JoBeth Williams as Diane Freeling - Oscar worthy performance, brilliant!

If only horror movies were more often recognised by the Academy, then JoBeth Williams could have been Oscar nominated for her wonderful performance as Diane Freeling in Poltergeist. I have watched this film countless of times over the years, and JoBeth's portrayal of this loving, devoted mother who will do ANYTHING to keep her children from harm, even entering another dimension to retrieve her beloved 5-year-old daughter, is just outstanding.

Because of the film being a horror movie, it's easy for Academy voters to ignore it - but I think she was just as worthy as any of the 1982 Best Actress nominees that year. There's something so moving about her in the moment when she realises Carol Anne's spirit has moved through her, when she weeps: "She went through my soul!"

There are many scenes in this film where she's so warm, funny, realistic, imperfect, stereotypically normal that you feel you're watching a real person instead of an actress playing a part. Another part of the film which kills me every time is when she hears Carol Anne screaming and being terrified by something evil in another dimension, and is powerless to do anything, and she screams: "You BASTARD! She's just a BABY!" and pleads for the scientific experts to help in that impossible situation!

Ironically, Meryl Streep won the Oscar in 1982 (the year JoBeth was eligible had she been nominated) for Sophie's Choice, about a mother forced to make a choice about the fate of her children. In Poltergeist, JoBeth plays a mother who will NOT make that choice! This is evident in the scene where Robbie and Carol Anne are holding on for dear life, trying to not get sucked into that other dimension, as JoBeth's Diane fearlessly makes sure she saves them both! Her plea of "God... HELP ME!" is also very powerful.

Congratulations to JoBeth Williams for giving, along with Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist, Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, Barbara Hershey in The Entity and Marsha Mason in Audrey Rose (all, coincidentally, playing loving mothers whose children mean the world to them), one of the most amazing female performances in a horror film.

NOTE: JoBeth, thanks again for the wonderful, personalised signed photo you sent me back in 1995, when I was 15!