Poltergeist II: The Other Side

Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Timing: 1:31 (91 min)

6/10
634

5.896/10
2661

5.7/10
33000

All about film

Video 7

Photo 46

Actors and characters

Release date

1986-05-23

Country

United States

Production

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Genre

Horror, Thriller

Budget

$19 000 000

Revenue

$40 996 665

Website

Director

Brian Gibson

Actors

Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Oliver Robins, Zelda Rubinstein, Will Sampson, Julian Beck, Geraldine Fitzgerald, John P. Whitecloud, Noble Craig
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Michael Grais, Mark Victor, Freddie Fields

Operator

Andrew Laszlo

Composer

Jerry Goldsmith

Artist

Audition

Joseph D'Agosta, Monica Swann

Editing

Thom Noble, Bud S. Smith
All team (18)

• Filming took place in the town of Chinle (Arizona) and Suntill (California).
• There is an extended 130-minute version of the film that provides more detail about the story of Reverend Henry Kane, and also mentions that the Springs' eldest daughter, Dana, is studying at college in another city.
• The fate of some of the lead actors turned out to be much more tragic: actress Dominique Dunne, who played the eldest daughter in the Spring family, was strangled by a jealous boyfriend.
• Young actress Heather O’Rourke, who played the youngest daughter, died of heart failure during the filming of the third "Poltergeist." She was only twelve years old and was buried in the same cemetery as Dominic Dunn.
• Actor Julian Beck died between the second and third "Poltergeist" films.
• The house itself, which "played" the Freeling family home in the film, was destroyed during the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake.
• Of all the family members on screen, only Dana is missing, who, according to the script, is studying at university, but the scene in which the reason for her absence is conveyed to the audience was never filmed. Dominic Dunn, who played Dana in Tobe Hooper's 'Poltergeist' (1982), was killed by her friend John Thomas Sweeney (who later changed his name to 'John Maura' and disappeared) shortly after the premiere of Hooper's horror film. In the last film, Dana is not mentioned at all, nor is her university studies. The filmmakers decided to say goodbye to this character and not cast anyone else for the role out of respect for the memory of the deceased actress.
• Julian Beck (who played Kane) looks simply awful on screen. It was all due to the cancer from which he soon died.
• Initially, the film was supposed to be 131 minutes long, but its duration was then cut to 91 minutes. There is an opinion that the management of MGM insisted on the speedy completion of the film, and that they ordered the removal of certain scenes from the script altogether (for example, the final fight with Kane, which lasts two minutes). This greatly disappointed Zelda Rubinstein (who played Tangina), who believed that the best scenes with her participation had been removed from the film.
• During the work on the scene where real corpses were used instead of mannequins, an entire day's work went to waste because the film was somehow overexposed. Everything had to be reshot, which cost $50,000 - $100,000. The night before the reshoot, Will Sampson (who played Taylor) was forced to perform an exorcism on the set to drive out evil spirits and calm the frightened actors and technical staff, who had genuinely begun to believe that the entire franchise was cursed. This wasn't the first time real corpses were used, rather than props. In the first film of the franchise, real skeletons were used in the scene at the Indian cemetery.
• Julian Beck died of cancer shortly after filming wrapped. Some of his lines were dubbed by Corey Burton during post-production. He later said that, thanks to the sound operators, he himself could no longer distinguish between the lines spoken by Beck and those he dubbed.
• MGM hired the famous Swiss artist H.R. Giger to create concept art, in particular Kane as the Beast, who appears in astral form in the final of the film. Giger did not want to leave Zurich for long, so during the work on the film, his colleague Cornelius De Fries represented Giger on set. Giger was disappointed with the final result, and later stated that this was because he was not present on set himself.
• There is an opinion that the first three films of the franchise fell victim to the "poltergeist curse". After filming the first film, actress Dominique Dunn died at the hands of her friend. Actor Will Sampson died after filming. Heather O'Rourke died shortly before the completion of the third film. Many other actors also had a difficult time later on.
• Of all the family members on screen, only Dana is missing, who, according to the script, is studying at university, but the scene explaining her absence was never filmed. Dominique Dunne, who played Dana in Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” (1982), was killed by her acquaintance John Thomas Sweeney (who later changed his name to “John Maura” and disappeared) shortly after the premiere of Hooper’s horror film. In the final film, Dana is not mentioned at all, nor is her university studies. The filmmakers decided to say goodbye to this character and not cast anyone else in the role out of respect for the deceased actress.
• There is an opinion that the first three films of the franchise fell victim to the “Poltergeist curse.” After the filming of the first film, actress Dominique Dunne died at the hands of her friend. Actor Will Sampson died after filming. Shortly before the completion of the third film, Heather O’Rourke died. Many other actors also had a hard time later on.