The Frighteners

Here we go-- first horror flick of the month! 

Today I watched Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. Before I get into the review, shameful admission: I have never seen any of Jackson's horror films. You would think on my third year of doing this I would have watched one by now, but ya know... you'd be wrong. This isn't one of the ones I hear about most either when people talk about his pre-Lord of the Rings horror, but I saw it on Netflix and thought I'd check it out. 

The Frighteners is a sort of horror/comedy that tells the story of a down-and-out psychic investigator (Michael J. Fox) that discovers that Death is killing off people in his town. This is told against the backdrop of another story of a orderly who killed 12 people as at a sanitarium. The movie is intentionally over the top and heavy handed, from the story to the characters to the music (Danny Elfman). And while I "get it" it was just a bit too much sometimes. It gave the movie a feeling of not being able to know what it was in parts--is it a serial killer movie? Is it a supernatural haunting flick? Once again, I'm sure that was Jackson's intention, but as a viewer it was hard at points to grab on to some solid grasp of what the movie was. All in all though, I did enjoy it, and it had some great laugh out loud parts such as when the main female characters' very dumb husband begins beating a "possessed" Raggedy Anne doll with a pillow. Jackson then continues in the next scene to poke fun at the idiocy of characters in much of horror, with the same husband commenting as kitchen items fly around the house that "there must be some form of reasonable explanation." There my idiot theory goes again. Also, '90s animation... gotta love it.

I am, however, very disappointed someone in the course of the movie didn't call Michael J. Fox chicken and he responding with "Nobody calls me chicken." Lost opportunity, Mr. Jackson. 

A flawed but fun flick that I don't see myself probably ever revisiting.

6.5/10