The Frighteners was a flop over a decade ago, but it has since amassed greater critical and audience appreciation with its director Peter Jackson’s rise to prominence, and it is a film that’s deserving of a second look. I expected the CGI special effects to look dated, but they actually look pretty fantastic (and like a lot of critic-types, I am not known for my love of CGI). There are some flat jokes (Chi McBride is saddled with a dull comic-relief stereotype of a character.) and a way overlong climax, but the film’s got cracking ambition and a good heart.
Michael J. Fox tweaks type by playing the flawed and generally damaged paranormal investigator Frank Bannister (though we know he can’t turn out to be the bad guy here, not with Jake Busey and Re-Animator’s own Jeffrey Combs in the mix), and he’s damn near revelatory. Fox is raw and vulnerable like we’ve rarely seen him, and to see him sob and visibly shake in an interrogation scene with Combs is to catch your breath at how much he lays out on the line.
I’ll admit that the piece is a bit of a tonal rollercoaster, but tonal rollercoasters can be interesting things, and this one’s identity crisis seems to be in part a result of Jackson’s failure to obtain a PG-13 rating, which (according to IMDb) he responded to by making his R-rating a little more worthwhile: he inserted a Dead Alive-worthy exploding head. You have to appreciate that kind of thinking.
by Victoria Large | Source: Universal Studios DVD
27 Oct 2008 8:41 AM | Comments (2)
I routinely champion The Frighteners as one of my favorite horror films and I’m very glad to see it getting some favorable words (full disclosure: I’ve always been fascinated by ghost stories and will watch anything starring Michael J. Fox).
Tonal roller coaster is definitely a fair assessment (for example, the R. Lee Ermy stuff doesn’t really fit in) but some of the movie is damn scary, particularly the gold-tinted flashbacks to the hospital massacre and all the scenes with Jeffrey Combs.
Also, mad props for using Sonic Youth’s cover of Superstar in a brief but effective moment that utilizes its inherent creepiness – done over ten years before Juno smugly misappropriated it.
The tonal roller-coaster quality of the film is the result of the biggest flaw in Jackson’s recent films: he can’t self-edit. Give Jackson a limited budget and he turns out a classic of some kind every time. Give him a few hundred mil. and he’s bound to throw every idea he has at the screen. He couldn’t go too far afield with LotR simply because there was too much important material to cover in the central story, but King Kong ranges far too far from its central dramatic conflicts in pursuit of ever more CGI setpieces. That said, The Frighteners is a frequently brilliant, very entertaining movie with a few groaners interspersed throughout. Despite its flaws, it’s a hell of a movie.
As a component to our recent 2008 in Review feature, this year we’re requesting submissions from our readers for their choices for the best films, DVDs, and discoveries from the past year. The results will be published later in January.
Stephen Snart
27 October 2008
6:41 AM