The “Poltergeist” remake skulked into theaters this weekend, and its success will hinge on the ghost story’s ability to terrify an audience. Much of that burden falls on the actors’ shoulders, and “Poltergeist” has a steep challenge: Two of its leads are children.
So how exactly do you get kids to convincingly act frightened on screen?
Director Gil Kenan tells The Post that casting was “the most difficult part of the film,” precisely for this reason.
Ultimately, he wound up with Kennedi Clements, who was 7 when the film was shot, and Kyle Catlett, who was 11. The two play siblings haunted by spirits in their family’s new house.
“When you’re telling a suspense film through the eyes of a younger protagonist, that look in their eyes is not something you can fake,” Kenan says. “It was important that they could tell me stories where there was genuine fear.” Clements nailed her audition by talking about being terrified on a roller coaster.
Directors have used various methods to elicit realistic fear over the years.
Young Megan Charpentier has said that while filming 2013’s “Mama,” star Jessica Chastain advised her to do jumping jacks before a scary scene so she’d appear out of breath.
In “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” Danielle Harris, then 10, thought about not being able to see her dog again to summon the terror.
Director William Friedkin reportedly kept several loaded guns on the set of 1973’s “The Exorcist.”
He’d fire them at random to keep the cast, including young Linda Blair, on edge.
The set of “Poltergeist” was a bit more humane.
“When there are physical things happening on set, that creates its own tension,” Kenan says. In one sequence, for example, Clements is pulled through the house by the malevolent spirit, at one point getting dragged up a wall.
The young actor who played the comparable part in the 1982 original, Heather O’Rourke, also felt genuine fear during certain physical scenes. (She delivered the famous line “They’re heeere!”)
A bit in which O’Rourke’s bedroom shakes and a wind machine blows her toys into a closet panicked the 5-year-old and made her wet the bed.
Producer Steven Spielberg had to clean up the pee.