The Poltergeist of My Mind

When I was about ten years old, I spent the night at my best friend Eli’s house on or around Halloween. Eli was, you could say, “smart beyond his years.” Brilliant kid. Extremely funny, with a massive creative streak and a more-than-slightly twisted sense of humor. We got along brilliantly and were attached at the hip from grade school through junior high. Frankly, we were each other’s only real friend, which only someone else who was short, small, smart, played the flute, and was terminally picked on in junior high can understand. I lost track of Eli after I decided to attend a private Christian high school and he went to public school. I haven’t seen him in fifteen years and often randomly Google his name to see if I can figure out what happened to him. I’ve never definitively found him online.

But I digress.

When I was about ten years old, I spent the night at Eli’s house, a not-too-uncommon occurrence. I was usually the guest of honor – indeed, the ONLY guest – at Eli’s birthday parties, and we had oodles of fun watching cable (non-existant in the Menno-Daddy childhood home), perusing Eli’s prodigious comic book collection (undoubtedly in part why I’m a closeted comics geek), and creating mix tapes with our own commentarty, which we’d record by shouting into a set of headphones plugged into the microphone jack of Eli’s ancient tape deck. And we’d on occasion watch movies on HBO.

So yeah, on this occasion, it was near Halloween. HBO was showing Poltergeist. I watched it, against my better judgment, and knowing that this was a movie that my parents never would’ve let me watch. That was part of the fun.

It scarred me beyond what I had even thought possible.

That’s one of the only times I can ever remember having to call my parents and have them pick me up during a sleepover. It traumatized me to the point where I actually developed a phobia about watching movies – any movies – at night, that lasted into my high school years. I’d be seriously emotionally crippled when this would happen, and I’d actively avoid scenarios where there might be videos shown, or else I’d find something else to do when put in that situation. Irrational? Sure. But that’s what phobias are. Since then, I’ve either consciously or unconsciously avoided Poltergeist. My eyes skip past it at the video store. I, mostly successfully, blocked it from my mind. This avoidance tactic has taken me into my adulthood.

This month, at age 32, during the weeks approaching Halloween, I decided to confront my childhood demons.

I found and downloaded (DON’T LOOK RIAA) “procured” Poltergeist and slapped it on my iPod. I’d then actively watch portions of it while in the garage roasting coffee. I didn’t tell my wife about this, not because she wouldn’t understand, but because I knew she wouldn’t watch with me, hating scary movies. And because this was something I felt I needed to do by myself. Besides, confronting your childhood demons can sometimes make you feel a little silly, even when you’re with your soulmate and the love of your life. I first watched Poltergeist (nearly) alone; the second time, I vowed, I’d do it entirely alone.

I confess that 22 years after the event and 24 years after the movie was released, I was really nervous starting that movie. It’s amazing how something like this sticks with you even so far after the fact.

I watched it. Mostly at night, in the garage, waiting for my coffee to finish roasting. I got through it. And you know what? It’s still scary. The special effects are kinda hokey now, but for the mid-1980s very, VERY well done. The story, while essentially Spielberg-esque, winds up in a crescendo of anticipation that makes it difficult to absorb. And there are still some genuinely freaky moments. The scene where the mom turns around in the kitchen and the chairs are in a pyramid on top of the table? Scary. The tree attacking the little boy in his bedroom during the thunderstorm? Scary. The rescue of Carol-Ann from the portal? Scary. (Especially when the Beast pokes his head out to scream at Craig T. Nelson) The scene at the end with the creepy clown doll that attacks the little boy? Man, I hate clowns.

And when it was over, I had a fonder appreciation for what that movie really was. For its time, it was a remarkable high-budget horror film. Had I watched it when I was 20, or even 15, I’m sure I would not have had the same visceral reaction that I had when I was nine. But watching that movie caused me to remember things that I had long buried. I remembered things — a particular facial expression, a line, a piece of CGI — that I also remember had scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. And some of those emotions came back, though muted, as though from an extreme distance. It was, I should say, not the most pleasant of experiences. But one I’m glad I revisited.

I’m not afraid to watch movies at night anymore, even scary ones. But I don’t have plans to watch Poltergeist again. While I’m glad I confronted one of the scariest things that happened to me during my childhood, it was a reminder that images can last for a long time. It’s made me re-evaluate the kinds of images that I present to my daughter, as she’s old enough now that things can and do stick with her. But it also reasserted in me the knowledge that we can confront that which we are afraid of, and sometimes, even through the distance of years, can defeat the Boogeyman that lies within our own subconscious.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

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