Poltergeist III

Poltergeist III (1988)

No matter where Carol Anne goes... she never goes alone.

Carol Anne has been sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle in an effort to hide her from the clutches of the ghostly Reverend Kane, but he tracks her down and terrorises her in her relatives' appartment in a tall glass building. Will he finally achieve his target and capture Carol Anne again, or will Tangina be able, yet again, to thwart him?

Date of release
1988-06-10
TMDB
5.2 / 10 (590)
Runtime
1h 38m
Genres
Horror, Thriller
Director
Gary Sherman
Collection
Poltergeist Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Chicago
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Poltergeist III is a 1988 American supernatural horror film co-written and directed by Gary Sherman, and starring Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen, Heather O'Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein with the latter two reprising their roles from the previous films. The third and final entry in the original Poltergeist film series, it follows young Carol Anne Freeling, who is terrorized by malicious spirits while staying in her aunt Pat and uncle Bruce's apartment at Chicago's John Hancock Center.

Production

Writer-director Gary Sherman drafted the original screenplay of Poltergeist III with screenwriter Brian Taggert, whom he had worked with on Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987). Sherman thought the idea of the city setting was just as scary as isolated suburbia. His feeling was that "there are people on the other side of the wall, and no one cares that you are in trouble".

Tom Skerritt was cast in the film as Bruce Gardner, a Chicago apartment building manager, while Nancy Allen was cast as Pat, Bruce's wife and the aunt of Carol Anne Freeling who becomes her temporary guardian. Heather O'Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein reprised their roles from the previous two films (as Carol Anne and Tangina Barrons, respectively) the only cast members to do so.

Principal photography of Poltergeist III began on April 6, 1987, and ended in June. Filming occurred throughout Chicago. The John Hancock Center served as the central high-rise building location, while additional photography occurred at the George Wellington Center, and the Francis W. Parker School, which stood in for Donna Gardner (Lara Flynn Boyle)'s high school. Additional non-location filming took place at Metropolitan Chicago Studios.

According to Nancy Allen, one of the earliest scenes she filmed was the finale sequence in which she and Skerritt's characters Pat and Bruce attempt to scale the building on a window cleaning platform. The sequence was filmed on a real platform and required the actors to stand on the platform approximately 100-stories high.

Unlike the previous films, nearly all of the special effects were live and were performed on stage. The only visual effect added in post-production was the lightning flashing over the John Hancock Center in the very final shot of the picture. Sherman himself designed the special visual effects.

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