Poltergeist Trivia
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50 free Poltergeist trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Poltergeist trivia questions with answers. This Poltergeist trivia quiz digs into the 1982 film that made a generation afraid of static-filled televisions, clown dolls and backyard trees. It covers the Freeling family and Cuesta Verde, the medium Tangina and 'the Beast', the Oscar nominations it lost to E.T., and the long-running argument over who really directed it. It also goes beyond the first film: Poltergeist II and Reverend Kane, Poltergeist III in Chicago's John Hancock Center, the 2015 remake, the Showtime series that borrowed the name, and the tragedies that fed the legend of a 'Poltergeist curse'. A few questions cover the word itself and famous real-world cases like Enfield and the Bell Witch. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries the sentence that supports it, so the answer key is safe to argue over.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Steven Spielberg produced and co-wrote Poltergeist, but who is its credited director?
Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper holds the sole directing credit, but the Directors Guild investigated whether Spielberg was undermining it, and Spielberg published an open letter praising Hooper's work.
Q 02Poltergeist's child lost in another dimension echoes 'Little Girl Lost', an episode of which TV series?
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone: in 'Little Girl Lost' a girl slips through her bedroom wall into another dimension, heard but not seen by her family, and its writer, Richard Matheson, noted the resemblance himself.
Q 03Poltergeist grew from a scrapped horror sequel Spielberg planned to which of his films?
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: the follow-up, Night Skies, would have had hostile aliens terrorising a farm family, an idea Spielberg took from a 1955 UFO scare in Kentucky.
Q 04What is the name of the planned California community where the Freeling family lives?
Cuesta Verde
Cuesta Verde exists only on screen: the Freelings' street is a real one in Simi Valley, California, and the storm that tears through it was staged on soundstages in Culver City.
Q 05Through which toy do the spirits first reach Carol Anne in Poltergeist II?
A toy telephone
A toy telephone: it rings in the night after her grandmother's death, and when Carol Anne answers, spirits burst out of the receiver and the other toys in her room come to life.
Q 06Carol Anne first communicates with the spirits through which household object?
The television set
The television set: she talks to the static after the station signs off, and in the film's final shot her father pushes the motel-room set out onto the balcony.
Q 07What two-word line does Carol Anne deliver as the family is shaken awake by a quake?
"They're here."
"They're here." The American Film Institute ranked it 69th among the greatest movie quotes, and the sequel had Carol Anne answer it with 'They're back', the line on its poster.
Q 08During the thunderstorm, Robbie is dragged out of his bedroom window by what?
The backyard tree
The backyard tree smashes a branch through the window and tries to swallow him, and while the family runs out to save him, the bedroom closet takes Carol Anne.
Q 09Which four-word verdict does the medium pronounce after Carol Anne's rescue, only to be proved wrong?
"This house is clean."
"This house is clean." Soon after, as the family packs to leave, the attacks return worse than before and the whole house implodes.
Q 10Beatrice Straight, Poltergeist's Dr. Lesh, won an Oscar for which 1976 film?
Network
Network: Straight plays the wife who confronts William Holden over his affair, and about five minutes on screen were enough to win her Best Supporting Actress.
Q 11What is the name of the diminutive spiritual medium Dr. Lesh calls in?
Tangina Barrons
Tangina Barrons, played by Zelda Rubinstein in all three films, is killed in the third and still comes back from the dead to hand the family her necklace.
Q 12What does the medium call the demonic presence holding Carol Anne captive in Poltergeist?
The Beast
The Beast, she says, is using Carol Anne's life force to stop the other spirits from moving on; the sequel gives it a human past as the leader of a doomed cult.
Q 13In Poltergeist, the spirits' dimension is entered through the children's closet; where is its exit?
The living room ceiling
Q 21Which actor played Steve Freeling, the father, in Poltergeist?
Craig T. Nelson
Craig T. Nelson had walked away from a comedy career in 1973, built his own house in the northern California mountains and lived on odd jobs for five years before he returned to acting.
