The Frighteners

The Frighteners is a 1996 horror comedy film directed by Peter Jackson and co-written with his partner, Fran Walsh.
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 (Fox), 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, but received generally positive reviews from critics. The film gained a cult following and is considered a cult classic in Jackson's catalog.
== Plot ==
In 1964, in the town of Fairwater, Johnny Bartlett is executed for killing 12 people at a sanatorium, driven by his ambition to become the most prolific serial killer. His teenage lover, Patricia Ann Bradley, is treated as an accomplice and sentenced to prison. Many years later, she is released into her mother's care.
In 1990, Frank Bannister, a successful architect, is a self-centered husband to his wife, Debra. During an argument, Frank crashes his car, and police later find Debra dead nearby with the number '13' carved into her forehead. Frank has no memory of the event, but the trauma grants him the ability to see the spirit world. In the present, Frank lives in the unfinished remnants of the dream home he was building for Debra. Wracked with guilt over her death, Frank has become a cynical con man, using his abilities to "exorcise" hauntings staged by ghosts in his employ: street gangster Cyrus, nerdy Stuart, and The Judge, an Old West gunslinger.
While exorcising the home of physician Lucy Lynskey and her self-absorbed husband Ray, Frank notices the number "37" glowing on Ray's forehead. Ray later dies of a heart attack. As Frank helps Lucy communicate with Ray's ghost, he witnesses a Grim Reaper-like entity crush the heart of a man marked "38". Panicked, Frank flees and follows a heavenly light to the museum, where he discovers the number 39 victim and the Reaper's next target, newspaper editor Magda Rees-Jones. Frank fails to save Magda from the Reaper, who also kills The Judge. Realizing the murders are pointing to him, Frank turns himself in to the police. He is investigated by Milton Dammers, an eccentric and unstable FBI agent traumatized by years of torture and sexual abuse while working undercover with Satanic cults. Dammers is convinced that Frank killed Debra and is responsible for the high number of unexplained heart attack deaths in the town.
Lucy visits Frank in jail and they bond over their shared losses. The Reaper attacks Lucy, the number 41 victim, and Cyrus and Stuart are killed defending her and Frank while they escape. Aware he cannot protect her from the Reaper as a human, Lucy induces a near-death experience in Frank using drugs to slow his heart. Dammers captures Lucy, intending to let Frank remain dead, but Frank's spirit rescues her and inflicts enough damage on the Reaper to destroy his disguise, revealing him as the spirit of Bartlett.
While Frank recovers following his revival, Lucy warns her patient, Patricia, of Bartlett's return. Patricia reveals she is still in love with Bartlett and summoned him from Hell to continue their murder spree. Patricia kills her mother, while Frank and Lucy trap Bartlett in his urn and flee to the abandoned sanitorium, intending to take his ashes to the chapel and banish him back to Hell. While Patricia and Dammers each pursue the pair through the sanitorium, Frank experiences visions of the 1964 massacre, showing Patricia was actively involved in the murders. This helps Frank recall that Bartlett's ghost killed Debra and Patricia carved the number into her forehead. Dammers takes the urn and unwittingly releases Bartlett before being killed by Patricia.
Patricia fatally strangles Frank, but as a spirit, he pulls her soul from her body and ascends to heaven, dragging Patricia's spirit with him and forcing Bartlett to give chase. Although Bartlett frees Patricia and attempts to return to Earth, they are consumed by a demonic creature and taken to Hell. Frank arrives in Heaven where he is reunited with Cyrus, Stuart, and Debra, who sends him back to Earth, telling him to be happy.
Sometime later, Frank demolishes his incomplete house and starts a relationship with Lucy, who can now 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 (who also cameos in The Frighteners).
* 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 (escaping execution at the time of the original murders as she was underage) 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.
In addition, Peter Jackson cameos as a man with piercings, his son Billy is a baby in a bouncer, Melanie Lynskey cameos as the deputy who is briefly seen standing next to Lucy Lynskey, Byron McCrawerly plays Victim #38 and Angela Bloomfield plays Frank's deceased wife, Debra.
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