Another such season is Halloween, or All Hallows\u2019 Eve<\/a>. \u00a0I know, and I call myself a Christian! \u00a0Well, as I\u2019ve said before, the whole Halloween thing always set my blood to running since as a kid, I knew more than anything it meant Christmas was just around the corner. \u00a0Plus, Halloween is just too darn cool. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean the horror\u00a0schlock\u00a0that passes today, with gore and blood and guts and zombies eating human limbs and all. \u00a0Nor do I mean the sexed up \u2018dress your eight year old daughter like a porn star\u2019 rubbish that one finds typical in our enlightened age.<\/p>\n I mean the good old ghouls and ghosts and goblin hosts. \u00a0The stuff that sends that little shiver down your spine, that people in olden days used to believe, and today perhaps not enough. \u00a0It\u2019s noteworthy that the Catholic Church says nothing about there being no ghosts or a spirit world one way or another. \u00a0That\u2019s fine with me. \u00a0Call me a skeptic, but I don\u2019t put much stock in it. \u00a0I do appreciate the feelings people have for it, and find it a healthier\u00a0pastime\u00a0than those dedicated to insisting that there is nothing beyond the material. <\/p>\n So since I do appreciate that feeling that the dead might be getting closer to the living at this time, it\u2019s easy to sit back and find a ton of things to do. \u00a0We always have our annual \u2018Ghost<\/a>\u00a0Walks<\/a>\u2018, where we frequent cemeteries and find old gravestones or\u00a0mausoleums\u00a0to remind us that from dust we came, and unto dust we will\u00a0return. \u00a0Cemeteries with old iron fences or twisted and gnarled trees get a bonus point. \u00a0We also do lantern walks, with lanterns fashioned at Colonial Williamsburg that we purchased all those ages ago when we actually had, you know, money.<\/p>\n And of course, thanks to the Hollywood obsession with the subject, we watch a truckload of movies and specials. \u00a0Because of the hurried schedule our boys have in school, we\u2019ve had to spread things out and start earlier than we used to. \u00a0Used to be we didn\u2019t even think \u2018fall stuff\u2019 until October. \u00a0But now we begin in September, with the first apple cider and pumpkin donuts. \u00a0We start by plopping in the old Universal monster movies: movies featuring\u00a0Frankenstein\u00a0and his Bride, the Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mummy, the Invisible Man. \u00a0Not all of them each year, but usually the first three in some order. <\/p>\n By October, we begin watching Halloween specials, including the Simpsons\u2019 all too cool\u00a0Tree House\u00a0of Horror series (at least the first seasons when they were good), the previously mentioned Disney special<\/a> which kicks it off, and of course no season is complete without the Great Pumpkin. \u00a0We also do haunted drives, try to find haunted locales and see various haunted looking houses (Delaware has its fair share).<\/p>\n Since the oldest boys are older, we can get some of the more intense\u00a0films, though we won\u2019t show them productions stocked with sex or sexual imagery or too vulgar or gory. \u00a0At this stage, they are able to see a few of them, and one that now graces the annual schedules is 1981\u2019s Poltergeist<\/i>. \u00a0We first watched it a couple years ago, but the younger of the older three weren\u2019t ready for it, and we spent several nights sharing our bed with them after the watching. \u00a0But this year we tried it again. \u00a0While the basic spookiness and creepiness (and Craig T. Nelson coolness) was still on display, there was only one renegade child up at night because of it.<\/p>\n Now one of the things the boys love to do, especially after watching a movie for the first time, is rush to the Internet to find out trivia and details. \u00a0And now we approach our long awaited point! \u00a0So, in keeping with their own tradition, the net was consulted for all manner of Poltergeist\u00a0<\/i>trivia. \u00a0Naturally, as Google is wont to do, one of the first resources to pop up on the list was the Wikipedia article<\/a>. \u00a0We read through it together. \u00a0And then we came to the \u2018Reception\u2019 section. \u00a0That is, how was the film received.<\/p>\n And what did it say? \u00a0Why, to read the article, it was ever and always celebrated and praised. \u00a0It was loved. It was considered a classic. \u00a0It was better than Citizen Kane<\/i>! \u00a0OK, it didn\u2019t say that. \u00a0But why should I worry about things like facts and details when Wikipedia, the number one source for information in the Internet Age, doesn\u2019t? \u00a0According to the article, it was well received and generally praised by critics.<\/p>\n Allow me to retort. \u00a0No it wasn\u2019t. \u00a0It is now. \u00a0And there are some now who dare suggest that this movie has more staying power than the other\u00a0Spielberg\u00a0movie released that year called E.T<\/i>. \u00a0Yet when it came out, the response was divided at best, with virtually all the praise being reserved for young Elliot and his extra-terrestrial\u00a0friend. \u00a0I happened to catch\u00a0Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel all but panning \u00a0it, setting it against the oh-so superior E.T. <\/i>\u00a0Everywhere\u00a0that E.T<\/i>. triumphed,\u00a0Poltergeist\u00a0<\/i>faltered. \u00a0Nothing but low grade rubbish in comparison. \u00a0Spielberg should have focused on E.T.<\/i> and let the horror to someone else. <\/p>\n Of course some critics may have liked it. \u00a0But the ones I heard locally, in addition to Siskil and Ebert, generally panned the movie. \u00a0As I said, it has certainly gained traction in recent years, an How can the wiki article say otherwise? Easy. \u00a0Follow the sources. \u00a0Notice that all of the sources from that section are from works many\u00a0years\u00a0later. \u00a0They are not from the actual critics of the day. \u00a0One source was written in 2000 for goodness sake. \u00a0So we have a picture painted that simply is not accurate. \u00a0No matter how you slice it, having the two biggest movie critics of the age pan your film does not make it well received.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/715\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-NFd-iSpc9s8\/UFxlpLAgj_I\/AAAAAAAABnY\/3lfa7Jk67Ks\/s320\/apple+cider+pic.jpg\")
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\nd there are those who say it is now far better in the long run than E.T. \u00a0Others like them both. \u00a0Many look back at it as a\u00a0turning-point\u00a0in modern horror movies. \u00a0Yes, nowadays, most critics seem to praise\u00a0Poltergeist<\/i>. \u00a0But it was not always so.<\/p>\n
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