Q 22JoBeth Williams, Poltergeist's Diane Freeling, made her film debut opposite Dustin Hoffman in which film?
Kramer vs. Kramer
Kramer vs. Kramer: Williams plays the woman Ted Kramer brings home, who is quizzed by his small son when he meets her walking naked to the bathroom.
Q 23In Poltergeist, the shot of Diane dragged up the wall and across the ceiling was achieved how?
A static camera in a rotating set
The living room ceiling: a rope thrown into the closet drops out of it, so Diane ties herself on, goes in after Carol Anne, and the two fall out downstairs coated in ectoplasm.
Q 14Popular memory puts Poltergeist's haunted estate on a Native American burial ground; what does Steve's boss say it really covers?
A former cemetery
A former cemetery: the developers moved the headstones but left the bodies, which burst out of the swimming-pool pit and the lawn in the finale.
Q 15Which of Robbie's toys grabs him and drags him under the bed in Poltergeist's finale?
A clown doll
A clown doll wraps its arms round his neck, and when Diane runs to help, an unseen force drags her up the wall and across the ceiling.
Q 16Poltergeist received three Academy Award nominations and lost every one of them to which film?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial opened a week after Poltergeist and beat it for score, sound effects editing and visual effects, so Spielberg's own film defeated the one he had produced.
Q 17Who composed the score for Poltergeist?
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith said he shaped the music with producer Spielberg alone and that the film's director took no part, one more spark for the row over who really made it.
Q 18The MPAA first gave Poltergeist which rating, before the filmmakers had it changed on appeal?
R
R was softened to PG after Spielberg argued the case in person, and he went on pressing for a rating in between, which arrived two years later as PG-13.
Q 19Which studio released Poltergeist on June 4, 1982?
MGM/UA
MGM/UA sold the film on its producer, printing 'A Steven Spielberg Production' twice as large as the director's name in its trailers, and an arbitrator made the studio pay him $15,000.
Q 20Zelda Rubinstein's turn as the medium in Poltergeist won her which award for Best Supporting Actress?
A Saturn Award
A Saturn Award, the prize for science fiction, fantasy and horror: she won it for the first film, then drew Golden Raspberry nominations for playing the same part in both sequels.
A static camera in a rotating set: the bedroom turned with the camera fixed to it, the same trick that let Fred Astaire dance up the walls in Royal Wedding.
Q 24Which animated series spoofed Poltergeist in 'Bad Dream House', a segment of its first Halloween special?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons moved into a house built on a Native American burial ground in 1990's first 'Treehouse of Horror', a nod to Poltergeist even though the 1982 film has no such burial ground.
Q 25Poltergeist cases are popularly said to centre on which kind of household member?
An adolescent
An adolescent, usually: sceptics point out that the disturbances tend to stop when strangers are watching and that many cases turned out to be a child's hoax.
Q 26Which artist was commissioned to design the creatures for Poltergeist II?
H. R. Giger
H. R. Giger, the Swiss painter behind the monster in Alien, sent drawings from Zurich for others to build, and later blamed his absence from the set for the disappointing results.
Q 27In Poltergeist II, the family's tormentor is revealed as the spirit of an insane 19th-century preacher named what?
Henry Kane
Henry Kane led a religious sect into the desert in the 1800s, and his followers died with him in a cavern beneath the ground where the Freelings' house was later built.
Q 28What is the subtitle of Poltergeist II, the 1986 sequel?
The Other Side
The Other Side is the limbo the Freelings enter through a cavern under their old home, where Steve drives off the monster with a charmed spear from the shaman Taylor.
Q 29In Poltergeist II, Steve becomes possessed after drunkenly swallowing what?
A mezcal worm
A mezcal worm at the bottom of the bottle carries the villain into Steve; when Diane fights him off he vomits it up, and it swells into a tentacled monster.
Q 30Will Sampson (Poltergeist II's Taylor) was best known as Chief Bromden in which film?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the first acting job for Will Sampson, a painter and rodeo rider, and he died in 1987, a year after playing the shaman Taylor.