'Poltergeist' is a supernatural horror film directed by Tobe Hooper with a screenplay by Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, and Mark Victor. It premiered successfully at the box office, and over time it has become a cult film, especially in the paranormal and horror genres.

A typical middle-class American family moves to a new housing development in Cuesta Verde, California. The youngest daughter, Carol Anne, begins to talk to the television on standby in the middle of the night while a series of paranormal events occur in the home: "they're here," she claims one day. The phenomena become increasingly sinister, and during an attempted abduction of the middle son, Robbie, Carol Anne crosses a portal and is seemingly trapped inside the television.

Parapsychologist Martha Lesh asserts that the house is suffering from a poltergeist because the housing development is being built over an old cemetery. Lesh contacts a medium, Tangina Barrons, who is responsible for analyzing the ghosts and the forces that are trapping Carol Anne in an attempt to free her.

With a box office gross of $76.6 million, 'Poltergeist' was the highest-grossing horror film of 1982 and the eighth highest-grossing film of the year in the United States.