The Frighteners is a 1996 film 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.

At the time of its original release critics were lukewarm, often regarding the film as little more than a retread of Ghostbusters with an overcomplicated plot.

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

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 discoveres that a death-like creature 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

External links