There's a fun event coming to Grand Junction this Halloween, and it's exclusively for the teenage crowd. If you're in your teens, you weren't even born when this movie came out. Here's your chance to enjoy the perfect Halloween film.

This Halloween, the Mesa County Public Libraries Central Branch presents the 1982 classic, Poltergeist. The movie will be shown in the "Teen Area" at the central branch on October 31 at 3:30 p.m. No registration is required. Please note: this is for teens only.

Important Note: In this case, we're talking about the 1982 Poltergeist, not the alleged remake that came out in 2015. The remake received a 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I think you'll find people were generous to give it that.

I remember seeing Poltergeist when it first came out. In Grand Junction the movie was shown at the Monument Twin Cinemas on Monument Road. In my opinion, this really was a groundbreaking film. It brought horror to the mainstream audience with a strong does of "paranormal" content in the script. At a time when slasher films with a singular antagonist dominated the "horror" genre, this movie brought a truly eerie ambiance to the suburban world.

The movie was a huge hit and spawned several drastically inferior sequels. Unfortunately, the movie also spawned what would come to be known as the "Poltergeist Curse." Terrible things happened to several of the cast members. According to Wikipedia:

The "Poltergeist curse" is a rumored curse attached to the Poltergeist trilogy and its crew, derived from the deaths of two young cast members in the six years between the releases of the first and third films. - Wikipedia

 

  • Dominique Dunne, who played the eldest daughter Dana in the first film, died on November 4, 1982, at age 22 after being strangled by her former boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison, but was paroled after serving three and a half years.
  • Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne in all three Poltergeist films, died on February 1, 1988 at the age of 12 due to complications from an acute bowel obstruction.

I digress. Here are my top five reasons why Mesa County teenagers should attend this showing at the library:

  • Poltergeist is the perfect Halloween movie - not gory, not overloaded with realism, just spooky fun.
  • There are far worse things teenagers could be doing on Halloween
  • The price of "Free" is pretty hard to beat
  • Everyone should see the "They're Here" scene at least once in their lifetime.
  • This is reminiscent of the good ol' days of Halloween when you'd get together with friends for a spooky movie.

If you're a teen, you'll definitely want to check this out. If you're the parent of teen, then you were probably fairly young in 1982 when Poltergeist came out, and you owe it to you child to spend Halloween watching this film. It's rated PG, and is good for younger audiences.

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