31 Days Of Horror Day 4: The Frighteners

Jason Christopher continues this special month long event celebrating horror movies continues with The Frighteners from 1996:

I know it’s not really a horror type movie but it's still good enough for the month of October and to put on my list of reviews. Don’tcha lie to me either, all of the flash backs of Johnny Bartlett are kind of creepy.

This movie was the first movie my Dad ever bought on DVD. We saw it on VHS but once DVDs came out it was this and Jumanji he bought in one day. This was when, “oh, you got a DVD player?” Now you can get them for $30 at Wal-Mart. Just like when Marty McFly said, “Yeah, we have a few TVs.” And the little boy who was his uncle says, “You have more than one TV???” Okay, getting sidetracked.

The film follows Frank Bannister (Michael J Fox), who after being in a car accident with his wife. Debra, (who died) Frank gave up his job as an architect and instead put his visions of seeing ghosts to use. He started his own ghost busting business. When a creature  resembling the Grim Reaper starts killing people, Frank tries to save them.

Now, I’m a real big fan of this movie. It’s funny, it’s scary, and it’s entertaining. This is Peter Jackson before he made the Lord of The Rings movies, which I can’t stand. In the mid 90's Jackson was kicking ass back in the day, with this Bad Taste, and Dead Alive aka Braindead. All of the actors are great. Dee Wallace looking like a straight up mess in the movie. Jake Busey was even good in this movie, and that’s saying a lot.

The best thing about this disc release is the 15th anniversary edition. Not only does it have pretty cool special features. The original DVD only had the trailer and bios on the actor, that’s it. This has a commentary, storyboards, making of, and an introduction. Pretty cool. AND the BEST thing on this Blu Ray and DVD is that it has BOTH theatrical and directors cut! I hate getting movies that are just the director’s cut, if they do a re-release. Maybe, I don’t want to see your director’s cut there. But Universal gave the option and that’s a sale in my book.

So, I say go check out this movie and other early Peter Jackson movies, cause they were the BEST. I loathe Lord of The Rings, boring. Not a lot of people have seen The Frighteners . It’s a shame cause it really is an entertaining movie. I love when Frank gets to the chapel and re-sees the murders, real cool.

27 days left till Halloween.


-Jay

Jay will return same time tomorrow with another review in his series...