The Frighteners
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- For the Matt Helm spy novel by Donald Hamilton, see The Frighteners (novel).
| The Frighteners | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for The Frighteners |
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| Directed by | Peter Jackson |
| Produced by | Robert Zemeckis |
| Written by | Fran Walsh Peter Jackson |
| Starring | Michael J. Fox Trini Alvarado John Astin Jeffrey Combs Dee Wallace-Stone Jake Busey Chi McBride |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Cinematography | John Blick Alun Bollinger |
| Editing by | Jamie Selkirk |
| Distributed by | MCA Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 19, 1996 |
| Running time | Theatrical: 110 min. Director's Cut: 122 min. |
| Country | New Zealand USA |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Frighteners is a 1996 comedy/horror film directed by Peter Jackson about a psychic private detective who stands in the way of a murderous Grim Reaper-like creature. As with his later films, Jackson filmed the movie in his home country, New Zealand on location in Lyttelton and Governers Bay. Released on July 19, 1996, the film earned $16 million at the U.S. box office.
In 1998, Jackson commissioned Universal Studios home video to release a laserdisc special edition of the film (with a 4 1/2 hour documentary) as well as a standard edition DVD. Some collectors spend up to $500 to get a copy of the out-of-print laserdisc special edition on eBay.
A Director's Cut Edition DVD was released in December 2005, to coincide with the release of Jackson's film King Kong. This edition included the 4 1/2 hour documentary and feature commentary of the laserdisc version, as well as a short introduction by Jackson recorded for the DVD. The Director's Cut DVD set is available in Regions 1, 2, 4, and 5.
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[edit] Filming
The film's digital special effects were innovative at the time of its release, and can be seen as foreshadowing the "Paths of the Dead" sequence in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which featured an army of ghosts.
The museum in the film was, at that time, the National Museum of New Zealand.
One of the ghost characters is played by John Astin, whose son, Sean Astin, stars in the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy as Samwise Gamgee. In his book There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale, Sean Astin cites his father's enthusiasm for working with Peter Jackson as the chief reason for his auditioning for the role. Astin's daughter also appears in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as Sam's daughter Elanor Gamgee, so that Jackson has worked with three generations of Astins.
R. Lee Ermey, playing the ghost of Sergeant Hiles, virtually reprises (not for the first time) his role from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
[edit] Ratings controversy
Despite numerous attempts by Peter Jackson to acheive a PG-13 rating, the MPAA granted The Frighteners an R-Rating for terror violence. The MPAA was particularly perplexed by the film's shift in tone from wild comedy to gory thriller. Jackson felt this decision was unfair, as he always intended the film to be a PG-13. Because of this, the film lost much of it's potential audience.
[edit] Box Office and Critical Response
The film's box office response was disappointing. The majority of people involved felt this was due to the film's rating, even though it was generally billed as a youth friendly supernatural comedy in the vein of Beetlejuice or Ghostbusters. Despite this, the film garnered mostly positive reviews, maintaining a 68% Fresh Rating on rottentomatoes.com. It has gone on to gain a considerable cult following amongst horror enthusiasts and Peter Jackson fans, due to it's success on Laserdisc, VHS and later DVD.
[edit] Plot
After a car accident in which his wife, Debra, was killed and he was injured, Frank Bannister develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts. After losing his wife, he gave up his job as an architect, letting his unfinished "dream house" sit incomplete for years, and put these skills to use by befriending a few ghosts and getting them to haunt houses in the area to drum up work for his ghostbusting business; Frank then proceeds to 'exorcise' the houses for a fee. But when he discovers that an entity resembling the Grim Reaper is killing people, marking numbers on their forehead beforehand, Frank tries to help the people whom the Reaper is after. We discover that the reason for this was that Debra was found dead after the car crash with a similar -lower- number carved into her forehead. Sure that they are connected, Frank decides to hunt down and discover the identity of the killer.
After two people are killed, Frank discovers that killer is the ghost of Johnny Bartlett. In life, Bartlett was crazy about being a prolific serial killer, and with his girlfriend Patricia Bradley, murdered several patients in a hospital. The two were arrested and tried: Patricia was sent to live with her mother due to her young age, and kept under careful observation, while Bartlett received the death penalty, just after shouting that he killed "one more than Starkweather."
