10 Scariest Haunted House Movies Ever Made
4. Poltergeist (1982)
Poltergeist is the rarest of phenomena in that it's a successful and terrifying horror movie that was originally released with a PG certificate in the USA. The film is anything but family-friendly, though the lack of swearing and sex no doubt helped it to get a lenient certificate in America, where violence isn't a worry for the MPAA.
The film follows a family who find their new home seemingly infested with ghosts, which kidnap their daughter and threaten them all. It eventually, of course, transpires that the house has been built on an ancient burial ground and nobody thought to move any of the corpses.
Poltergeist is a movie that is talked about for the murky circumstances surrounding its creative process. The project was conceived by Steven Spielberg, who wrote the script and produced the film, but he was contractually barred from making another film while working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It is alleged that nominal director Tobe Hooper essentially let Spielberg take the reins.
Whoever was responsible, this is a thrilling horror movie with a surprising vein of social commentary about society's obsession with television and, of course, the scariest cinematic clown not conceived by Stephen King.
The less said about the dreadful 2015 remake with Sam Rockwell, the better...