When you think of director Peter Jackson and actor Michael J. Fox, two very important movie franchises come to mind. The Lord of the Rings and Back to the Future are the most important projects of these two Hollywood legends. Nevertheless, they were both involved in one of the most bizarre horror comedies ever made. It is the ’90s gem The Frighteners, and in just a few days it will be available to stream on Peacock.
As part of their October update, which brings along plenty of horror movies to catch on during the spooky season, Peacock is adding The Frighteners to their catalog of movies on October 1. Other horror picks arriving on Peacock include the Leprechaun series, The Ring, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the first three Scream movies.
InThe Frighteners, Fox gives life to a con man. Frank Bannister was once a successful man, but after a traumatic event involving his wife, he acquires psychic abilities. In other words, he can talk to and see ghosts. Instead of using his skills for something honorable, Frank has decided to deceive innocent people. He convinces ghosts to haunt helpless victims, so that they can hire him to exorcize them. The problem is that the latest entity in town is exterminating the living as well as the dead, and Frank can’t do anything about it. Per the Rotten Tomatoes synopsis:
Once an architect, Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) now passes himself off as an exorcist of evil spirits. To bolster his facade, he claims his “special” gift is the result of a car accident that killed his wife. But what he does not count on is more people dying in the small town where he lives. As he tries to piece together the supernatural mystery of these killings, he falls in love with the wife (Trini Alvarado) of one of the victims and deals with a crazy FBI agent (Jeffrey Combs).
The Frighteners bombed at the box office, grossing a little over $29 million from its $26 million budget. Critics did not exactly love it, and it currently holds 66% on Rotten Tomatoes on the critics’ score. The audience score is slightly higher, at 71%.
‘The Frighteners’ Was Weta Digital’s Presentation Before ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Franchise
The Frighteners arrived in theaters in 1996. Not only that, but it received a summer release, close to major productions like Independence Day, Mission: Impossible, and Twister. Though its reception was not what Universal Pictures projected at first, The Frighteners was a small production that could actually compete against some of the year’s most prominent films in one major aspect: its groundbreaking visual effects that still look great to this day, and were fairly rare for a horror film.
But creating them was not easy. The project was ambitious from the very beginning, with Jackson insisting that the VFX shots could be created by Weta Digital, his visual effects company based in New Zealand which had yet to work on a major motion picture. Executive producer Robert Zemeckis saw the struggle and eventually sought the help of Industrial Light & Magic’s legend Wes Takahashi. Takahashi was exiting ILM at the time, and was starting to work at Weta with Jackson.
The Frighteners was a complicated film to complete. Universal Pictures decided to release it earlier than originally planned, and Jackson had to rely on VFX artists outside Weta in order to complete the movie on time. It was, for sure, a learning experience for the director and his visual effects company that would reach its peak during the production of The Lord of the Rings franchise years later.
- Release Date
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July 19, 1996
- Runtime
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110 minutes
