of the latest is The Gunslinger, the first part of a projected three thousand page work to be called The Dark Tower. Now this is not to be confused with C. S. Lewis' The Dark Tower or Frank Belknap Long's To The Dark Tower, mind you. The publicity blurbs alert us to the fact that The Gunslinger is unlike previous King efforts, in that it falls pretty neatly into the heroic/epic fantasy bracket. This is certainly true. The hero is the mysterious Roland, dubbed "the Last Gunslinger". Gunslingers here are sort of a medieval warrior-caste with a bit of Matt Dillon thrown in. The setting of the tale is some future post-apocalyptic wasteworld, wherein Roland pursues the enigmatic "man in black" to find the secret of the Dark Tower, a portal to all times, worlds, and dimensions. This man in black is to some extent reminiscent of Randall Flagg, the Dark Man, in The Stand, a book the reader will think of at several other points in The Gunslinger as well (particularly the trip through the deserted railroad tunnel).

The setting is effective, blending as it does the Old West, medieval Europe, and hints of contemporary America ("Hey Jude" seems to be a cultural anthem). How is this effective? The rather ambiguous mix provides points of reference for the reader to identify with, yet it is hard enough to get any clear historical bearings that the reader's attention must focus more acutely on the story itself. In other words, the elusive but colorful background makes it difficult for the action to fade off into it.

As for the main character, the Gunslinger is complex, bearing his tarnished nobility almost like a cross through a world that "has moved on" and no longer contains any of the dignity he was raised with. Roland is depicted as having to make hard choices, sacrificing the lives of those close to him in pursuit of his quest. King describes well Roland's guiltiness "in that final and vital moment of uncoupling from a moral principle" (p. 144). In all this, Roland the Gunslinger ls liable to remind you of no other fantasy character so much as Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.

The book, then, is well-written, though one might wish it stood a bit more on its own instead of being so manifestly "Chapter One" of a larger work still years from completion. There are five color illustrations by Michael Whelan, and the book is printed in fairly large type on nice, textured paper. Perhaps all this justifies the $20 price tag. But does this book invite such a format? It probably wouldn't have lost anything as a regular, cheaper, book.