Verdict
Summary
Director Nick Bailey compiles home footage, original commercials, clips from films, home photos, classroom and yearbook photos, original writings from Heather, and much more to tell her story, which is quite affecting and ultimately very sad, but I appreciated the film very much, as it gave me some insight into who Heather was. I grew up during her short lifetime, and even as a kid I knew who she was and when she died in 1988, the news affected me even then. She Was Here is the best tribute she could have possibly been given, and fans of hers or of the films she was best known for will surely appreciate this film.
Plot:
A documentary about actress Heather O’Rourke who died at 12 before the release of her final film Poltergeist III.
Review:
Here’s a loving and incredibly sensitive documentary about young actress Heather O’Rourke, who will always be best known for co-starring or starring in the three Poltergeist films, but appeared in other projects, including Happy Days and some other T.V. shows, commercials, and films in her very short life. We find out about her very humble life, having grown up in Anaheim, where her mother struggled to make ends meet as a single mom who had two daughters, the older of which was in a few beauty pageants and then a few films such as Annie and Pennies From Heaven. It was on the set of Pennies when Steven Spielberg stopped and met five-year old Heather, who was accompanying her older sister and mother, and after a conversation, Steven had Heather do an interview for Poltergeist, which he was producing. After winning the role, Heather became a star, and yet the experience never soured her or gave her a sense that she was better than anyone else. She was smart, pretty, and had talent, and she embarked on a short career that gave her family some money and the ability to move to Big Bear for awhile, but Heather’s health began declining. She was misdiagnosed with Crone’s Disease, but in fact she lived with congenital intestinal problems, which eventually was the cause of her death, but her tragic death could have been avoided if she’d been properly diagnosed. This loving documentary interviews her mother, her sister, her father (who is close to unintelligible), her childhood friends and classmates, other actors who worked with her, including JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Zach Galligan, and others, including director Gary Sherman, who directed her in Poltergeist III, her final film.
Director Nick Bailey compiles home footage, original commercials, clips from films, home photos, classroom and yearbook photos, original writings from Heather, and much more to tell her story, which is quite affecting and ultimately very sad, but I appreciated the film very much, as it gave me some insight into who Heather was. I grew up during her short lifetime, and even as a kid I knew who she was and when she died in 1988, the news affected me even then. She Was Here is the best tribute she could have possibly been given, and fans of hers or of the films she was best known for will surely appreciate this film.
Kino Lorber has just released a DVD of She Was Here, and it comes without any special features, but it doesn’t really need any.
