Trivia / Poltergeist II: The Other Side

• Billing Displacement: Despite prominent billing, Geraldine Fitzgerald is only in the film for five minutes.
• California Doubling: The home the Freelings moved to between films is actually in Altadena, California, but is in Arizona in the story.
• Cast the Expert: Will Sampson was a practicing shaman, and actually performed an exorcism on the set to appease worried crew members at one point.
• Character Outlives Actor: The only family member absent from the film is Dana, who according to the script is off at university, but a scene explaining away her absence was never filmed. Dominique Dunne was murdered by her boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney (who later changed his name to John Maura and disappeared) shortly after the first film premiered. Ultimately, no mention is made of Dana in the final film, or of her being in college. It was decided by the filmmakers to retire the character and not recast her out of respect for the deceased actress and her family.
• Creator Backlash:
  • H. R. Giger provided the special effects designed, but was reportedly unhappy with how they were translated to film.
  When the movies eventually came out I thought, "Oh shit". But I couldn't change it. There was no more time. So I thought that's the wrong way to work. If you work on a film you have to be there all the time and be always looking at what they're doing otherwise they'll do what they want.
  • Heather O'Rourke was not impressed with the film’s end result either, saying that it was boring and not scary.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: In the French dub, Robbie Freeling was voiced by Belgian voice actress Jackie Berger.
• Deleted Scene: Several scenes that appeared in press stills and promotional posters were cut from the film, e.g. one in which Kane tries to get into the house a second time and confronts Tangina (this omission angered Zelda Rubinstein as she felt that was one of her best scenes); one in which Steve and Diane see a flying toaster during a breakfast scene, etc.
• Development Gag: A poster of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial can be seen in Carol Anne's bedroom. Drew Barrymore had auditioned for the role of Carol Anne before landing the role of Gertie.
• Executive Meddling: The film had an original running time of 131 minutes before being edited down to 91 minutes. Some have surmised that MGM rushed production and ordered the cuts, e.g the final battle with Kane lasts all of two minutes. Zelda Rubinstein in particular was furious about this, as she felt her best scenes were removed from the final cut.
• Looping Lines: Julian Beck died of stomach cancer shortly after filming finished. Several of Beck's lines were dubbed in post-production by Corey Burton. According to Burton, the sound editors did such a good job combining his ADR work with Beck's original performance that, save for one scene where Kane's voice sounds slightly different, even he can't tell which lines are his and which are Beck's.
• The Production Curse: Julian Beck died of stomach cancer eight months before the film’s release, and Will Sampson died from complications due to open heart surgery the year after its release.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Dana is entirely missing from this film and the next one, as Dominique Dunne had been murdered in 1982. The role was not re-cast and the absence of the character was not mentioned, making it a case of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome - an early draft would have included a line saying she was away in college in Boston, but this was cut from the final script.
  • Julian Beck was actually that gaunt: he was dying of stomach cancer and didn't need that much makeup to look like a skeleton.
  • Heather O'Rourke was genuinely terrified of Julian Beck, and burst into tears when she first saw him in costume.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Beatrice Straight was asked to reprise the role of Dr Lesh from the first film, but she was ill and not willing to work at the time. Richard Lawson was also asked to reprise the role of Ryan, but his schedule clashed with MGM, because he was busy filming Under The Influence.
  • The film was at one point to have been filmed in 3D; several scenes such as the appearance of the Beast and the flying chainsaw were filmed to take advantage of the process.
  • F. Murray Abraham turned down a role in order to star in Amadeus.

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