The  exteriors were shot at Simi Valley, California while Mike Muscarella, the Construction Coordinator, oversaw the construction of the interior sets at MGM.

According to Richard Edlund, lingering thoughts of  a director’s strike rushed Poltergeist into production.

“That way, even if the strike happened, we’d still be able to continue the effects end of it.”

-Richard Edlund  from Cinefex #10.

Matthew Leonetti served as the Director of Photography. According to Leonetti, 90% of the movie takes place on a stage:

“We worked on a set 10 out of the 12 weeks. The only time we were inside the house was when they in the kitchen looking out and they were digging with a big tractor. Any other times when looked outside to see the hills and all that background. The rest of it was on a stage.“

The filmmakers filmed the first act of the film in a pretty mundane way so that the rest of the movie could be more dramatic.

Leonetti brought in his own equipment, including a custom 35 mm, called the Ultracam, that he built with his father. The Ultracam was designed to be as silent and light as possible. Cinevision animorphic lenses were used on the film. Leonetti used “hard light” to light a great deal of the scenes to make the them seem “crisper and richer.”

Many in-camera tricks were used in the film. For the now famous “They’re here!” moment, simple strobe lights were used to create the flickering light effect that is supposed to be coming from the television.

For another strobe effect in the film, the incredible light coming from the children’s closet, two 2500wtt HMI spotlights were put behind a wheel creating a “shutter” effect. They varied the speed of the wheel with a dimmer to make the rays of light less consistent. Two more spotlight were used little pieces of mirror glued to a board with springs to make smaller rays of light for some of the shots.

The scene where Diane turns and finds the chairs arranged on the table was done all in one shot. As the actress and camera turns away from the table many crew members would quickly place an already assembled group of chairs and get rid of the previous chairs as quickly as possible.

The exterior shot of Lesh’s office building was shot on the campus of the University of California Irvine. Scifi fans might recognize this location as the setting for Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

In an interview with AMC, JoBeth Williams commented on her experiences of making Poltergeist:

“The whole thing was an incredible education for me because Steven Spielberg was very intimately involved in making every part of that movie. To be around him and watch how he worked, absorb his extraordinary energy and excitement at making movies was thrilling.”

Williams also commented on working with Spielberg in a 1982 newspaper article:

“I had no idea what these special effects would looks like. Steven would hold up a stick and say, ‘this is your eye line – follow this.’ Then he’d say, ‘now you’re really scared.’ And I’d say, ‘what am I really scared of?’ And he’d say, ‘we don’t really know what it’s going to look like, but it’s really scary.’  So we really had to use our own imaginations.”

Tobe Hooper was hired to direct, something which later become somewhat of a massive controversy. Spielberg had seen Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and loved it. Spielberg said about TCM:

“It’s a real cult film, I know, but one of the most truly visceral movies ever made. “Essentially it starts inside the stomach and ends in the heart. As a filmmaker who likes to see everything, I loved it.”

Spielberg then approached Hooper to direct the film.

As the move was about to be released, rumors started flying that Spielberg was the actual director of the film. As stated earlier, Spielberg had a great deal of control over the production, and even seemed to suggest that Hooper wasn’t always the man in charge:

“Tobe isn’t… a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forth-coming, I’d jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that become the process of collaboration.“

Spielberg published an open letter to Hooper in the Hollywood Reporter stating:

“Regrettably, some of the press has misunderstood the rather unique, creative relationship which you and I shared throughout the making of Poltergeist. I enjoyed your openness in allowing me a wide berth for creative involvement, just as I know you were happy with the freedom you had to direct Poltergeist so wonderfully. Through the screenplay you accepted a vision of this very intense movie from the start, and as the director, you delivered the goods. You performed responsibly and professionally throughout, and I wish you great success on your next project.“

In a newspaper article, JoBeth Williams commented on the controversial subject:

“Even though Tobe was and participating, you felt that Steven had final say. Sometimes Steven would tell us one thing and Tobe another. But they soon realized that was doing us more harm than good, so they stopped. Later on, whatever discussions Tobe and Steven had, they held in private and then came to us with their decisions.”

