ABSTRACT
The 1982 film Poltergeist, its sequels, and a 2015 remake of the original deal with the crisis of patriarchy and the family, and in the following diagnostic reading, the author accordingly discusses the Poltergeist films as indicators of social anxiety and crises of the family and patriarchy in contemporary US society. Television has featured many TV horror series and the popular and acclaimed American Horror Story has run from 2011–2018. Poltergeist thus presents a panorama of symbolic images of contemporary American nightmares. It achieves its power by drawing on real fears, which it presents in symbolic form that allows people to experience their subconscious anxieties in the safe medium of film in an ideology machine that smooths over and tranquilizes their fears by showing the family pulling through. Although some of the horror films and cycles are morally and politically objectionable, the author believe that they should be taken seriously.
