Poltergeist TV static. We’ve got one more Halloween-ish movie ambience before I start putting up all the Christmas lights. So get ready for eight hours of eerie but smooth TV static as we’re visiting the TV Static scene from Poltergeist(1982). And as far as TV static goes, the Poltergeist static is super chill (minus the disembodied voices). Growing up, the static I was used to on our television was harsh and tinny.
I do want to say that, as usual, there will be no jump scares or anything overly terrifying. This is a place for relaxation and tuning out a mad, mad world.
This week’s episode is a love letter to a favorite scary movie that somehow made televisions in the bedroom a faux pas (not to mention ripping one’s face off in a vanity—don’t do that).
TV static is what us fogies had to deal with during the overnight hours of cable and local television. In the old days, channels would go dark for the night; it was called sign-off. Sign-off would typically be the Star Spangled Banner with beauty shots of whatever town the TV station was based out of (although in Georgia, Ray Charles, Georgia was the far superior sign-off music).
I’m assuming the Freelings went to bed watching Carson and inadvertently left open a humming static portal to the other side. The disturbed dead could apparently communicate and manifest ghostly hands from the humming static.
And spoilers, this is because the dead are in the front and back yard. Lying just below the new construction of their cookie-cutter suburban community.
“YOU SON OF A *****, YOU MOVED THE CEMETERY, BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES, DIDNCHA!”
Hope y’all have a safe and happy Halloween, and see you on the otherside in Christmasland.