The Frighteners

Peter Jackson, once again, is in almost complete control of the production. This time, however, he's given a Hollywood budget and is, for lack of a better term, "supervised," by a major Hollywood mogul, Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis, the producer, must have seen something in Jackson, a gore film veteran, to fight for Jackson and get his $30 million dollar budget. While not huge, the budget is spent entirely to show exactly what Jackson can do. Seeming to be a warm up for his hopeful King Kong remake, The Frighteners is a virtuoso technical accomplishment with dozens of gee-whiz action sequences just oozing with energy and wit. While the script might not be the film's best asset (Jackson penned it himself), the accomplishments of Jackson's self-made special effects company definitely are. The film makes no attempt to really bring you into the characters, rather it just tries to be a thrill ride filled with absurdist humor and buckets of computer effects.

The opening scene is a special effects showcase and is full of kinetic energy. It starts with an oppressive shot of an imposing house getting doused with rain beneath the dark clouds. It's been done dozens of times before, but the camera zooms into the house and down the stairs, enventually following a mysterious woman as she gets chased by something coming out of the walls. Bad effects would have made the scene hilarious, but instead it becomes pretty intense.

Critical to the film's humor is the presence of a bunch of ghastly apparitions who only Frank Bannister (Fox) can see. He uses his ability to make a living, and numerous people fall into his schemes. He plays them like fools, pretending to rid their houses of their harassers. Squirting holy water around the house with a squirt gun, Bannister then pulls out a tiny bag, claiming that the spirits could be cherished as souvenirs. Then he promptly gets in his car, and in a running gag throughout the film, we're treating to driving skills that would leave anyone jealous. Bannister is haunted by past events which led to the untimely demise of his wife. As the story evolves, we see exactly what happened and it's up to Frank to make the rampant killings stop.

I assume that Peter Jackson was constantly on the set telling Michael J. Fox to "lose himself" a little more and act a little more crazy. In a role that requires plenty of deadpan humor and weird expressions, Fox is adaquate. I wished at some points that Fox would have gone nuts, more fully complimenting the absurd humor of the director. That said, Fox never reaches the totally fun status that he should have, and it somewhat limits the film.

There's little point to ask questions about the storyline, because the film never pretends to make perfect sense. It's all about having fun, and watching The Frighteners, thankfully I did.

On a scale of 1 to 10 carpet apparitions : 6