Throughout the last two decades, Peter Jackson has become one of modern cinema's most celebrated directors. With his directorial work on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises, along with his most recent project, a five-Emmy-winning Disney+ original docuseries on The Beatles titled Get Back, it's almost hard to believe that Jackson cut his teeth in the B-horror genre. Starting his career with cheesy horror films like Bad Taste and Dead Alive, no one safive-Emmy-winningw his transition from gore-filled slaughterfests to Academy Award-winning fantasy films coming.
A few years before his foray into Middle-earth with The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson teamed with '80s megastar, Michael J. Fox, and the two created possibly the most underrated film of both their careers, with The Frighteners. While the film was seen as a financial failure, not quite making back its budget, it was decently lauded among critics, specifically for its fun performances from Fox, Dee Wallace, Jake Busey, John Astin, and B-horror movie guru, Jeffrey Combs. Jackson's personal success with the Tim Burton-esque horror comedy flop paved the way for his eventual work on The Lord of the Rings.
The Frighteners is a great movie for fans of:
- Beetlejuice
- Evil Dead II
- Creepshow
- Return of the Living Dead
- Re-Animator
- An American Werewolf in London
Related
How The Rings of Power Could Have Been Different If Peter Jackson Helmed the Series
Peter Jackson is not directly involved with The Rings of Power, but the series could have been very different if he had helmed the LOTR prequel series.
1
The Frighteners Movie Is Now Streaming On Tubi - What It's About
Tubi Is A Great Streaming Service For Thousands Of Underseen Horror Films
Peter Jackson's 1996 cult favorite The Frighteners is now streaming on Tubi, a free streaming service (with ads) that has thousands of horror movies available. The film follows Fox as Frank Bannister, a man who realizes he can communicate with the dead after his wife dies in a car accident. Bannister uses his talents in a grifter way, befriending ghosts and using their help to make money off fearful clients. When Bannister starts to see numbers appear on the foreheads of future victims, he begins to suspect that a dead serial killer (Jake Busey) is still killing from the afterlife.
Why The Frighteners Is Worth Watching
A Fun Horror Comedy With Fantastic, Campy Performances
Not only does The Frighteners have a unique story, but its campy performances, which recall to Jackson's B-horror movie style, are comical and make the film worth watching alone. R. Lee Ermy's Hiles references back to his Full Metal Jacket role, Dee Wallace breaks away from the protective mother role that fans were so used to seeing her in throughout the '80s (E.T., Cujo), and Jeffrey Combs, who is a natural when it comes to play cheesy horror movie villains (Re-Animator, From Beyond), steals the show with his performance of Milton Dammers, a cultist-turned-special agent.
It's great to see Fox in less of a babyface role, as his character is tragic, with no real motivations after his wife's death. He'd rather hurt people financially than use his gifts to help them, which is, in a way, another layer of progression for this story. The Frighteners has an excellent final act and a great twist, which the movie doesn't hinge upon, making it extremely rewatchable. There's also a fantastic score by Danny Elfman (making it feel even more like a Tim Burton film), and it isn't a massive commitment, clocking in at under two hours long.
The Frighteners | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Budget | Box Office Results | Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer | Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter | IMDB Score |
1996 | $30,000,000 | $29,359,216 | 67% | 71% | 7.1/10 |
Related
10 Best Horror Comedies From The 1990s
From Scream to Army of Darkness to The Addams Family to Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the 1990s were a great decade for horror comedy movies.
How The Frighteners' VFX Helped Peter Jackson With Lord Of The Rings
Some Of The Frighteners Ghost VFX Look Familiar
Though Peter Jackson co-founded the popular digital effects company WetaFX three years prior to the release of The Frighteners, it's clear the movie was a major stepping stone for a company that is now used in massive releases like Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. In fact, many of the effects used on the ghosts in The Frighteners look strikingly familiar to the effects used for the Army of the Dead in Jackson's third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King.
Obviously, the effects in a 2003 film are much more polished than those of a lower-budget 1996 film, but without The Frighteners' visual breakthroughs, it's possible Jackson wouldn't have taken on Lord of the Rings. Like James Cameron going from Piranha II to The Terminator, it's amazing to see how far some directors have come in their careers, and where they started. For Peter Jackson, The Frighteners was a fantastic transitional film.
Source: Tubi
The Frighteners
Your Rating
Rate Now Submit Rate Now Edit
Your comment has not been saved
R
Comedy
Horror
Fantasy
Where to Watch
- stream
- rent
- buy
Not available
*Availability in US
- Director
- Peter Jackson
- Release Date
- July 19, 1996
- Writers
- Peter Jackson , Fran Walsh
- Cast
- Michael J. Fox , Trini Alvarado , Dee Wallace , Jeffrey Combs , Jake Busey
- Runtime
- 110 minutes
- Main Genre
- Comedy
