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Explaining That "Weird" Cut In Poltergeist. Read The Missing Scene

Why Is There A Strange Cut In The 1982 Horror Classic, Poltergeist?

If you're a fan of the 1982 Horror classic, Poltergeist then you will be very familiar with that "weird" cut in the movie.  It's 32 minutes and 47 seconds in to the movie and the scene is where Diane is explaining the strange phenomenon that is happening in the kitchen.  First, she shows to Steve a chair scraping across the floor all on its own then she does the same with Carol Anne.  Steve leans up against the kitchen wall and is completely shocked at what just happened.  It's at this point Diane starts to explain the sensation of being pulled and then...A very abrupt cut.  One moment we are listening to Diane and suddenly it cuts to Diane and Steve at their next door neighbours door.  Why the sudden cut?  It's on the VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and even the streaming versions.  Why does this awful and weird cut exist in the movie, Poltergeist?  Watch the clip below to see the cut:


Well, the answer is to do with Pizza Hut.  You see, at the beginning of that scene mentioned above, Carol Ann appears and is promised a visit to Pizza Hut.

CAROL ANNE
Mommy didn’t cook any dinner.

DIANE
(loud)
We’ll go to Pizza Hut, all right?

Later on in the scene Steve says "I hate Pizza Hut."  Well, the fast-food company got wind of this and were not happy with MGM.  This complaint was late in the day when it came to the movie's production.  In fact it had already gone to print so a quick solution was needed, hence the very rough and crude cut you see in the movie today that has been with us since the beginning.  Some fans of the movie even remember the cut at the premiere but some movie goers and fan of the movie swear they remember the complete scene.  Here is the missing scene in script form and if you do remember it, please let us know.

DIANE
You can't believe the feeling.

STEVE
What's the gag? There a magnet back there? He looks behind the door in the dining room. Nothing. Steve just stands for a long moment in hapless silence, then...

STEVE
I hate Pizza Hut! Where's supper? I don' t understand, Diane. What the hell's going on around here?

Steve sidesteps the chalk marks, removing himself from the active area.

DIANE
I figured I'd never explain it to you. So I showed you instead, but don't ask me how or what. Just help me figure out what to do.

STEVE
You mean there's no gimmick?

DIANE
Not from inside the house. Maybe Tuthill got himself a super remote from the Radio Shack.

Carol Anne adjusts her helmet and sits inside her launch circle. Diane and Steve are having the discussion across the room and aren't aware of her.

STEVE
Maybe the shakeup and this thing...relate.

DIANE
No shit.

CAROL ANNE
Daddy, look at me!!

They turn but it's too late. Carol Anne shoots across the room faster than before, and with no one to catch her.

ANGLE-KITCHEN WALL

At a sickening speed her helmet smashes into the wall. Diane SCREAMS Steve runs over. An eight-inch hole in the wall and the cracked plastic on the helmet testify to the force of impact. Carol Anne is dazed but unhurt.

CAROL ANNE
You promised pizza.

39
THRU OMIT
41

42 EXT. BEN TUTHILL'S FRONT PORCH - LIGHT

The front door opens and Tuthill steps into the bug light. An obvious strain in this conversation.

The motives various, the feelings mutual. About a thousand mosquitoes chow down on the Freelings while they talk.

STEVE
Hi, Ben.

DIANE
Mr. Tuthill.

TUTHILL
TV's off in here. If your set's acting up again...

The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

Comments

  1. I DEFINITELY remember this scene being longer, and I have ALWAYS remembered, and wondered what happened. I saw it in Massachusetts the weekend it came out as a kid. I also seem to remember Diane describing the sensation in some sort of vaguely sexual way. Something like... Remember the night when you first did (fill in the blanks) to me? It felt like that. That was the reason I always remembered it, because as a kid, I thought it was very naughty. Who knows, maybe I', nuts regarding the conversation, but I totally remember the scene differently.

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    1. Sorry, this is the collective unconsious talking. This movie has NEVER been released with the scene you speak of. I saw the original theatrical print (more than once) and it's exactly the same as it was on video and as it is now. It is the same in 70mm and 35mm. It has never, I repeat never been released in its entirety. Not only that, this Pizza hut bullshit being the reason for the cut is nonsence. They would have cut the one line. And this is nonsense anyway as Pizza Hut would have no grounds to sue MGM for saying they hated Pizza Hut. It's called freedom of speech!!

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    2. Actually you are WRONG anonymous. I watched it with the Pizza hut line on tape years ago!! You are anonymous because youre embarrased..thats a shame for you.

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    3. I edit video's for youtube, not well, but the way they cut it seems extremely lazy, and rushed. I always figured something was cut, I'm glad to know why now. cheers

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  2. I also remember this scene in its entirety. Although I was only 4 when it premiered, I know I've seen it because I remember thinking (after Steven says he hates Pizza Hut), "I love Pizza Hut! (I still do actually). This weird "I've seen the scene, but it doesn't exist in any buyable format. But I know I've seen it!" It's "haunted" me for years. It's like the Mandela effect at play. I believe it will always linger in the cemetery of my mind of lost thoughts with no origin point. They just wander about asking, "do you know the answer?" I'm actually watching Poltergeist while I type this, which doesn't help.

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    1. No you don't!! Sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. It's highly unlikely that you would remember such a trivial scene that you saw nearly 40 years later and remember it how it was. You are experiences what hypnotists call 'the collective unconsious', which is where you hear something so many times, you actually think you saw remember watching it that way. Think that's bullshit? Trust me it isn't. I have seen 2 different 35mm prints and a 70mm print, which were the first copies they made at the time of release and guess what? Both are exactly the same as the versions I saw on Betamax, VHS and DVD. Not to mention the BD and TV screenings.

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    2. I have a copy of a print WITH the scene in it, Anonymous. But I love your both high and mighty-ness flowing forth. And look at your definition of collective unconscious (and spelling)...it is not only wrong it's a poor definition. If we go by your definition: Lynsey heard it so many times...(heard WHAT so many times) that she thinks she saw remember watching....huh? lol.
      Here's another thing ANONYMOUS.... Just because you saw two supposedly original prints....means just that... you saw two original prints. THat's all it means.
      I've seen Psycho about 8 times. Six of those times was a standard viewing. Once it had a slightly different ending. And the only time I saw it in 35 it had a completely different staircase shot.
      Guess what... can't find it in ANY description anywhere. Talked to two different people who saw the same print, the same night, separately... They saw the same thing.
      COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS:
      (in Jungian psychology) is a term introduced by psychiatrist Carl Jung to represent a form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain.
      This has very ver little to do with what you are talking about, Anonymous.

      All things are possible...especially considering how finite our minds are.

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    3. This is 2022.

      If the scene existed someone would have posted it in some form to YouTube (and under "fair use" it couldn't have been taken down.)

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  3. After the kitchen scene the omitted scenes are from in their bedroom - smoking pot again - and they were discussing it and were wondering if the same thing happened to the neighbors. So after they get a little high they go next door and ask the neighbor. Which explains why Steven was laughing a bit.

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    Replies
    1. That would make a lit of sense!

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  4. I remember that scene and the scene after that explains the weird cut. After the kitchen scene they are in their bedroom discussing what happened in the kitchen. They are getting high again and wondered if the neighbors are having the same issues. After they get high they go next door, Steven laughs a bit which makes more sense now since they just smoked. I can only assume there may have been a bit of an uproar from viewers maybe about the amount of illegal drugs being used and they are parents. Just a guess.

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    Replies
    1. He didn't want the R rating. The movie has a PG rating. PG 13 wasn't around yet.

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  5. I to remember that scene. I was 12 when I saw this film at least 4 times. I was interested because I lived in a haunted house, laugh if you must but it's true. Nothing like the movie, but still. I remember that whole scene and then going to the neighbor's. To bad Steven Spielberg doesn't clean up and add to like he did with ET.

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  6. Something also missing is the scene where Robbie looks under the bed and the clown and also when his braces unravel and wrap around his face and all over the bathroom.

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    Replies
    1. The "braces" scene was from the second sequel.

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  7. I don't understand why such a chunk was taken out when only a couple of lines mentioned Pizza Hut. They could easily have edited those lines out and kept the full scene in.

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    1. Exactly, that is precisely my point as to why this whole Pizza Hut bullshit explanation (which has been hanging around the internet for over 20 years now) does not explain why you would cut two scenes (kitcen and porch) together, right slam bang in the middle of two different conversations. Anyone who thinks this is the reason is a complete moron. Like you say, you would simply cut the one line, it's really not that hard. Do people really think that Speilberg and Hooper would allow such a hack cut in the middle of their film if it wasn't inentional. When I meet Speilberg this is the first thing I will ask him. Mind you it wouldn't surprise me if he started this ridiculous urban myth to begin with.

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    2. Sorry if this sounds all pervy but I recently got the Blu-Ray of Poltergeist and noticed that the ending scene where Dana shows up right before the house gets sucked into the void seems to have been censored or digitally edited? The hormonal teenager me from 1982 seems to remember a freshly hick'ed, braless Dana's shirt being more noticeably "see-thru" when she screams "whats happening !?!" . The Blu-Ray version looks digitally "fixed" or censored.
      Anyone with a VHS copy care to verify ...along with the missing pot scene mentioned above?

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    3. "They could have easily" is working under the assumption the film is still in the editing process. The entire point of this article is to explain that editing had already finished and Poltergeist was right on the verge of being shipped to movie theaters. This is exactly the kind of quality you get when you literally do not have the time to do the work properly and anybody familiar with editing large budget movies will tell you the same.

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  8. I grew up watching the complete movie in it’s entirety. I saw it at my house. The reason my story is different is that I watched it on a early pay satellite service called On TV. The clown scene terrified me. I couldn’t look under my bed for years. I don’t know why they were able to air the unedited version but that’s the version I grew up with.

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  9. In fact, I actually remember the "rough cut" (I know, it's too early in the morning for a mediocre pun!) between the two scenes as being incredibly "jumpy" when as a 10-year-old sitting at the Orange Mall cheap Saturday matinee double feature (with, if I remember correctly, one of the Superman sequels).

    Apparently, the original hired cutter who made that last-minute excision did a horrible job and the product of his work, an edit which on the big screen in Summer '82 looked as though the actual celluloid itself was getting mangled in the projector for a split-second, ended up on every extant theatre copy (at least in Orange, CA).

    It also SOUNDED like a bad cut: I don't know how to describe it except as the cinematic equivalent of a "clank". At any rate, it made the fact that this was an edited scene, and a poorly edited one at that, pretty darn OBVIOUS.

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  10. I grew up in the late 90s and absolutely loved Poltergeist growing up. I always thought it was fun to be scared, I guess you can say it was my first real horror movie. I did notice that weird cut when I was around 9 years old and thought our TVs and DVD players were broken for doing this weird cut. Thank you for sharing this I have always been so curious as to why this happened. However I do wish they could do a re- release of the movie with this scene in its entirety or at least put it as a deleted scene on DVDs.

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  11. Yup, I remember the pizza hut comments, I just watched the movie again now with my daughter and noticed this change, along with no "God is in his holy temple " scene

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  12. So why hasn't the filmmakers ever been adressed about this cut? Can't seem to find anything online. This is 40 years ago this year. There must be something.

