Over the years, I've found it difficult to find people who have seen The Frighteners, Peter Jackson's first mainstream Hollywood movie, nonetheless admit to liking it. A girl who lived in my freshman dorm said that she saw the VHS copy at Wal-Mart one day for about $10 and debated buying it. Reportedly made for a modest $30 million, it didn't even break even with a worldwide box office. In America, it made a reported $17 million and a $28 million worldwide.
That was before Peter Jackson became a well-known director and won three Academy Awards at one time.
After the critical and box-office success of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson said in a 2002 Entertainment Weekly article that the movie was badly marketed from the beginning. Originally intended as Halloween movie, Universal Studioes moved it to the summer schedule in 1996.
The Frighteners has been a textbook example of what happens when Hollywood has too much involvement in a movie, especially since the majority of the filming and special effects were shot in New Zealand. Reportedly, some scenes were shot here in Oklahoma in Tulsa, but I don't recognize any familiar places. The Motion Picture Association of America said the movie was too intense to receive a PG-13 rating, which was originally intended when the movie began production. On the extras, Jackson says that scenes of actress Dee Wallace Stone shooting holes in doors with a shotgun were too intense for a PG-13 rating. Of course, this was the same summer in which aliens destroying New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. and its inhabitants were A-Okay for a PG-13. But a door? Just another example of the MPAA letting some filmmakers get away with murder.
The plot of the movie is interesting. For about five years, at least two dozen people of a coastal northern California town have been dying of mysterious deaths similar to heart attacks, but they have been in the perfect health. The police are baffled. Enter Frank Bannister, played by Michael J. Fox, as an architect turned paranormal investigator, i.e. con man. Frank actually can see ghosts. He more or less shares his half-finished house with spirits Stuart (Jim Fyfe) , a 1950's looking college boy, the Judge (John Astin), an old West lawman who's jaw is just hanging on by willpower and Cyrus (Chi McBride) who died in the 1970's and has a huge afro and a polyester suit that is vintage disco. They help him run his cons on the locals.
One night, while trying to get out of footing the bill for damages a fence of the Lynskeys, a young couple that has moved to town, he notices the number 37 on the forehead of Ray Lynsky (Peter Dobson.) Shortly thereafter, Ray is dead and his spirit is running around town wondering what just happened. Ray's wife, Lucy (Trini Alvarado) starts a friendship with Frank to communicate with Ray's spirit. At the same time, Lucy, who is a doctor, is also interested in Dee Wallace Stone's character, Patricia Ann Bradley, who is plagued by spirits. Bradley is the local quackpot because her and her teenage love Johnny Charles Bartlett (Jake Busey) shot twelve people at the local hospital about thirty-five years earlier trying to one up that score of Charles Starkweather. He was electrocuted. She was sentenced to prison but has been released.
As Frank and Lucy's friendship grows into an inevitable romance, he notices an image of the Grim Reaper stalking the locals. Another victim has the number 38 on his forehead. An FBI agent, Milton Dammers, played by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame, comes to town to investigate the growing rate of mysterious deaths and thinks Frank is behind it all.
If all of this seems confusing, then that might explain the poor box-office tally. This was also the same summer in which Mission:Impossible made a lot of money despite its complicated plot. Many critics didn't like it. Entertainment Weekly was one of the few that gave it a positive review. Jackson suffered from the same disease that hits a lot of directors. In 1994, his movie Heavenly Creatures based on a true murder in New Zealand got a lot of praise from critics. They were probably especting the same thing next, but got an action/ghost story. Rather than applaude the movie for being made out of Hollywood and even its special effects being done by WETA, the now famous special effects department, (like many critics do on other movies that are not as entertaining as this), some people just deeply hated this movie. Roger Ebert called it a demo for a far better movie. Like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was such a great movie. Some critics didn't do their homework and realized The Frighteners was similar to his ealier movies, Bad Taste and Dead-Alive (or Braindead as it is also known.) Maybe they weren't used to Jackson's mix of comedy and carnage. Neither was I when I first say it, but I liked it anyway and it made me want to see Dead-Alive, but I stayed away from Meet the Feebles (and so should you out there.)
Finally, on DVD as a director's cut, rather than the generic "Unrated" DVDs that are everywhere, The Frighteners is about about 14 minutes longer its theatrical release. There is a longer section where we are introduced to the characters of Stuart, Cyrus, and the Judge, including a scene where Stuart and Cyrus dress up as a grim reaper in a somewhat foreshadow of later scenes. Jackson's cameo as a punk rocker is extended as he calls Frank an "asshole" in a very nice Californian accent. There is an addition of a scene in which the swastika tattoo on Dammers hand is explained as well as some scenes of Patricia getting freaky with Johnny Bartlett's spirit.
Like his extended DVD versions of The Lord of the Rings movies, there is very much in depth explanation of how the special effects were constructed. Jackson says that WETA got so many computers to do the special effects that he began to get the wheels moving on The Lord of the Rings movie while The Frighteners was in post-production.
Some of the interviews have interesting facts. Robert Zemeckis, who was the executive producer, explains that the movie was originally considered as a Tales from the Crypt movie. Danny Elfman, who composed the score, says that he was so impressed by Heavenly Creatures, he wanted to work with Jackson regardless of what the movie was about. Many of the actors like Fox and McBride say they were impressed by Heavenly Creatures so they decided to do the movie.
One of the best parts of the DVD are the outtakes in which Fox keeps calling Astin's character "Doc" confusing him with Christopher Lloyd's character from the Back to the Future movies. It's funny as Fox realizes his mistake, but knowing that he was going through the first stages of Parkinson's Disease on the set, might make some people feel uneasy at his screw-ups.
One of the interesting facts of this movie which is never discussed in the DVD extras is the characters of Ray and Lucy Lynskey share their surname with Melanie Lynskey, who was played the lead role of Pauline in Heavenly Creatures. Melanie Lynskey has a small scene as a deputy in which she is talking to the character of Lucy Lysnkey.
The Frighteners is a movie for everyone who enjoys a nice ghost story as well as a nice action movie with funny scenes to laugh at. Despite its R-rating, it's not at all that violent. Because of its intended PG-13 rating, there is some foul language but no use of the F-word or any other crude language. Elfman says he took his daughter who was eleven at the time to see the movie and she was confused as to what it was she was not meant to see because of the R rating.
Now, almost ten years later, what Jackson and his long time partner Fran Walsh had imagined has finally received the recognition it deserves.
No comments:
Post a Comment