Director: Tobe Hooper
Year Released: 1982
Rating: 1.5
Aside from the special effects not aging particularly well, this popular sci-fi film about alien visitors from the beyond is mighty ridiculous stuff, even on its own terms. After the television sucks a little girl into the world of pink ectoplasm (the womb!), her family goes all out to rescue her, even using the Yellow Pages to look up parapsychologist (!) who has had plenty of experience dealing with animated trees and volcanic anuses that form in bedrooms. It turns out that the 'beasts of the beyond' are present because of the sins of the Father (both Craig T. Nelson and Big Business), who built the house over a burial site without moving the bodies out (this is a typical Spielbergian element - The Bad Dad); I know if contractors built a Kinko's over my remains I might come back with a vengeance. Further, I am a little conflicted as to what's scarier: Hooper's cheap fright tactics (wild strobe lights, plastic skeletons in muddy swimming pools) or the prospect of having reformed Hippie parents who smoke pot before going to bed and read books about Reagan.
