Poltergeist

Question: What exactly is the red slime on the body of Carol Anne and her mother after they are rescued from the another dimension?

Answer: Ectoplasm.

Phixius

Question: What exactly did the ghosts want with Carol Anne?

Answer: They were attracted to her life force. She was such a young child, that it was particularly pure and strong within her.

raywest

Answer: They were partly attracted to Carol Anne because she she was born in her house.

She was not literally born inside the house. She was born while the family was living there.

raywest

The movie literally says she was born IN the house. When Teague asks, "One of your children was born in your house, huh?" and Steve replies, "Carol Anne."

Question: Why was only the Freelings' house sucked into the vortex? Since it was discovered that the developer only moved the headstones but left the bodies, shouldn't other houses that were also built over the cemetery have also been dragged in?

Answer: It seems that the majority of the activity was focusing in on the Freeling house exclusively. It's not fully explained why they were the only house affected, but there are a number of possibilities. Possibly because it's where the highest concentration of spirits were at unrest. Possibly because it could be inferred that the Freelings moved in first given Steven was involved with the company that built the community, and thus they became the first targets. And possibly because they were trying to get to Carol-Anne since she was an easy target.

Also, it is mentioned in the movie that Carol Anne was actually born in the house. That likely caused everything to focus on her.

It was not meant that Carol Anne was literally born inside the house, just while the family was living there. It was just a casual colloquial expression Steven's boss made.

raywest

Answer: A poltergeist haunts a person rather than a place. Though building the neighborhood over their graves is what initially disturbed the ghosts, they are fixated on Carol Anne.

TonyPH

Answer: The poltergeists wanted to let the Freeling family know (in a dramatic, yet harmless way) of their presence and abilities to not only move objects, but to arrange objects to signal the family they were dealing with an intelligent entity.

Scott215

Question: Is there any particular reason the ghosts are still there after Tangina has declared the place clean, other than these are just the biggest, baddest ghosts on the block? I'm fine with that explanation but I always wondered if there was more to it.

TonyPH

Answer: Tangina may have believed the house was "clean," but the dark spirit she called the "Beast" was more powerful than she realised and was preventing the other spirits from moving on. The real estate development that the Freelings' house was built on was supposed to be a former cemetery. However, no-one, including Tangina, knew that the bodies were still buried there (the developers had only moved the tombstones) and was why the spirits were angry.

raywest

Question: How could any electrical lines, water pipes or even the basement be placed under the house without graves being discovered?

Answer: As you could see at the end in the pool, the graves were buried really deep. Obviously below the sewage and water lines.

lionhead

Continuity mistake: At the start of the film, the dog is seen going from room to room looking for food. Just before he goes into Dana's room, someone can be seen through the crack in the door, moving from left to right.

More mistakes in Poltergeist

Carol Anne Freeling: They're here.

More quotes from Poltergeist

Trivia: While filming the toy clown attacking Robbie, the clown's arms were wrapped tightly around Oliver's neck. He immediately said he couldn't breathe but Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper both thought that he was ad-libbing. When Spielberg saw Oliver's face turning purple, he realised that he really was being asphyxiated and ran over to remove the arms from his neck.

More trivia for Poltergeist

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