“They're here!”

Surface meaning

Carol Anne Freeling says the line to announce that unseen beings have arrived in the family home. She treats their presence as a simple fact, not as a warning or a question, which makes the statement sound far more alarming than its plain words suggest.

Cinematic context

In Poltergeist, Carol Anne is sitting close to the television when the screen fills with static and begins transmitting something no one else can understand. Her family is nearby, and her calm announcement draws attention to the set and to the strange presence she seems able to perceive. The scene turns an ordinary household object into the first clear doorway for the supernatural disturbance.

Deeper meaning

The force of the line comes from the gap between Carol Anne’s innocence and the audience’s fear. She does not understand that the visitors are dangerous, so she describes them with the same natural certainty a child might use for expected guests. That innocence leaves the adults, and the viewers, to supply the dread behind her words.

The word “they” also keeps the threat indistinct. It offers no identity, number, or explanation, only the knowledge that something has crossed into the home. The family has not yet learned the rules of what is happening, and neither has the audience, so the line marks the moment when unexplained oddness becomes an active presence.

Pop-culture legacy

The line is one of the best-known spoken moments from 1980s horror and ranks 69th on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. Heather O’Rourke’s small, composed delivery made it closely associated with the film, while the phrase itself became a ready-made horror joke for any sudden arrival, especially when the supposed guests are unwanted.

Delivery

O’Rourke does not shout the words in panic. The restrained, matter-of-fact performance gives the sentence the sound of an announcement from a child who believes the situation is perfectly normal. That calmness makes the supernatural event feel more unsettling than an overt scream would.

Why it works

The line is short, grammatical, and incomplete in exactly the right way. The exclamation signals excitement, but the missing explanation forces the scene to pause around the unknown. A familiar phrase for welcoming guests becomes frightening because the home is no longer under the family’s control.