Horror's Hallowed Grounds: Poltergeist By: Sean Clark
Poltergeist
By: Sean Clark
Poltergeist is a film that has spawned a lot of controversy over the years. To this day people still talk about how much director Tobe Hooper actually directed and how much may have been producer Steven Spielberg. There is the supposed curse of the Poltergeist series that has seen several cast members die around or during the making of the three films in the series. And then there is the lesser known story of who actually wrote Poltergeist. Producer Steve Spielberg claimed he had based the story on the suburban neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona where he had grown up. However, Paul Clemens and his writing partner accused Spielberg of stealing the idea from a script they had sent him over a year before. Clemens is best known by genre fans as the lead in the 1981 film The Beast Within. There was a lawsuit and Spielberg settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money keeping the story as quiet as possible. All of the controversy aside it was still a damn fine film for it’s time.
Filmed in sixty days with a budget of 10.8 million dollars the film was a huge hit and spawned two sequels and a television series.
Filming began on Monday, May 11th, 1981 shooting all of the opening credits sequences in Agoura Hills, California. All of these various shots of the neighborhood during the opening title sequence were filmed about a half hour drive from the neighborhood where the Freeling house was actually located in Simi Valley.
One of the first shots is of the main road that goes through Agoura Hills, and that is Kanan Road. This was in the area between Laro Drive and Eagleton Street. All of the Agoura Hills Poltergeist locations are very close to the Hanging Tree from the original Phantasm that is also on Kanan Road. So if you happen to make a trip out there you may want to visit them both. Check out part 1 of the Phantasm HHG article here for further details on it’s location.
It was very difficult to try and recreate these photos as they appear in the film because these scenes were all shot from hill tops that at the time of filming were vacant. Today all of those hill tops have homes built on them and that makes it next to impossible to get all of the same angles.
In this next scene the camera pans down Shadycreek Drive as a car goes from Woodcreek Court to Laro Drive.
Just behind that street on Rustling Oaks Drive is where the kids rode their bikes in front of the big tree in the middle of the street. Sadly the tree was just recently removed in the last year. The island where the tree was located is almost directly in front of Hollow Oak Court on Rustling Oaks Drive. It was shot from the direction of Old Carriage Court looking towards Hollow Oak Court. Here is a photo of it with the tree in 2004 and without it today.
This next shot is pretty interesting because this is the same street we later see actor Dirk Blocker riding the bike down carrying the beer to the Freeling house. This is Calmfield Avenue shot right in front of Idle Drive looking down the street towards Laro Drive.
Now this was a totally impossible angle for me to get but I did at least shoot the location. This is the cul-de-sac where Dirk Blocker begins his bike ride, which is Gleam Court.
The street he is heading towards out of the cul-de-sac and turns on is Calabria Drive, however when it cuts to him coming around the corner and on to Calmfield Avenue he is actually turning off of Hollow Brook Avenue going towards Calabria Drive.
Now this is where the bike ride gets really interesting. It appears that he would be turning off of Calmfield Avenue and on to Calabria Drive which we would assume would be the street where the Freelings lived. Well actually it cuts to a half hour drive away to Simi Valley. Suddenly he is coming from the end of a dead end street which is Rachael Avenue and turning on Roxbury Street. This would have been on Tuesday May 12th when they began all of the exterior shots of the Freeling home at the actual home in Simi Valley.
And he ends up right in front of the Freeling home at 4267 Roxbury Drive in Simi Valley.
Before we continue on at this location lets finish up with Agoura Hills. Later in the film Craig T. Nelson and James Karen have a conversation in front of the cemetery on a hillside overlooking a tract of homes yet to be built. Those paved streets without homes are Germania Court, Fenworth Court, Kerryhill Court and Langhall Court. Of course it has long since been developed. I wish I could have taken a photo of those streets now from where the cemetery was located but that is now people’s backyards. The top of the hill is full of homes. I did, however, take a couple of picture from the end of Fenworth Court looking up towards where the cemetery was. The wide shot of the full cemetery was a mat painting.
Now back to the Freeling House located at 4267 Roxbury Drive in Simi Valley. They began filming at this location on Tuesday May 12th and filmed everything from the beginning of the film to the big climax at the end where all hell breaks loose in the neighborhood. Filming concluded at this location on Wednesday May 20th.
A lot of people believe that the house did have a swimming pool, but that is incorrect. There was a few daytime scenes shot in the backyard of the actual location but all of the swimming pool stuff was on a soundstage as I will point out later in this article. I tried to take some photos of the back of the house but this was the best I could get.
On Thursday, May 21st filming began on the soundstages at MGM Studios. Elaborate sets were built on three different soundstages.
The first thing filmed was the interior of Dr. Lesh’s office which was shot on Stage 11.
The exterior of the building where Dr. Lesh’s office is supposed to be is an actual location. It is the Jack Langson Library located on the campus of the University of California Irvine.
This is also where most of the film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was filmed.
On Friday, May 22nd filming began on Stage 12 which housed some of the interiors of the Feeling’s living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, master bedroom and exterior of the front porch & backyard, then on Thursday, May 27th filming moved to Stage 11 to film the children’s bedroom interiors. Also located on Stage 11 was the home’s staircase, upstairs hallway and Dana’s bedroom.
Production designer Jim Spencer created both the interior and exterior of the Freeling House, plus the backyard and swimming pool on MGM’s Stage 12. Spencer also had to match the exterior of the house to the one that served as principal dwelling during the company’s eight days of location shooting in Simi Valley, California.
Producer Steven Spielberg discussed the swimming pool set, "These sets were unique because we had to install a swimming pool and needed a crawlspace under it for special effects. Since we couldn’t dig through the concrete floor of the soundstage and had to construct another set on the stage with a removable floor, we had to build the key set fifteen feet above the ground."
On Thursday and Friday June 4th & 5th filming moved to Stage 30 where they had build a duplicate master bedroom set where everything was nailed and glued down so the entire room could rotate for the scene where Diane appears to be crawling on the walls and ceiling. On Stage 30 was also a duplicate of the children’s room for the scene where Carol Anne is sucked into the closet. These rooms were also equipped with a device that could trigger a simulated earthquake.
There was actually a different ending filmed but not used when the family goes to the hotel at the end of the movie. They built an interior of the hotel room on Stage 11 and filmed a scene where Carol Ann turns on the TV and it goes to the station sign off and then static. Then the movie was supposed to end with a fade out on the static snow. This alternate ending was shot midway through the production but ultimately not used.
As you can see, there were very few locations used in Poltergeist. The only one I couldn’t find was the actual Holiday Inn they go to at the end of the film. I checked all Holiday Inns within a few hundred mile radius and if it does still exist, it has been completely remodeled and looks nothing like it did in the film. The only Holiday Inn that looked even remotely like it is the one located at 3223 East Garvey North in West Covina, but again I'm not sure.
It is always an adventure going out and hunting down these locations. You never know what or who you may find. I did however make a new friend while out on this excursion and he followed me home...and hasn’t left since.
Until next time, so long from beautiful Cuesta Verde, California!
