The Frighteners
The Frighteners is a 1996 supernatural comedy horror film directed by Peter Jackson and co-written with Fran Walsh. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffrey Combs, R. Lee Ermey and Jake Busey. The Frighteners tells the story of Frank Bannister, an architect who develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts after his wife's murder. He initially uses his new abilities to befriend ghosts, whom he sends to haunt people so that he can charge them handsome fees for "exorcising" the ghosts. However, the spirit of a mass murderer appears posing as the Grim Reaper, able to attack the living and the dead, prompting Frank to investigate the supernatural presence.
Jackson and Walsh conceived the idea for The Frighteners during the script-writing phase of Heavenly Creatures. Executive producer Robert Zemeckis hired the duo to write the script, with the original intention of Zemeckis directing The Frighteners as a spin-off film of the television series Tales from the Crypt. With Jackson and Walsh's first draft submitted in January 1994, Zemeckis believed the film would be better off directed by Jackson, produced by Zemeckis and funded/distributed by Universal Studios. The visual effects were created by Jackson's Weta Digital, which had only been in existence for three years. This, plus the fact that The Frighteners required more digital effects shots than almost any movie made until that time, resulted in the eighteen-month period for effects work by Weta Digital being largely stressed.
Despite a rushed post-production schedule, Universal was so impressed with Jackson's rough cut on The Frighteners, the studio moved the theatrical release date up by three months. The film was not a box office success, barely making back its budget, but it received generally positive reviews from critics. The film gained a cult following and is considered an overlooked work in Jackson's catalog.
Plot
In 1964, in the town of Fairwater, Johnny Bartlett is executed for murdering 12 people at Fairwater sanatorium, driven by his desire to become the most prolific serial killer. His teenage lover, Patricia Ann Bradley, is sentenced to prison despite a lack of evidence that she helped Bartlett. Decades later, she is released into her mother's custody.In 1990, architect Frank Bannister is living a selfish, strained marriage with his wife, Debra. During a heated argument, he drunkenly crashes his car, and police later find Debra dead nearby, with the number "13" carved into her forehead. Though Frank has no memory of the incident, the trauma leaves him able to see the spirit world. In the present, he lives in the decrepit shell of the house he was building for Debra. Consumed by guilt, he has become a cynical con man, using his abilities to "exorcise" hauntings staged by ghostly partners—streetwise Cyrus, nerdy Stuart, and The Judge, an Old West gunslinger.
During a job at the home of physician Lucy Lynskey and her arrogant husband Ray, Frank notices the number "37" glowing on Ray's forehead. Ray dies shortly after of a heart attack. Helping Lucy communicate with Ray's ghost, Frank witnesses a Grim Reaper–like entity crush the heart of another man marked "38". Panicked, Frank flees and follows a heavenly light to the museum, where he finds the number 39 victim. Soon after, a newspaper editor, Magda Rees-Jones—who accused Frank of Debra's murder—becomes victim number 40. The Reaper destroys The Judge in the process.
The mounting deaths implicate Frank, and he surrenders to the police. He is interrogated by Milton Dammers, a disturbed FBI agent traumatized by years of physical and sexual torture while working undercover in Satanic cults. Dammers is convinced Frank killed Debra and is psychically causing the unexplained heart attacks. Lucy visits Frank in jail, and they form a bond over shared loss. When the Reaper marks Lucy as victim 41, Cyrus and Stuart sacrifice themselves to save her and Frank. Unable to protect Lucy as a human, Frank has her induce a near-death state, slowing his heart with drugs and sealing him in a freezer. Dammers intervenes, capturing Lucy and leaving Frank to die, but Frank's spirit escapes and damages the pursuing Reaper's form, revealing it to be Bartlett himself.
After Frank revives, Lucy warns Patricia, her patient, about Bartlett, only to learn Patricia has remained devoted to him. She summoned his spirit from Hell to continue their killing spree, and murders her own mother to protect him. Frank and Lucy trap Bartlett in his urn and flee to the derelict sanatorium, planning to use its chapel to banish him to Hell. Pursued through the ruins by Patricia and Dammers, Frank experiences visions of the 1964 massacre, showing that Patricia actively participated in the killings. Frank also recalls that Bartlett's ghost murdered Debra, while Patricia carved the number into her forehead. Dammers unwittingly frees Bartlett from the urn and is promptly killed by Patricia.
Patricia strangles Frank to death, but Frank's spirit forcibly pulls Patricia's from her body and drags it toward Heaven, forcing Bartlett to follow. Bartlett frees her, but the pair are seized by a demonic force and dragged into Hell. In Heaven, Frank is reunited with Cyrus, Stuart, and Debra, who restore him to life on Earth; Debra tells him to be happy.
Some time later, Frank demolishes the unfinished house and begins a relationship with Lucy, who has now gained the ability to see ghosts.
Cast
- Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister, a former architect turned ghost hunter after the trauma of his wife dying. Although Jackson and Walsh envisioned The Frighteners as a low-budget film with unknown actors, Zemeckis suggested casting his Back to the Future star Fox in the lead role. Fox became enthusiastic about working with Jackson when he saw Heavenly Creatures at the Toronto International Film Festival.
- Trini Alvarado as Lucy Lynskey, a physician that Frank meets. The character is named after Heavenly Creatures star Melanie Lynskey.
- Peter Dobson as Ray Lynskey, Lucy's health-obsessed and comically hot-headed husband who dislikes Frank's tactics
- John Astin as The Judge, a decaying gunslinger ghost from the Old West with a penchant for mummies and firing guns at random.
- Jeffrey Combs as Milton Dammers, an eccentric FBI agent who has a vendetta against Bannister. A former undercover agent known for his work with cultists, which caused him to sustain multiple massive mutilations and drove him to the brink of insanity, he has a problem with women screaming at him. Jackson opted to cast Combs as Dammers because he was a fan of the actor's work in Re-Animator.
- Dee Wallace Stone as Patricia Bradley, inspired by Caril Ann Fugate. Bartlett's mentally ill lover who is under strict observation by her mother.
- Jake Busey as Johnny Bartlett, a mass murderer inspired by Charles Starkweather sharing the last name of his second and third victims, girlfriend and accomplice Caril Ann Fugate's mother and step-father Velda and Marion Bartlett. He continues his work in the afterlife, focusing on increasing his body count as a form of competition with other famous murderers. He returns from Hell, able to attack the living and the dead posing as the Grim Reaper.
- Chi McBride as Cyrus. One of Frank's deceased associates for his ghost-hunting business.
- Jim Fyfe as Stuart, a nerd who is one of Frank's deceased associates for his ghost-hunting business.
- Troy Evans as Sheriff Walt Perry, a local law enforcement officer and ally to Frank.
- Julianna McCarthy as Old Lady Bradley, Patricia's mother and former director of the psychiatric hospital, who is constantly monitoring her daughter.
- R. Lee Ermey as Hiles, the ghost of a master sergeant. Ermey's performance in this film is heavily reminiscent of his performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, sharing many mannerisms with the aforementioned character.
- Elizabeth Hawthorne as Magda Rees-Jones, the snooty British editor of the local newspaper.
- Ken Blackburn as Dr. Kamins, Lucy's colleague, whom she works for, and who performed the autopsies on Bartlett's recent victims, discovering that their deaths were not of natural causes.