7. Poltergeist (1982)
Three years after The Amityville Horror, director Tobe Hooper effectively ‘Spielbergised’ the modern haunted house movie – with an assist from Steven Spielberg himself, who produced and possibly, maybe ghost-directed some of it – turning in a horror classic.
And like Amityville, it takes inspiration from an actual haunting. In the 1950s, the curious case of the Hermann house in suburban Long Island became a national media story after the family brought in a paranormal investigator to diagnose unusual activity, such as randomly popping bottles and objects moving on their own. The house did not ultimately vanish into an interdimensional portal, however.