Because he can see the numbers ahead of time, Frank can foretell the murders, but this puts him under suspicion by the police, and an eccentric FBI agent named Milton Dammers. He tries to stop the murders, helped by Dr. Lucy Lynskey, whose house was "exorcised" by Frank before her husband was killed, and his three ghostly friends. The film ends with Frank and Lucy discovering that Patricia is still working with Bartlett's ghost. Patricia and Bartlett chase both Frank and Lucy to the hospital where the original crimes were committed. Frank, who stole Bartlett's ashes, desperately tries to get them to a chapel, for when this happens Bartlett will be sent to Hell. Unfortunately, the ashes are released by Dammers (who's head is subsequently blasted off with a shotgun by Patricia) and Patricia kills Frank. However, Frank's ghost kills Patricia and drags her spirit up towards Heaven with him, Bartlett in hot pursuit. When they arrive, both Bartlett and Patricia are sent down to Hell, whilst Frank, after meeting Debra's spirit, and being told it is not yet his time, is resurrected. He and Lucy fall in love. After this, due to the traumatic experience the two went through, we discover that Lucy too can see the ghosts - including a very displeased Dammers - and Frank goes back to being an architect, demolishing the dream house that he never finished for his wife.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Michael J. Fox | Frank Bannister |
| Trini Alvarado | Dr. Lucy Lynskey |
| Peter Dobson | Ray Lynskey |
| John Astin | The Judge |
| Jeffrey Combs | Special Agent Milton Dammers |
| Dee Wallace-Stone | Patricia Bradley |
| Jake Busey | Johnny Bartlett |
| Chi McBride | Cyrus |
| Jim Fyfe | Stuart |
| Troy Evans | Sheriff Walt Perry |
| Julianna McCarthy | Old Lady Bradley |
| R. Lee Ermey | Sergeant Hiles |
| Elizabeth Hawthorne | Magda Rhys-Jones |
| Angela Bloomfield | Debra Bannister |
| Desmond Kelly | Harry Sinclair |
| Jonathan Blick | Steve Bayliss |
[edit] Trivia
- The Frighteners was Michael J. Fox's last major film role before performing on Spin City and eventually abandoning acting altogether due to Parkinson's Disease.
- The film was originally intended to be released under the Tales from the Crypt banner until Robert Zemeckis read the script and decided to produce and release it on its own merit.
- The game Silent Hill 4 shares similarities with this film, featuring a serial killer named Walter Sullivan who marks his victims with numbers and continues killing even after he dies. (Walter was not executed, however: He committed suicide in prison.) Some of the monsters in the game are part of the walls and reach out for the character, as did Johnny Bartlett in The Frighteners.
- At one point, Johnny Bartlett mentions a man in Russia killing over fifty people, a reference to infamous Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.
- While filming scenes with the Judge (John Astin), Michael J. Fox would occasionally call him "Doc" by accident, referring to Doctor Emmett Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy, in which Fox portrayed Marty McFly. These films were also made by Universal and directed by Robert Zemeckis.
- The Frightener's initial cinema release was banned in Tasmania, Australia as the film's content bears a resemblance to the Port Arthur massacre which occurred in the same year. This included a similarity in appearance between the film's antagonist and Martin Bryant, and was not released because of sensitivity of the nature of the recent events. However, the film was later released on VHS and DVD, and has been televised.
- Peter Jackson has a cameo in this movie, appearing as the pierced, biker jacket-wearing person with whom Frank runs collides while storming out of the newspaper office.
- In the brief tussle between Lucy and Patricia, actress Trini Alvarado nearly broke her finger in the bedroom door.
- A creature known as the Gatekeeper was conceptualized by Jackson for the movie. It was cherub like in appearance and extremely obese. Jackson went so far during production to have a suit built for an actor to perform in, but the character was eventually removed from the storyline. Footage of the Gatekeeper can be seen on the supplemental material on the special editon Laserdisc/DVD.
- Michael J.Fox was filmed seperately from all the actors portraying ghosts.
- During script reading at Peter Jackson's house, Jackson didn't have a tape recorder to document the readings, and instead used a video camera which he set on the floor by the actor's feet.
- The production team originally attempted to use physical means to create the Reaper, ie: a stuntman in a Reaper suit, a rod-puppet Reaper and an all cloth Reaper.
- Jeffrey Combs based Dammers in appearance on Adolph Hitler
- When the film was given an R-Rating, Peter Jackson decided to reshoot Dammer's death. Originally, Dammers is simply shot in the chest by a shotgun and flies through a set of doors. The film now features a gruesome close-up of Dammer's head exploding.
- In a not so subtle reference, the song that plays over the credits is (Don't Fear) The Reaper, covered by The Mutton Birds.
- After he is bisected by the Reaper, the Judge was supposed to make three more appearances. In the first instance, his torso would fend off the Reaper, secondly he would reappear to help Frank fight the Reaper in the cemetery, and in the film's epilogue he was to ride off into the sunset ontop the ghost dog.
- The novelization of the film is based almost entirely on the first draft of the screenplay.
[edit] External links
| Films Directed by Peter Jackson |
|---|
| Bad Taste • Meet the Feebles • Braindead • Heavenly Creatures • Forgotten Silver • The Frighteners • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King • King Kong • The Lovely Bones |
