Poltergeist is one of the greatest of all horror films, because it gets the bulk of its scares from general creepiness, jump-inducing surprises, and horrifying imagery. It seldom relies on any sort of gore or violence – and even managed to pull off a PG rating, so I could justify showing this film to Ashleigh and Briana when they were quite young. But there is one scene that involves a bit of gore, and it is that disgusting, disturbing scene that ultimately comes to mind whenever I think about the film Poltergeist. As you might guess from the photo above, it is the scene in which the young parapsychologist Marty hallucinates that he rips off his own face in front of a mirror.
That young man was Martin Casella, a former assistant to Steven Spielberg on the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg co-wrote the screenplay and co-produces Poltergeist, so it is relatively clear that he was the one responsible for getting his former assistant a role in the film.
Casella went on to do very little in the acting realm, but based on the strength of the iconic film – and in particular this memorable scene – he appeared at the Chiller Theatre celebrity show in Parsippany, New Jersey, on October 27, 2012.
He was a very friendly guy and related the tale of how it is only actually him in the opening seconds of the ‘face removal’ scene and that it becomes a dummy with fake flesh for the duration. This dissuaded me from having him autograph a photo of the ‘skull’ since of course it’s not really him in the picture (as in the one seen at the top of the posting). He also told me how the hands removing the flesh actually belonged to Steven Spielberg himself.
It was a mild, but pretty interesting and conversation-worthy encounter. And it was certainly good to see that all of Martin Casella’s flesh was intact.
Celebrities of the Fall 2012 Chiller Theatre Show will continue…
How strange — I have absolutely zero recollection of seeing him or taking those photographs at the Chiller show.
Peter
May 28th, 2013