Why Poltergeist’s Ending Used Real Human Skeletons

Poltergeist‘s ending sees the Freelings encounter multiple skeletons arising out of the ground, skeletons that once in fact belonged to real people. When it comes to ghost movies, few command as much respect as 1982’s Poltergeist. While there’s been a debate ever since its release about who really directed Poltergeist – some involved say credited director Tobe Hooper, other insist it was producer Steven Spielberg – the final product remains great, regardless of who was steering the ship.

Set in the quiet California suburb of Cuesta Verde, Poltergeist looks at what happens when the life of a seemingly quite normal family suddenly gets turned upside down by supernatural events. The Freelings find themselves menaced by the spirits of the dead, particularly one dubbed “The Beast,” who seek to use their young daughter Carol Anne’s strong life essence to guide them into the afterlife. Helping the Freelings prevent that fate is Tangina, an odd but powerful psychic, and a team of university paranormal researchers.

It’s famously revealed near the end of Poltergeist that the creators of Cuesta Verde actually built the community on top of an old cemetery, and didn’t bother to move the bodies buried there, understandably angering their ghosts. This includes a bunch of skeletons that emerge from the ground, shocking the Freelings, in scenes made all the scarier by where those skeletons came from.

Why Poltergeist’s Ending Used Real Human Skeletons

In one of Poltergeist‘s most memorable scenes, the thought gone Beast attempts to reacquire Carol Anne, with the Freeling house going absolutely insane in the process. During this, Diane Freeling (JoBeth Williams) is unwillingly sent for a dip in the family’s swimming pool, now filled with mud thanks to the heavy rain pouring down. Oh yeah, and as Diane soon realizes, it’s also packed full of corpses. The people buried underneath their house are demanding to be heard, in the form of scaring the crap out of the Freelings with their horrifying skeletons.

This sequence is one of the most unsettling in the film, and it turns out that, unbeknownst to Williams, the skeletons used were taken from actual human beings. According to crew members, Poltergeist purchased these skeletons from a medical supply company, as doing so apparently cost much less than creating fake skeletons or purchasing pre-made skeleton replicas. This is the kind of thing that Hollywood used to sometimes do that would never fly today, as one can only imagine the online hysteria if a current movie was found to be using real human corpses to spice up their horror film. Interestingly, the use of real skeletons is often cited by proponents of the so-called “Poltergeist curse,” which alleges that those involved with the franchise ended up marked by dark forces.

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