Don't Go Into the Light

We’re going back a bit. It’s Amytiville era and there were some great horror movies around at that time. I’d already seen Friday the 13th by this time. Carrie was up there too for menace and darkness. There was a certain addiction for me to an eery script. That chill running down the spine when you feel you’re not alone. The wonder of another parallel universe existing just out of sight. They can see you but you can’t see them. Noises go unnoticed. Strange occurrences get brushed off as nothing. You question your own life; never looking at things in the same way again.

When Carol Anne becomes mesmerised by the white static post ‘end of credits’ national anthem, the anticipation, the hide behind a cushion moment begins. She knows they are there, communicating from the television, while her family carry on with their lives, totally oblivious. She is too young to question the concept. After all who takes notice of the youngest child? Stirred from sleep, enticed by the energy; she is innocent to the danger. She is curious, yet we know instinctively that she should stay away. The light is too bright. The sudden oblivion odd. So much so that the urge to touch that TV is just too much.

She sits, staring at the TV screen. It is so bright and the noise so loud. Reaching out, she inches her hand ever closer. You are terrified for her.

That hand grabbing through the screen is perfection. A chillingly exquisite idea. Of course paranormal investigators talk about the frequencies generated when electronic goods are tuned just out of range. It’s those empty lines that allow the menace to reach us. A route from their world to ours. We have created a mode through which they can travel and yet we have no understanding of how to keep them from using it.

She makes that connection and eventually is gone. But where? Out of reach; yet she must be so close because we can hear her.

There is an unsettling undercurrent of a power shift at play. If they want to, they will come. If you let them, they will take you. They control it all and you have to find a way to shut that door to the other side; but how? Help is hard to come by.

Warnings have been there. Shifting objects a curiosity. Escalating events occur. The family are at their whits end and at the mercy of a higher entity. Their only hope arrives in an unexpected form.

They’re here Carol Anne had warned and they were scared.

Exploring spirituality and ancient ancestral sites, Poltergeist has a back story centred around the perils of disregarding rightful places of reverence. Modern progression built over a burial site with bubbling consequences on the horizon. Can we ever truly bury the dead? What happens to our spirit at the end? Could a chain of events make our ancestors angry?

As a Brit, this film contained some strong symbolism, that will forever take me back. I can’t help but think of this movie now when I hear the US national anthem. I giggle to myself, that in an instant I can be right back there, waiting for Carol Anne to touch that TV screen. Similarly, the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser was the saving grace at the end and if I see one, it is known to me as the Poltergeist car.

In the end the only choice is to shut that door and run. It’s either them or you. They want that house so they can have it. While they’re at it, tell them they can keep the clown!

Originally written for the 'Slasher Classics' challenge 2021. ©