It didn’t dawn on me until sitting down to watch this movie that I’m not all that equipped to talk about the career of director Peter Jackson. Outside of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and the first Hobbit movie), I haven’t seen any of his earlier films in the horror genre nor any of his attempts at more serious filmmaking (Heavenly Creatures, The Lovely Bones). Heck, I haven’t even seen his remake of King Kong, which seemed like a really big deal in 2005. However, I have seen a lot of the work of our good friend Robert Zemeckis, whose fingerprints are all over The Frighteners, to the point where it feels like the kind of madcap film he could have made in the Death Becomes Her vein if he hadn’t taken a turn toward slight respectability after helming Forrest Gump.
That said, the seeds of The Frighteners were cooked up by Peter Jackson and his writing partner Fran Walsh while they were working on their previous film, Heavenly Creatures. However, Zemeckis got a hold of the treatment Jackson and Walsh wrote and wanted them to develop a script that he could direct as a spin-off of Tales From The Crypt. However, Zemeckis was so taken with the script that he decided it would be better if Jackson directed instead, which in retrospect feels like either would have been a good fit considering both directors have a fascination with pushing the limitations of special effects. It also should be said that despite not being all that associated with the horror genre, Zemeckis was a pretty prolific horror producer in the ’90s and ’00s, being involved with the production of several films that will be talked about this Shocktober, such as Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, and Monster House.
The film begins in (of all places) a very haunted-looking mansion, where we see a middle-aged woman named Patricia (played by Dee Wallace Stone) who is being chased by a grim reaper of sorts who can pass through walls before they’re shot with a shotgun by Patricia’s elderly mother. We then get to know a paranormal expert, Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox), who goes around to different houses inspecting the paranormal activites reported by their owners. However, we soon learn that this is all a racket, since Frank can see ghosts and two of them happen to be employed by him to make it seem like the houses he visits are being haunted. One of the customers whose house Frank inspects is Lucy Lynskey (played by Trini Alvorado), whose meathead husband is killed shortly after the inspection.
As we get deeper into the movie, we learn more about the car accident that Frank was involved in many years prior, which both killed his wife and gave him the ability to see the dead. We also learn about a mass murder spree that happened in town a few decades ago at a mental asylum, which Patricia was a patient at. More killings start happening around town, which typically involve a number being carved on the victim’s forehead. Frank is the assumed culprit for many of them, which causes him to get brought into the police and question by a gonzo FBI agent (played by Jeffrey Combs) who is convinced Frank is behind the killings. When Frank realizes he can’t fight the Reaper who has been showing up around town in his human form, Lucy freezes him in a walk-in freezer, turning him into a ghost, which leads to him finding the reaper’s true identity.
There is a certain genre of big-budget adventure comedy that was prevalent in the ’80s and ’90s that I sometimes refer to as “live action cartoons” and I would definitely say The Frighteners falls into this category. There are certainly dark supernatural elements to the film that gives it a certain brooding quality and Peter Jackson’s decision to shoot the film in beautiful New Zealand (substituting for Northern California?) give the film a sense of scope and polish. But make no mistake, this thing is goofy as hell. Frank’s two ghost buddies are played by both a stereotypical nerd (played by Jim Fyfe) and a pretty stereotypical 70s Black guy (Chi McBride, doing his best with what he’s given). Not to mention the FBI agent who’s arguably the most over-the-top character, but remains more amusing than not, thanks to a committed performance by Jefferey Combs. Oh, and then R. Lee Ermey shows up as a ghost drill sergeant who’s exactly what you’d expect.
Also, there are the special effects, which I would say are a mixed bag, and an impossible part of the film not to talk about. The film’s CG effects were done by Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, which had only existed for a few years and was put under considerable duress to get the film completed. We not only see many, many translucent ghosts floating all over the place throughout the film, but we also get a lot of our main villain, “the reaper”, bursting through walls, carpets, paintings, and pretty much an flat object, like a more iffy T-1000. These effects are, well, of their time I would say. On the one hand, I am impressed by ambition of the special effects, as it’s possible The Frighteners contained more CG special effects shots than any film made up to that point. But on the other, it feels like it was just a little too early to be making a special effects film that relies this much on computer generated imagery interacting with real human actors.
While I do love the zany energy of The Frighteners, it’s hard not to feel like the characters and story get a little lost in the film’s obsession with its special effects. I think Michael J. Fox is a pretty good match for the material, since it’s not too far removed tonally from Back To The Future, but I’m not sure I ever quite bought the character’s darker edges. Though despite whatever shortcomings the film has, it’s a pretty fun and memorable ride that’s never boring, even if it’s sometimes a little hard to keep track of all the various things its juggling. Now, would you have guessed that this film is the directorial precursor to the Lord of the Rings trilogy? No, absolutely not. But that’s what made Peter Jackson such a miraculous gamble for those films.