History Fridge / Poltergeist

* After rewatching the movie recently, I realized something. While the events in the movies quite obviously sucked for all the involved, there is a very fridge-like benefit for the Freelings. These are people who, beyond any shadow of doubt, possess the knowledge that there IS an afterlife, that your consciousness doesn't dissolve into oblivion once you die. How liberating must be to live knowing that there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel.
** Well, they don't ''actually'' know there's an ''afterlife''; the only thing they've seen is a horrible in-between place populated by angry spirits and lost souls :P Who knows what's ''really'' beyond that light...
*** But that place IS an afterlife. Those souls went there after their lives hand ended, it fits 100% the definition. Even if they don't know what is inside the light (which they sorta do, unless they discarded Tangina's explanation as bullshit!), they still know that your consciousness doesn't die along with your body.
*** [[AndIMustScream Oh my...]]
*** That guy has a point, it's only AndIMustScream if you get stuck in the limbo. Considering that there was perhaps a couple dozens of spirits present (who died under very specific circumstances, as we know by the sequel), then it's not something that normally happens.
*** We've also seen that people who went peacefully and entered the light still persist in some form; Carol Anne's grandmother is able to come to her aid in an almost angelic form in the 2nd movie. So even if you accept the light, your individual consciousness survives.

* Tangina is proved to be a pretty powerful and accurate spiritualist, and for the majority of the movie, she's 100% correct about everything. Why then does she proclaim the house "clean" when it's clearly ''not?'' Is this assumed to be her one slip-up? Because considering that in the final attack, the entire house folds up and nearly takes the whole family with it, that's one hell of an oops-my-bad on her part.
** I interpreted it more as all of the BAD spirit energy was gone[[spoiler:....at that moment. They had definitely exorcised the spirits from the house and got Carol Anne back, but that does not necessarily mean the gateway was closed. The Beast was still able to claw it's way back into the house through the still open gateway from the spirit world.]]
** It's possible that the gateway was indeed closed, Tangina sensed it and thus made that claim. Thing is, The Beast is an entity fueled by hatred, and the Freelings messing up with his masterplan probably gave him enough juice to once again punch through the barrier between planes.
** Wouldn't also be the first time in alleged real-life hauntings that an entity exorcised from a house tries to get back in. Especially given how strong and relentless this fictional one is, it seems quite possible he just tried again.
** In her expository monologue, Tangina makes mention that she had no idea of what the Beast was, it was something unlike anything she's ever experienced in all her years as a medium. It's perfectly possible that she misjudged how powerful the entity was, and assumed that it wouldn't be able to again punch its way into the material plane.
** The sequels' backstory for the haunting suggest that the "Beast" didn't reside in the house, it resided in the cavern ''under'' the house where all those people died.

* The mother is thirty-two. With a sixteen year-old daughter. Maybe she's not the mother after all. Might explain the height difference.
** 32-16=16. You can have a child at sixteen. It's the not ideal by any means, but it happens. And with a helpful family and partner, some are able to have a successful life.
*** Not the case here, however, as the father specifically tells a workman that his first daughter's mother is dead. (The pool-digging crew had been praising Dana's looks, and saying she must take after her mother.) Mrs. Freeling is clearly Dana's ''step''mother.
*** That doesn't happen in the movie. (maybe you're thinking of Hellraiser when that exact situation does occur.)
*** Go back and watch it again. It's the bit where one of the pool-diggers leans in the kitchen window for a cup of coffee.
*** ...Nope, doesn't happen. Diane's the one that finds the pool-digger, and the entire scene consists of her asking how it was, him saying it was great, her asking for her cup back, and him saying that she makes great coffee. There was a scene where the diggers were praising Dana's looks (before the coffee thing), and after she flipped them off they might have commented on her mother's looks, but the father never says that Diane's Dana's stepmother.
*** Listen to his description of his family members; he specifically refers to Dana as "MY daughter," not "our", like he does with the other two children.
*** [[AllThereInTheManual The novelization makes it a bit clearer that Diane is, in fact, Steven's second wife and that Dana is his daughter from a first marriage.]]
*** Note that there's an age gap between Steve and Diane. Since they're now both adults in their 30s (Diane is 32, Steve maybe 38 or so) this ''now'' isn't remarkable at all, but if Steve would have gotten Diane pregnant when she was 16, he must have been about 22, which raises some unfortunate implications as it would technically make it statutory rape even if she consented. Clearly, Steve used to be married to a woman closer to his own age when he was younger, and had Dana with her; he didn't get together with Diane until later. Thus also why Carol Anne and Robbie are closer in age to each other but the age gap between both of them and Dana is much bigger.

