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| One of the reasons for The Frighteners' box office failure according to its director Peter Jackson was its suggestive poster |
A small town ghostbuster, who also gets the town's loud ghosts to haunt in the first place, gets into trouble when a mass murderer, who has been dead for decades, begins slaughtering people from beyond, dressed as the grim reaper.
This is the basic story in New Zealander master filmmaker Peter Jackson's (Braindead/Dead Alive (1992)) 6th feature, written by his wife Fran Walsh (Meet the Feebles (1989)) and with Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future (1985)) in the lead. Robert Zemeckis (Flight (2012)) executive produced and probably suggested Fox based on their Back to the Future hit films (1985; 1989; 1990) together, and the infinitely likable Fox does well here again.
The Frighteners is a super fast-paced action adventure horror comedy driven by impressive, innovative effects just as Sam Raimi's great Army of Darkness (1992) or Tim Burton's brilliant Beetle Juice (1988). The important difference, however, is that Frighteners in no way lives up to these other two gems in terms of neither plot nor laughs.
On top of this, the film marks one time that master composer Danny Elfman's (Men in Black 3 (2012)) trademark of loud and huge orchestrations just goes over the top and becomes too much. - The film is overly loud throughout and gives its audience no time to think or gather interest, but simply roars us down into our seats.
The visual effects are impressive, though, and it is interesting to trail the evolution of CGI from James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), over Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and Chuck Russell's The Mask (1994) into The Frighteners, where especially the moving wall and flying cloak effects are very close to being flawless.
Of the characters in Frighteners that unfortunately just don't work are the loopy FBI-agent (played by cult-horror-favorite Jeffrey Combs (The Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) etc.)), the incredibly naive widow (played by Trini Alvarado (Little Children (2006))) and the theatrically evil co-conspirator (played by Dee Wallace (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982))). The film just doesn't make me believe in them as characters, and my interest in them cannot shift as fast as is required in order to enjoy this film that is brimming with silly gags one minute and then tries to conjure up real suspense the next.
Jackson has been generous in his explanations as to why Frighteners was a financial disappointment: The American distributor Universal Pictures, exceedingly thrilled with the film, moved its release up to the summer, which isn't normally a good time for horror, and this particular summer 'belonged to' Independence Day (1996). The Olympics were opening in Atlanta at the same time. And Jackson also blames the poster above, which, in his own words, "didn't tell you anything about the picture."- There seems to be some truth in that.
Frighteners didn't hurt Jackson's career much, though, as we know: He went on to develop The Lord of the Rings for the first installment in 2001. He has since then also shown deficiency with visually 'stunning' serial killer material in the sound dud The Lovely Bones (2009), illusions of grandeur in the criminally long, disagreeable remake of King Kong (2005), and today, of course, he is back to gnomes and trolls in his Hobbit films (2012; 2013; 2014) and coming adventures of the weird-looking, motion-controlled Tintin (2016). Alas. - If only Jackson would go back scale-wise and make a 10 mil. $ horror film without CGI again. - Now that would be interesting!
Related posts:
Peter Jackson: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) - Jackson's megalomania gives birth to the first third of an enormous fantasy whopper
1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) - Jackson's best film ever is a gore classic!
Bad Taste (1987) or, Peter Jackson's Hungry Aliens in New Zealand
[The Frighteners was released on 19 July (North America) and runs 110 minutes. Zemeckis/Jackson were granted final cut privilege and one of the longest-approved (by Universal) shoots, which ran May - November 1995, entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand with local WingNut Films. Jackson wasn't able to swing the PG-rating that he had promised Universal, and they consequently had to accept an R-rating for Frighteners, (which basically keeps away the younger teen crowds that the film is, to some degree, aimed at.) Jackson's experiences here also made him realize the importance of good marketing. The film opened #5, behind holdover hits Independence Day, Phenomenon, Courage Under Fire and The Nutty Professor to a 5.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it bowed after just 3 weeks and grossed disappointing 16.7 mil. $ (57 % of the total gross). Frighteners was Fox's last live-action feature, together with the great Mars Attacks! also a 1996 release. He has since only done voice work and TV-series due to his suffering from Parkinson's Disease. The Frighteners is fresh at 64 % and a 6.2/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Frighteners?
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