{"id":246431,"date":"2021-12-02T06:55:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T06:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=246431"},"modified":"2021-12-04T07:48:40","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T07:48:40","slug":"the-insanely-dark-story-behind-poltergeist-and-its-young-star-heather-orourke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=246431","title":{"rendered":"The Insanely Dark Story Behind \u201cPoltergeist\u201d and its Young Star Heather O\u2019Rourke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vigilant Citizen \u2013 vigilantcitizen.com Dec 1, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The unexpected death of the child star Heather O\u2019Rourke at age 12 cemented an urban legend that was circulating for years: The movie \u201cPoltergeist\u201d was cursed. However, the real cause of her death might be infinitely more disturbing: Hollywood depravity.<\/p>\n

The 1982 movie Poltergeist<\/em> is widely considered a horror classic whose influence still reverberates today. Indeed, if nobody wants to live anywhere near an ancient burial ground to this day, it is because of that movie.<\/p>\n

While there have been tons of horror movies released in the past decades, Poltergeist<\/em> stands out from the crowd. It is certainly one of those movies people seem to remember more vividly than others. Why is that?<\/p>\n

For one, Poltergeist<\/em> is not your typical horror flick with a dark atmosphere and adult theme. The movie was written and co-directed by Steven Spielberg who was simultaneously working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial <\/em>at that time.<\/em> In fact, the summer of 1982 was dubbed \u201cThe Spielberg Summer\u201d because E.T.<\/em> and Poltergeist<\/em> were released one week apart.<\/p>\n

At first glance, Poltergeist<\/em> has a similar look and feel to E.T. <\/em>However, Poltergeist<\/em> quickly turns into pure nightmare fodder for children. In fact, the movie appears to be specifically made to terrify young viewers.<\/p>\n

And millions of children ended up watching that movie because, astoundingly, it was rated PG. Despite the fact that there\u2019s a scene where a guy literally peels his face off. How did that happen? Was it a gross oversight? Not at all.<\/p>\n

A 2001 article in The New Yorker<\/a> revealed that Poltergeist was initially given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) through a unanimous vote. However, after intense pressure by the movie makers (including Spielberg himself), the movie ended up getting a PG rating \u2026 by unanimous vote. In other words, the system was corrupted.<\/p>\n

And this caused countless parents to believe that the movie was OK for children to watch.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The headline of a 2020 article on<\/a> Polygon.<\/p>\n

The author of this article goes as far as calling Poltergeist<\/em> a \u201cbetrayal of Spielberg\u2019s audience\u201d and argues:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis movie is jam-packed\u00a0<\/em>with stuff to specifically and intentionally terrify children. It\u2019s not limited to the clown, the tree (Spielberg is said to have taken inspiration from one that creeped him out as a child), and the bedroom closet. The evil is in the TV! There\u2019s one in every room to take you straight to hell! You\u2019re not safe inside your own home, especially at night (which is always strobe-lit by lightning).\u201d
\n\u2013 Polygon, Poltergeist\u2019s PG rating was a crime against kids of the \u201980s<\/p>\n

In short, Poltergeist<\/em> contains scenes that sadistically poke at children\u2019s most visceral fears, anxieties, and insecurities. In fact, according to IMDB<\/a>, the star actress Shirley Maclane actually turned down the role of the mother in Poltergeist<\/em> because she \u201cobjected to the terrorization of children\u201d.<\/p>\n

She clearly realized that there was something wrong with that movie. And, boy was she right. Not only did Poltergeist<\/em> insidiously prey on children, but the insanely dark story surrounding it lead many to believe Poltergeist<\/em> was cursed.<\/p>\n

Either that or the movie industry is sick.<\/p>\n

Preying on Children<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Continues …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unexpected death of the child star Heather O\u2019Rourke at age 12 cemented an urban legend that was circulating for years: The movie \u201cPoltergeist\u201d was cursed. However, the real cause of her death might be infinitely more disturbing: Hollywood depravity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":246441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246431"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246444,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246431\/revisions\/246444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/246441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}