The Frighteners (***1/2)
review by Jon Waterman

Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a man who can communicate with ghosts.  He uses this ability to scam people out of money and thus, make a living.  Now, an evil ghost is out terrorizing the town and stealing peoples’ souls, so Frank has to try to stop it.

This film is great.  We got humor, we got scares, we got excitement, we got mystery, we got suspence, we got ghosts, we got Marty McFly, we got John Astin and we got Peter Jackson at the helm.  Most of what I have to stay, if not everything, revolves around Peter.  He and Frances Walsh wrote the script.  They give us a full script with a climax that isn’t really a climax, but Jackson has a way of giving us more than we need while still making the extra time enjoyable.  Overall, they created a wonderful blend of all the elements I mentioned above.  The film isn’t really all that scary, but it doesn’t need to be, because it has so much more going for it.  The only thing I would have taken out is the love story.  The movie was/is fine without it, and really the sudden infatuation between the two characters after just one dinner really makes no sense.

The movie does nothing to further the mystification of ghosts, nor does it enhance our understanding of them.  In fact, it does really nothing more with the notion of ghosts than what has already been absorbed into the collective unconscious.  All you need to know is that there are some good ghosts, but there are some wall crawling types that seem to have a death wish towards humans and like to give them “heart attacks.”

I’m going to switch gears and talk about the special effects for a moment.  Frighteners came out in 1996.  Six years later, special effects (as a whole) look pretty much the same.  However, in ’96, there was still a need to be creative and do some problem solving with the effects so that they look natural.  They couldn’t rely so heavily on the computer.  The result is a movie full of incredible special effects that, I think, look a little better than the films of today.

My last group of random comments concerns the visuals.  Peter obviously is one of the greatest directors of this generation.  He shows us why in this film through the mastery of creating such a dark and moody atmosphere without drowning everyone in deep shadows.  He brings us uncomfortably close to the characters with invading zooms and close-ups.  And if you really need another reason to watch the movie, there are the flashbacks.  There are a series of flashback shots where actions from the past and present are seamlessly put together with a flash of the background that’s just awe-inspiring.

If all of that’s not enough, Danny Elfman does the music and you also have horror and Star Trek staple Jeffrey Combs playing the weirdest FBI agent you’ll ever see.  I think you’re convinced.

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