With the proliferation of affordable digital cameras, and the ability to shoot insanely high quality video on something as small as an iPhone, more than ever the advice given to budding filmmakers is: just start filming. Well, director David Lowery seems to know what he wanted to do ever since the age of seven-and-a-half, and didn’t waste a moment figuring out how to make a movie. Now, he’s shared the first film he ever made and it’s pretty adorable stuff.
“Poltergeist” is exactly what it sounds like — a remake of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg‘s horror classic, but made by a kid who clearly hadn’t seen the movie. With a cast that include his siblings, and some earnest ambition, Lowery’s first effort is pretty charming. Here’s some of what he had to say about it on his blog, Road Dog Productions:
This was the first movie I ever made. I shot it in the fall of 1988, which means the VHS tape I pulled it from is nearly 30 years old. I was seven and a half at the time. The last six months of my favorite age. We had just moved to Texas. My dad’s friend came to visit, with his camcorder in tow, and I was ready with scripts, props and a cast of siblings. This one was my version of Spielberg’s Poltergeist, which I was aware of but definitely hadn’t seen. Finally having the means to make a movie felt monumental to me. You don’t have to look too closely to see my hanging around the edge of the frame, anxiously making sure things happened the way I intended. It didn’t occur to me to actually look through the viewfinder. Or maybe my dad’s friend just didn’t trust me to hold the camera.
There’s no preternatural brilliance on display here, no innate talent. But I still feel like there’s something there, even if it wasn’t completely intentional.
Lowery would tackle the supernatural again in high school with “Ghost Boy” which he admits is “terrible,” and of course, with this year’s tremendous “A Ghost Story.”