“Staff Picks” is a deeper look into movies that we love here at Video CULTure. Each edition of this column will focus on a single film that we think you should check out, either for the first time or for a long-overdue revisit.
By Patrick Bartlett (Twitter: @alleywaykrew)
At this point, it’s pretty clear that barring some sort of late-stage career renaissance, Peter Jackson will be primarily remembered for his Tolkien adaptations. That’s totally fair, really. His LOTR films are legitimate masterpieces of cinema (I can’t really say anything about the Hobbit trilogy as I’ve only seen the first with intentions of seeing the others at some point). What he did was something that no one else could have. Those are objectively his best films. None of them is my favorite though. My favorite has and always will be “The Frighteners”.
“The Frighteners” isn’t just a great film on its own but fascinating in terms of Jackson’s career trajectory. If ever there was a film that illustrates the man having one foot in his past and one in his future, it’d be hard to find one more perfect than this. Jackson started out with low-budget horror films. He ended up doing massive blockbusters like the aforementioned Tolkien adaptations and his remake of “King Kong”. Hell, even the stuff in his later career that wasn’t blockbuster fare was still incredibly high profile, like “The Lovely Bones”. The line of demarcation between them is unquestionably “The Frighteners” though. A movie that carries the personality of his earlier films while also showing glimmers of what he would be able to accomplish with big studio clout and money behind him. A lot of people don’t even know “The Frighteners” exists but even those that do don’t seem to realize how important it is. At the time in 1996, the number of computer effects to bring everything to life here was unprecedented. In fact, it’s because of the demands of this film that Jackson’s WETA effects house expanded, which ultimately lead to his decision to do bigger movies to take advantage of all of the necessary technology. Eventually, WETA became a powerhouse all its own but that all starts here with the needs of this film. With that in mind, it’s a pretty breezy watch and is all made to seem effortless but in retrospect it was a truly mammoth undertaking from a technical standpoint. As much as it might seem out of character for Jackson based on his earlier work, it actually makes all the sense in the world if you really look at this film and then take a look at his earlier work like “Bad Taste”, “Meet The Feebles”, “Braindead/Dead Alive”, etc. Jackson’s imagination was always bursting and leaking out from the very celluloid of the films he was creating and “The Frighteners” is no exception.
I’m going to try not to play fast and loose on the spoilers because of how underseen this film is but it’s going to be hard to discuss plot and characters without giving anything away, so I really just recommend seeing it. However, if you’re still here: the plot of “The Frighteners” is basically that people in a small all-American town (although the film was unsurprisingly filmed in Jackson’s beloved home of New Zealand) are dying under mysterious circumstances. Seemingly totally healthy people are having heart attacks, like the Grim Reaper himself is targeting the townsfolk. Frank Bannister is a man who after losing his wife after a car accident and almost losing his own life at the same time, can now see apparitions. Spirits of people who didn’t cross over into the afterlife surround him… and well, all of us… the only one who knows that though is Frank. He uses the ability to convince his ghostly friends Cyrus, Stuart, and “The Judge” to haunt people so that Frank can come and seemingly exorcise the spirits for a fee. Basically, he’s a con man crossed with a ghostbuster but leaning way towards the former than the latter. He starts to actively try to use his abilities to help when he realizes that whatever is killing the townspeople is possibly also responsible for his wife’s death. To make matters even more difficult, because no one knows why people are dropping dead, Frank is being investigated by not only local law enforcement and an eccentric FBI agent with a grudge. The entity responsible for the deaths is also on a collision course with Frank, so he’s on the run from both corporeal and incorporeal forces to try to keep anyone else from dying and hopefully clear his name.
On paper, Frank Bannister doesn’t seem like a particularly sympathetic character but because of how wonderful Michael J. Fox is at breathing life into the role, he’s never an unlikeable figure. Thanks to the hard work of Fox and Peter Jackson, Frank’s character trajectory goes from being an affable but self-hating con man to a legitimate hero so smoothly that it never for a second feels unnatural. “The Frighteners” is not only my favorite Peter Jackson movie but my favorite Michael J. Fox movie that doesn’t feature the title “Back to the Future”. This film was made in what could be called the downturn of Fox’s career but it’s his undeniable movie star quality that elevates this film from feeling like one of Jackson’s low-budget horror romps. The entire cast is great (this film also features Jeffrey Combs’ career-best work, Dee Wallace Stone’s most terrifically unique performance and one of Jake Busey’s few really great turns as well) but the way that Fox brings Frank to life isn’t something that can be overstated. Everything rests on his shoulders. There’s legitimate darkness and pathos to the character from start to finish but it’s never something that hamstrings the comedy inherent to the film.
That comedy/horror balance is always precarious, but Peter Jackson absolutely nails it every time. This film is clearly no exception. There’s definitely real horror and menace here (and despite them being CG, some great gross out effects) but also an underlying situational silliness to the proceedings, especially closer to the beginning of the film. Having said that, neither the comedy nor the horror ever undercuts the other. Jackson’s work that followed is probably more ambitious on a purely technical level but the way he so skillfully negotiates tone in “The Frighteners” is staggeringly impressive, even decades after the fact. On top of that, I think it’s worth noting that this film features one of the last instantly identifiable Danny Elfman scores and that helps the film immensely. There’s a quality to Elfman’s pre-2000s movie work that is simultaneously creepy and whimsical and therefore perfect for a film such as this.
It’s because of “The Frighteners” that I will always consider myself a Peter Jackson fan. It doesn’t matter to me that I haven’t exactly had my mind blown by anything he’s done in a while. I will always love and respect him as a filmmaker. No matter what, the fact that he made this film (in addition to a lot of other fun stuff before since) is something I can point to as output that most directors wish they could accomplish. A towering achievement. “The Frighteners” may have started out as what could have been simply the best “Tales From The Crypt” movie but Robert Zemeckis personally shepherded this film because he could see how special it was going to be. For that and for its ultimate existence, I’m eternally grateful. It’s still vital and bursting with fun so many years after the fact and is a fascinating step in Jackson’s career in retrospect. There’s no reason whatsoever that anyone that loves film shouldn’t check it out for the first time or rewatch it for the umpteenth time, whatever. It’s mind-blowing regardless.
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch