1. Poltergeist (1986)
Directed By... Tobe Hooper
Secretly Directed By... Steven Spielberg Perhaps the most famous example of mistaken director identity, many might still be shocked to learn that Tobe Hooper's haunted house classic
Poltergeist is rumoured to have been actually directed by Steven Spielberg, who is sitting here on a mere producer's credit. If you've seen the film, you'll see that it's pure Spielberg through and through - the camerawork, the pacing, the family dynamic, and even the SFX reek of late '80s Spielberg. Although there's never been any clarification to these stories, the evidence does look pretty compelling. That's not to discredit Tobe Hooper, of course, who helmed the equally brilliant
Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a young filmmaker. But over the years various sources have come out to say that Hooper was merely a puppet for Spielberg to hide behind on this one, and pretty much ghost-directed the movie for most of production. Was that because Spielberg wanted to make a darker movie in
Poltergeist, and needed to protect his image? There's also an argument Spielberg was contractually blocked from making a movie at the time, and used Hooper as a face.
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