In a 2007 interview with Ain’t It Cool News, actress Zelda Rubinstein stated :

“I can tell you that Steven directed all six days I was there. I only worked six days on the film and Steven was there. Tobe set up the shots and Steven made the adjustments. You’re not going to hear that from Tobe Hooper, you’ll hear it from Zelda, because that was my honest to God experience. ” She then added: “I don’t know how to say this… he allowed some unacceptable chemical agents into his work. I felt that immediately. I felt that when I first interviewed for the job. Steven was there, Tobe was there, two casting people from MGM were there and I felt at that time Tobe was only partially there. “

In a recent article with SFX magazine, Craig Reardon shared his views.

“If there was a sense that Spielberg was injecting himself more and more, it was less to do with Tobe as a director than it was he maybe wasn’t moving along fast enough.” Later adding, “My feeling is that he might have been piling some expectations  onto Tobe that perhaps he was not aware of or that Tobe could not fulfill.“

For some, the issue is still up in the air, but no matter who truly deserves the director’s credit, there’s no denying that Spielberg was a massive part of the creative force of Poltergeist. In the Fangoria interview, Frank Marshall had this to say:

“From the start, it’s been Steven’s movie-from the idea to the treatment to the design of each storyboard and on from there; and he closely controlled each aspect of it’s production. It’s a Steven Spielberg production and he wanted it to be the film that he envisioned.”

The legacy of Poltergeist begins with Raiders of the Lost Ark. During the production of Raiders, Steven Spielberg headlined discussions for what soon became Poltergeist. In a 1982 interview with Fangoria Magazine, Producer Frank Marshall said:

“Steven had always wanted to do a ghost story. So we talked about doing a ghost story that would be allied in approach with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, exploring parapsychology and ghost phenomena in the same way CE3K explored UFO phenomena.”

Steven soon began transferring his ideas to paper. Marshall continued:

“Steven wrote the treatment while we were working on Raiders. I have no idea where he found the time, he must have written it in the car between the hotel and the studio!”

Soon after, MGM Studios bought the story, and Spielberg remained and kept a great deal of control as his treatment grew into script and then into a movie.

The original treatment was called It’s Nighttime. It differed from the final film in many ways, including characters names and events. An archaeological dig played a pivotal part of the story and the ending was quite different. Instead of the house disappearing into thin air, an evacuation of the towns people was considered. (You can read the story treatment here)

Screenwriters Michael Grais and Mark Victor were then hired to do the script, after being confronted about writing a remake of A Guy Named Joe, which later became Always. Spielberg then re-wrote the script.

In the script, Marty is reffered to as Tak, and actor Martin Casella did not know the character’s name was changed until he heard the line “Marty won’t be coming back.”

Spielberg later compared Poltergeist to Close Encounters saying:

” I never thought of UFOs as a threat to humans but rather, I think of them as something capble of giving mankind hope. I hold the same kind of views towards ghostly hauntings. And that is clearly expressed in this movie just as with Close Encounters. The important work that kids do in this picture is another shared trait between both pictures. But while Close Encounters dealt with wonder and awe as it’s themes,this film is characterized by the themes of crisis and horror.“

The filmmaker’s took  believability  into consideration and set the movie in a realistic universe of a typical, suburban neighborhood. Not only that but average, human phobias (a fear of clowns) and worries (losing a loved one) were put in, making many of the scary and suspensful moments relatable to an everyday audience. The idea being that the Beast “knows what scares you” and will use that fear against you. And it worked, The clown scene is debatably the biggest scare. I know it made me jump!

It was also very important to the filmmakers that the film get a PG rating. During the promotion for the film, the filmmakers would emphasize that the film has very little gore and how it is still scary even though no one dies in the film. In an promotional materials, Spielberg is quoted to saying: 

“There are no knifings, no murders, and no decapitated heads. We do have one scene which appears to be instantly violent and gory, but it turns out to be a quick hallucination.”

The film originally got an R rating which was later appealled, and the MPAA gave the film a PG rating.