The Frighteners (1996)

the audience applauded

A Masterpiece!

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a paranormal investigator, after a near-death accident which killed his wife he's been able to see and communicate with ghosts. The small town he's living in in the grips of a plague of death, people are unexpectedly dying, all with the same symptoms of a crushed heart. Fox accidently stumbles on clues which slowly help him piece together what's going on. Along the way he discovers that he's more embroiled in things that he knew. I first watched this in cinema in the 90's, I thought it was great. A fun mix of dark supernatural thrills with tongue in cheek humour too. Watching this about 20 years later I still enjoyed this film. By today's CGI standards and refined productions this does look a little dated but it's still a fun film which has a great story, plot and delivery. Directed by Peter Jackson, this film came at an in-between period, going from low-budget films, via this to bigger epics like Lord of the Rings. He retains his ability to spin a good story - but when you are vested as a writer you would expect a certain narrative drive - which is delivered here. Danny Elfmann's score fits this movie so well, and gives the film a charming feeling - close your eyes and this could be a creepy Tim Burton film - Elfmann has that ability to turn cooky and creepy into charming and be recognised. The cast is great; Fox tries to remain straight while humour is all around - in fact his acting should be commended as he's delivering his lines alone a lot of the time and drives the film forward for the audience; Busey is a fitting nutcase, Coombes and Wallace play oddballs really well too; Alvarado plays the naive Dr Lucy well, a good love interest for Fox mixing clever with delicate - even the cameo's and small parts are done well - I loved seeing R. Lee Emery as the graveyard drill sergeant!I don't think this film got the credit it deserved when it was first released, and I'm surprised that even now it doesn't have a bigger cult following. I've brought it up in conversation before and people look at me with blank expressions. I enjoyed this film when I first saw it and again recently. It's definitely worth a watch; it's fairly family friendly now-a-days; it's in-offensive; it's got a good story; it's clever; and most of all, it's entertaining. I'm giving this a 8 out of 10.

Peter Jackson's quirky horror comedy acts as a showcase for a whole slew of impressive special effects - which, like in the similar MEN IN BLACK - work well due to the whole comic-book feel of the film. In a serious thriller or drama, they'd of course look fake and ludicrous, but in Jackson's brightly coloured world of ghosts and spirits, they're gobsmacking. While THE FRIGHTENERS is certainly a fun film to watch and a nice film to look at, sadly as is the case with most blockbuster's, it's hardly what you would call substantial, but that doesn't matter in this film's case.This has the most basic of plots as well. Basically, it pretty much consists of one action scene after another with a little bit of history/background information thrown in to pad it out. This seems to have been done for necessity rather than any real reason; this is a purely superficial film. A manic energy keeps it watchable but the ending is a bit of a mess, with a need to tie up every loose end imaginable it quickly becomes a simple series of climaxes becoming ever more ludicrous.Thankfully a team of interesting actors and actresses almost make it all worthwhile and give us something to listen to in between all of the ghoulish gags and special effects. Michael J Fox plays the film's lead, a fine enough actor to cope with all the happenings going on but a sorely shallow person to play. We never learn much about his investigator, save that he saw his wife die once and that a car accident caused him to have psychic visions. That's it. An unrecognisable Dee Wallace Stone plays a former mental patient caught up in the chaos while Trini Alvarado is the solid female lead.Elsewhere, Jackson seems determined to fill his supporting roles with the most psychotic actors available. In particular we have Jeffrey Combs in a rare mainstream appearance (rather more substantial than his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) as a whacked-out FBI agent who has become more insane than the people he hunts. Combs looks incredibly odd in what I like to think is a dig at Fox Mulder's weirdness in THE X-FILES. While his acting is fine and good use is made of his expressions, his character's oddities quickly become grating and in the final third his role seems rather extraneous to the rest of the plot - his appearances eliciting sighs rather than the chuckles Jackson was hoping for.Also on hand are Jake Busey (Gary's son, briefly showing in STARSHIP TROOPERS), as the film's resident psychotic murderer who is actually pretty good, R. Lee Ermey playing a riff on his role in FULL METAL JACKET, and old favourite John Astin as a decrepit ghost who has problems with his jaw. As mentioned earlier, the CGI effects are the best things in this film with all manner of glowing ghosts, flowing Grim Reapers flying across the sky and things reaching out of walls and floors to attack people. Impressive they most certainly are, and they make the film. A macabre sense of humour makes things more amusing than they rightfully should be, but again with Jackson this is all style and visual effects over anything else - as was the case with his frenetic yet hollow BRAINDEAD. Worth catching if your brain is switched off.

This film did not live up to it's hype or its potential. I missed it's initial release and just watched it very recently, having heard of it for years and really buying into the hype, I found that there just wasn't really much to it. The main issue I have is that it is not successfully horror or comedy. The over the top and sometimes slap-stick comedy was ridiculous. There was not a single point in the film when I felt the urge to laugh out loud. As far as horror, there really wasn't much. Of course there were ghosts, put they were more or less just characters in a murder mystery. My next gripe pertains to casting. Michael J. Fox was the only person considered for the role, and for obvious reasons. He does good with the slightly self deprecating roles. The audience finds it easy to sympathize with his characters because he portrays them slightly pathetically. Also, I have issue with Dee Wallace. Peter Jackson has said that she was cast because of her overwhelming sense of innocence, especially recently coming off of E.T., unfortunately that effect is lost with the years. She is now a major player in numerous B-Horror films, roles which I identify her from more so than E.T.. It is more that E.T. was the exception and roles like Patricia Bradley are the norm. As soon as I saw her I thought to myself "she is in someway responsible for all of this." Moving on from casting there are the obvious issues with the special effects. 1996 was a big year for special effects and CGI releases, but this one really missed the mark. If you look at other films released around the same time (Independence Day, Twister, Mars Attacks), although they are not perfect, they are a whole class better than the the effects from this one. CGI shadows didn't match the direction of the light source, the main threat was just a blanket of muddy CGI, and there was no real quality threshold for the ghosts, they really varied from one to another. The last and most apparent fail was the title. I get the\at he has the ghosts that work for him (although their compensation for their services is not readily explained) and the are frighteners because he uses them to haunt potential clients. That being said, they really took backseat to all of the other story lines of the film. The title makes you expect things that the film is not going to follow through on.Although I did not care much for it and it did not meet my expectations, I was not bored while watching it, which counts for something. It was entertaining while it was on, though I doubt I would watch it again. The best thing about the film was cameo of Peter Jackson looking absolutely hilarious.

This movie only becomes a kind of horror movie towards the end of it. Even then there is humor. I find this to be a rather funny show. Michael J. Fox does his usual fine job of acting, Trini Alvarado is cute as the widowed love interest, John Astin is good as a spirit named the Judge. There are a couple of things that do not hang together though. Why can the spirits go through walls, doors, etc but a vehicle that runs into them carries them along? Why did the murderer spirit's hand pass through Lucy's head and then he could punch her and Frank in the face and bodies? How about that FBI agent? Talk about a whack-a-doodle!! And how about that haircut of his? The sheriff is played by a long character actor Troy Evans. the mouth that roars "R. Lee Emery" appears here as the cemetery control freak sergeant and as usual about all he does is rant and rave.