* Steve mentions to a couple he's showing a house to that they have very generous construction standards in the area. He has a neighbor who put a wading pool and an aqueduct in their yard, and he himself is having a swimming pool built...in a yard that's right over a cemetery. How is it none of the bulldozers digging up his backyard (that pool is at least ten feet deep) never encountered a coffin (No, the cigar box doesn't count)? And if the development company wants to keep the bodies a secret, why allow people to do things like that?
** Possibly the old cemetery lay at the bottom of a gully, that got covered over by 20 feet of infill when the subdivision was landscaped. That'd make the violent emergence of those coffins in the finale even more impressive.
** I just can't see even the most unscrupulous developer spending the money to cover that much acreage with that much fill just to avoid moving the coffins. That would cost a ''lot'' less.
*** Not if the gully was only big enough for the Frehlings' house and a little of the nearby street; they could just dump the dirt that was already being excavated to put in the streets and cellars there. That would explain why it's only ''one'' house that's haunted, not every house in the neighborhood.
** And wouldn't the bodies have been disturbed anyway when they were building the houses, if they were all buried at [[Series/SixFeetUnder the standard depth]]?
** Alternately, the bodies weren't left behind at all, just the ghosts of the deceased. They'd already teleported a bunch of their burial goods into the house; doing the same with their actual bodies and coffins couldn't be much different. The father's assumption that the bodies had been left behind was him jumping to conclusions.

* I have watched the entirety of the first film and I noticed something about the ghost on the staircase, which looked like a glowing woman wearing a white dress. Who is the ghost on the staircase? Is she the leader of the ghosts? Does she help Carol Anne stay away from the light?

*** Note that there's an age gap between Steve and Diane. Since they're now both adults in their 30s (Diane is 32, Steve maybe 38 or so) this ''now'' isn't remarkable at all, but if Steve would have gotten Diane pregnant when she was 16, he must have been about 22, which raises some unfortunate implications as it would technically make it statutory rape even if she consented. Clearly, Steve used to be married to a woman closer to his own age when he was younger, and had Dana with her; he didn't get together with Diane until later.

*** It seems clear that the scene with the hungry tree (and tornado) from the first movie was a distraction to isolate Carol Anne from the rest of the family so she could be taken again. Like how [[spoiler: the spirits have their way with Dianne while they try to grab Carol Anne a second time.]]

** Again [[AllThereInTheManual in the novelization]], Tangina explains that there are many dimensions and that the one that these particular ghosts occupy is not the afterlife, but a bleak pocket dimension ruled by the Beast, a literal embodiment of greed that imprisons spirits by chaining them to itself. The Beast stole Carol Anne to use her powerful life-force to distract its captive souls from the Light that had finally arrived to take them to the true afterlife. This is why Tangina orders Carol Anne to "run to the Light" (but not to go into it) to escape the Beast. The Beast isn't afraid of the Light; it just doesn't want its prisoners to realize the Light is there. It's possible that the moment Steven yanked on the rope and dragged the Beast's head into this world was the moment its tethers snapped, allowing the imprisoned souls to escape and leaving the Beast alone in its dimension, without the company of its captives and hungry for revenge on the family that spoiled its perfect prison.

*** That guy has a point, it's only andimustscream if you get stuck in the limbo. Considering that there was perhaps a couple dozens of spirits present (who died under very specific circumstances, as we know by the sequel), then it's not something that normally happens.

** Possibly the old cemetary lay at the bottom of a gully, that got covered over by 20 feet of infill when the subdivision was landscaped. That'd make the violent emergence of those coffins in the finale even more impressive.

** And wouldn't the bodies have been disturbed anyway when they were building the houses, if they were all buried at [[SixFeetUnder the standard depth]]?

** When that happens, Taylor goes right to Carol Anne to look after her. Steve asks him WhatTheHellHero, and Taylor replies that it's Carol Anne that Kane is after, not Robbie, and protecting her was important. This implies that the situation with Robbie may have been somewhat like the famous face-peeling scene from the first movie; i.e. not entirely real. It's possible that it was mostly an illusion and Robbie was in no true danger, but was merely intended to serve as a distraction so Kane could get to an unprotected Carol Anne.

** Steve mentions to a couple he's showing a house to that they have very generous construction standards in the area. He has a neighbor who put a wading pool and an aqueduct in their yard, and he himself is having a swimming pool built...in a yard that's right over a cemetery. How is it none of the bulldozers digging up his backyard (that pool is at least ten feet deep) never encountered a coffin (No, the cigar box doesn't count)? And if the development company wants to keep the bodies a secret, why allow people to do things like that?
*** Possibly the old cemetary lay at the bottom of a gully, that got covered over by 20 feet of infill when the subdivision was landscaped. That'd make the violent emergence of those coffins in the finale even more impressive.
*** I just can't see even the most unscrupulous developer spending the money to cover that much acreage with that much fill just to avoid moving the coffins. That would cost a ''lot'' less.
*** And wouldn't the bodies have been disturbed anyway when they were building the houses, if they were all buried at [[SixFeetUnder the standard depth]]?
*** Alternately, the bodies weren't left behind at all, just the ghosts of the deceased. They'd already teleported a bunch of their burial goods into the house; doing the same with their actual bodies and coffins couldn't be much different.

**** I just can't see even the most unscrupulous developer spending the money to cover that much acreage with that much fill just to avoid moving the coffins. That would cost a ''lot'' less.

* In II Kane couldn't be let in the house unless Steven let him in. ('Let me IN!!!") Aside from the Tequila scene where he swallowed the worm. There has been no way he could have gone into the house. Yet after the Let me in part, he was able to get Robbie with his Braces, and throw Steven across the room, and that was before the Tequila scene.

*** Possibly the old cemetary lay at the bottom of a gully, that got covered over by 20 feet of infill when the subdivision was landscaped. That'd make the violent emergence of those coffins in the finale even more impressive.