Review of The Frighteners (1996) by Alex S — 21 Jun 2015

Somehow, watching Michael J. Fox scream obscenities while plugging Death full of rounds from twin machine guns made me believe again. Then Jake Busey showed up and quickly took me back to a reality where lunatic movies like this exist with potential and destroy it at an escalating pace as the director cannot figure out when to end the mayhem.

That's the fate befalling Jackson's story of a cunning ghost "exterminator" (Fox) who swindles clients since he happens to have already befriended the ghosts doing the haunting (a trio of three very different, but very effective, spirits).

Then, this "bad" ghost shows up and starts killing people and Fox finds himself connected to the attacks. This would make for a fun and crazy story but then we get numbers burned into people's foreheads, talks of a previous massacre that adds unnecessary complexities and a showdown in an abandoned hospital that goes on too long and involves the wrath of some angry worms from Hell.

Everyone is great here when they are given a chance to act. Jackson actually had a substantial budget with this film and boy did he use it. While some effects are still cool today (what can I say - the Death puppet flying over miniature sets is pretty awesome), they probably blew people away in 1996 when they weren't drowning everyone and everything, which is a problem since practically every scene has some sort of effect in it that takes us out of the picture and makes the whole thing drag longer than its already lengthy run.

Good fun and all but too many ideas hold this back from "Dead Alive" greatness.