Before they were adapting J.R.R. Tolkien masterpieces and making brilliant archival documentaries, Peter Jackson and longtime creative collaborator Fran Walsh explored some far quirkier terrain.
The New Zealanders burst onto the scene with a flurry of imaginative horror comedies (Walsh has collaborated with Jackson on everything after his film debut, Bad Taste). They parlayed their success on Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive into a more prestige true-crime thriller, the Oscar-nominated indie darling Heavenly Creatures. Showing they could deliver at that level, the duo next returned to the horror comedy universe. This time, though, they had the backing of a major studio, Universal Pictures; a major director/producer, Robert Zemeckis, as the film’s EP; and one of Zemeckis’ go-to A-listers: Marty McFly himself, Michael J. Fox.
For The Frighteners, despite being mired in fantastic situations with wisecracking older sidekicks, Fox is generally not playing a retread of Marty McFly. His Frank Bannister is a cynical, manipulative huckster, exploiting his ability to, well, see dead people to bilk the citizens of his sleepy coastal hometown, Fairwater.
A near-death experience in a car accident that killed his wife has equipped Frank with these gifts. But instead of actually helping anyone, the former architect-turned-faux exorcist coordinates “hauntings” with ghost pals Cyrus (Chi McBride), Stuart (Jim Fyfe), and The Judge (John Astin) to first terrify and later grift local townfolk.
But his day job as a phony exorcist (the ghosts may be real, of course, but their hauntings are not) masks a deep pain. He lives in a half-finished house, part of a renovation project he abandoned after the accident. Beyond the ghost pals, Frank doesn’t seem to have any real friends. Although he’s relatively amicable with Sheriff Perry (Troy Evans), that may be more of a strategic alliance than anything else.
When comely young physician Lucy Lynskey (Trini Alvarado) and her fitness-freak husband Ray (Peter Dobson) arrive in town, Frank’s world begins to change. A plague of mysterious “heart attacks” besets Fairwater. When Ray dies at just 29, Frank and Lucy begin to investigate — and they soon discover that a more malevolent spirit, conspiring with some surprise humans, is actually to blame.
As is their custom, Jackson and Walsh used their native New Zealand as a stand-in for the vaguely New England-ish town of Fairwater. Exteriors were shot in Wellington and Lyttelton, New Zealand, while interiors were photographed at Camperdown Studios in Miramar, New Zealand.
The film’s impressive-for-1996 mixture of digital and practical special effects was handled by Jackson’s go-to company, Wētā FX — which Jackson had co-founded with Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk to produce the fantasy sequences in Heavenly Creatures.
A then-historically lengthy production (Universal approved an epic six-month shoot to coordinate the heavy green screen filming needed to cover the ghost characters) was plagued by some difficult moments. Initial director of photography Alun Bollinger suffered an all-too-real car accident just six weeks into production, and was replaced temporarily by John Blick while he recovered. Fox was privately struggling with Parkinson’s disease, and had decided to step away from live-action film stardom after The Frighteners.
In post, the movie’s innovative effects slate threatened to delay delivery. Zemeckis brought in ILM animation supervisor Wes Takahashi to help expedite the process.
First set to be a 30-minute Tales From the Crypt episode, Zemeckis took a shine to the material and commissioned a feature-length screenplay. That iteration of The Frighteners was initially designed to be a more accessible, PG-13 horror comedy adventure. But MPAA shenanigans kept it from achieving that, and the movie was relegated to a more restrictive R rating. When studio executives liked what they saw out of an initial rough cut, the autumnal chiller saw its release date moved up three months for a… mid-summer slot.
Normally, of course, dropping during cinema’s busy season is a coveted opportunity. But for a still relatively modest horror movie (among midyear smashes, the film’s $26 million budget was absolutely dwarfed by Independence Day‘s $75 million sticker tag and Mission: Impossible‘s $80 million budget). The Frighteners made just $16.8 million domestically and finished with a scant $29.4 million worldwide, a disappointing finish for a nifty little fantasy that deserved better.
But don’t cry for Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. Things worked out fine.
They also made one heck of a movie, and the decades have been kind to The Frighteners‘ unique genre mash-up approach.
The ghosts (beyond Ray and Frank’s three buddies, R. Lee Ermey plays the ghost of a master sergeant who patrols the local cemetery; the secret villain is also a familiar face) essentially use Looney Tunes rules when it comes to physical comedy. Little can hurt them (outside of, say, a murderous rival ghost plaguing the town), and they often are squished and smashed and stretched to comic effect.
As Jackson relays in an old commentary track ported over to Arrow’s excellent new 4K transfer (we’ll get to that), he and Walsh welcomed improvizations from their actors.
They’ve always been collaborative in their filmmaking, and it’s clear that all involved were having fun chewing the scenery in what winds up feeling like a spooky marriage of the sensibilities of Tim Burton (down to the cheerfully macabre Danny Elfman score); Trailers From Hell Gurus Joe Dante (Dee Wallace Stone portrays a mysterious recluse), John Landis, and Stuart Gordon (Jeffrey Combs plays a memorably bizarre FBI agent); Sam Raimi; and Zemeckis himself.