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  13. I don't want to contradict anyone, but when I saw the film again years later on television, I was shocked to see that several scenes had been cut for the purposes of the schedule (like reducing the film to 105 minutes instead of 114; a common practice in Canadian television broadcasting). In my memory (I saw the film on VHS in a French dub, in the early days of video tape, probably 1983; video clubs didn't exist yet), they had trimmed a fairly effective scene in which we see the worried skepticism of the father after seeing his daughter slip on the kitchen floor. Steve Freeling was looking with obvious concern and denial for the source of this phenomenon, a magnet, the neighbor's remote control?

    So after seeing the film again on TV (this is the late 1990s) I was so shocked that I even wrote a review on a French-speaking site referring to the Pizza Hut scene. I would like to point out that I had never heard that this scene had been cut and that, all media included.

    Was I the victim of some kind of twisted Mandela effect, or is there a French VHS dubbing of the mentioned scene somewhere?

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  14. I had never seen this extended scene on my VHS, DVD or when I saw this in theatres back in 1982. But I was always suspicious that there was more there because of the abruptness of the cut. The pizza hut reason is very interesting. Something I had never known about. But maybe another reason for the cut was because of showing a child (Carol-Anne) slamming into a wall to the point of damaging it might have been deemed too shocking for audiences. That certainly would have scared me seeing that for the first time.

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  15. This movie played constantly on HBO in the 80's. My grandfather had the movie on RCA VideoDisc. One of those two formats had the extra footage. I can quote half the movie from 40 years ago, and I absolutely remember it. I just watched it again on Netflix for the first time in ages and the bad cut was obvious. I was looking for explanations when I found this page.

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  16. Also the insect bites came from nowhere im sure years ago it was in the film where the bugs started, now just one pic of bugs on wall left.

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  17. I 100% remember seeing the 'missing scene' when I first watched this movie!! I'm 46yr old and watched this with my family when I was a kid. I reside in the UK where I was born (just for reference). I'm rewatching this movie and I'm completely shocked that there's a big chunk of the movie 'missing'!

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    1. I have the 1st UK homevideo release of POLTERGEIST from April 1983 on MGM (even has the 'Cast Card'). I need to re-watch that tape and look for that scene shortly after the half-hour mark of the film. I've watched the 1983 UK tape before . . . but it's been several years and I can't remember offhand if the 'I Hate Pizza Hut' line is in there or not. I hope to find out soon! I have recently hooked up my multi-standard VCR (I live in the U.S. so I need one to play PALs).

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  18. I don't remember the scene as such, but i do remember it being longer, and certainly don;t remember the stupid cut. Reading back through the quotes, I do remeber something about the smoking a J, then visiting the neighbour, so it is out there somewhere. Someone Anonymous posted here they have the cut scene. I ask them to post it to you tube so we can see it again!

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  19. Lynsey is absolutely 10000% right. Great memory Lynsey. That reply from anonymous is anonymous because he or she is too embarrassed and very wrong and knows it.

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  20. Actually it IS edited, and not ripped out weirdly. I also watched the original with the pizza hut line. So the anonymous one replying to Lynsey is the one who is wrong. The edited one is currently on YouTube! Lol.

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  21. Who didn't like Pizza Hut in the 80s??

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  22. The cut still doesn't make sense. Why cut 60 seconds of a scene and ruin part of the film when all they had to do was cut out 3 words? They could have literally just cut the "I hate Pizza Hut" and start at the "Where's dinner" line? If that wasn't possible (for whatever reason), then just cut to Diane's next line. It seems like some studio executive cut the film with a pair of scissors, taped the two halves together and sent it out to theaters. Even an amateur editor starting their first day on the job could have done a much better job.

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  23. FIX IT! Use AI and redo the entire scene. Just leave out Pizza Hut or just the “Hut” part. Get other actors but use AI to give them the appearance of the original actors.

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  24. It is possible that an uncut version got out there and was quickly replaced after being discovered. This movie was released back in the day where they physically printed copies of the movie and shipped the massive roles of film to theaters around the country. Just because someone saw one cut of the original movie proves nothing about what someone else saw. The fact that this was such a rough cut at the last minute increases the chances that some people out there saw the uncut scene.

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