Poltergeist

The summer of "E.T." was also the summer of another, darker vision of suburbia from Steven Spielberg. Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") is the director of record on "Poltergeist," an eerily effective ghost story about a suburban family under attack by spirits, but you can see the fingerprints of writer and producer Spielberg in the spot-on details of middle-class life and family dynamics. What might have been a collision of sensibilities actually melds quite effectively. The nightmarish haunting is the flip side of Spielberg's sense of wonder and fantasy, and the convincing family chemistry gives an urgency to the parents' desperation to save their abducted daughter from the spirit world. Plus, Hooper creates some really creepy scenes. Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams star as the parents, Beatrice Straight is a paranormal expert, and Zelda Rubinstein co-stars. The new edition features the two-part documentary "They Are Here: The Real World of Poltergeists."