Ghost Movies
Frighteners
Release Date: 1996-06-05
Runtime: 110
User Rating: 3
Rated 3 times.
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Directed by Peter Jackson
Written by Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson
Starring Michael J. Fox
Produced by Robert Zemeckis (executive)
Distributed by MCA/Universal Pictures (US)
Release date 19 July 1996 (US premiere)
Runtime 110 min / 122 min (director's cut)
Language English
Budget
The Frighteners is a 1996 film directed by Peter Jackson about a
psychic private detective who stands in the way of a serial killing
death-like creature. The film earned $16 million at the U.S. box office
in July 1996. Sometime in 1998, director Peter Jackson, who went on to
direct the Lord of the Rings trilogy, commissioned Universal Studios
home video to release a laserdisc special edition of the film (with a
four and a half hour documentary) as well as a standard edition DVD.
Fans of the film are still waiting for a special edition DVD release.
Some collectors spend up to $500 to get a copy of the out of print
laserdisc special edition on eBay. As with his later Rings trilogy,
Jackson filmed the movie in his home country, New Zealand.
Filming
The film's digital special effects are innovative, and can be seen as
foreshadowing the Paths of the Dead sequence in The Return of the King,
which featured an army of ghosts.
One of the ghost characters is played by John Astin. His (adopted) son
Sean Astin stars in the Lord of the Rings movies as Samwise Gamgee. In
his book There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale (2004) Sean Astin cites
his father's enthusiasm for working with Peter Jackson as the chief
reason for his auditioning for the role.
(Sean Astin's daughter also appears in 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 Sergeant Hartman role from Kubrick's Full
Metal Jacket
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
After a car accident in which his wife was killed and he was injured,
Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) develops psychic abilities allowing
him to see and hear ghosts. He has 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 ghost busting business. He then proceeds to
'exorcise' the houses, for a fee. But then he discovers that a
death-like creature (Johnny Charles Barlett) is killing people one
after another, marking numbers on their forehead beforehand. Because of
the numbers, he can foretell the murders. This puts him under suspicion
by the police. He tries to stop the murders, helped by a doctor and his
three ghostly friends.
Cast
* Frank Bannister: Michael J. Fox
* Dr. Lucy Lynskey: Trini Alvarado
* Ray Lynskey: Peter Dobson
* The Judge: John Astin
* Milton Dammers: Jeffrey Combs
* Patricia Ann Bradley: Dee Wallace-Stone
* Johnny Charles Bartlett: Jake Busey
* Cyrus: Chi McBride
* Stuart, Bannister's Ghostly Assistant: Jim Fyfe
* Sheriff Walt Perry: Troy Evans
* Old Lady Bradley: Julianna McCarthy
* Sgt. Hiles: R. Lee Ermey
* Magda Rhys-Jones: Elizabeth Hawthorne
* Debra Bannister: Angela Bloomfield
* Harry Sinclair: Desmond Kelly
* Steve Bayliss: Jonathan Blick