-title Poltergeist: Behind the Scenes of a Horror Classic
‘poltergeist‘ Actor reveals Practical Effects Secrets, Nearly Lost Face to Jello
Forty-two years after its release, details surrounding the making of the 1982 horror classic Poltergeist continue to surface, offering a glimpse into the ingenuity-and occasional mishaps-behind its iconic scares. Martin Casella, who played Dr. marty Casey, recently shared behind-the-scenes anecdotes detailing the practical effects used to create the film’s unsettling imagery.
Casella described the infamous scene involving a steak crawling across a kitchen countertop as achieved with a crew member operating chopsticks through a hidden track in the grouting.The maggots appearing on a discarded chicken leg were handled by on-set personnel to ensure no harm came to the creatures.
Perhaps the most startling revelation concerns the scene where Dr. Casey appears to tear off his own face. A full upper-body dummy was constructed, with a wig costing $10,000 (in 1981 dollars). Casella admitted he couldn’t convincingly perform the effect, leading director steven Spielberg to step in, using Casella’s ring for the shot. Later reshoots required three hours of prosthetic application, which were initially applied to the wrong side of Casella’s face due to a mirror image error.
A scene involving Casella’s character being lifted and bitten by a ghost, utilizing explosive squibs filled with detergent, was cut. The effects team jokingly referred to the effect as resembling ”ghost semen,” but Spielberg ultimately removed it because it detracted from JoBeth Williams’s powerful performance in a scene where her character senses her daughter’s peril, delivering the line, ”She went through my soul.”
Casella noted that Poltergeist initially faced an R rating due to its intensity, but Spielberg successfully argued for a PG rating-a rarity at the time, as the PG-13 rating didn’t exist until 1984 with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.