We live in an age of remakes, one where seemingly anything can and will be remade, rebooted or reimagined. Even films that were thought to be “classic” are being remade; Disney reimagined their animated version of Alice in Wonderland into a Tim Burton driven gothic fantasy, the hit 80’s action flick Robocop is being brought into the modern age in a new version coming out this winter, and in 2007, Rob Zombie gave us his version of the horror classic Halloween. One can argue that Hollywood has run out of ideas. I, however, argue that remakes aren’t a terrible idea, rather, the films that they’re choosing to remake have been so great originally that the remake feels tired, and unfulfilling.
This brings me to The Frighteners, a 1996 horror comedy directed by Peter Jackson, back when he was making crazy horror films, and not endless Lord of the Rings sequels. It stars Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister, a con man who uses his ability to see and speak to ghosts to make a living as a “paranormal investigator”. When a mysterious creature starts killing off people and ghosts in his small town, he uses his gifts to find an answer, and stop the killings. Now, the reason I bring this up is that, even though this is a fun enough film, I never seems to live up to how potentially awesome it’s premise can be. Michael J. Fox does well enough with what he’s given to work with, but the script doesn’t really give his character more back story than “gets in car crash, wife dies, can see ghosts”. There’s also the matter of the main female character, played by Trini Alvarado, who starts to fall for Bannister, days after her husband’s death by the creature, which strikes me as a little odd. The biggest problem with the film, in my opinion, is that it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. At times, it goes for a very creepy vibe and at others a lighthearted comedy, which can work together like in films such as BeetleJuice. In this film unfortunately, the jumps in tone are a bit jarring, and the story suffers because of it.
The Frighteners is an alright film that doesn’t quite live up to its lofty premise. It has a lot of potential, which leads me to believe that it would be ripe for a remake. Giving the story a bit more fleshing out and working on the characters motivations and back story would help this film a lot. If you’re looking for a film to watch this Halloween season, you could do worse, but this movie is far from perfect.
2 Jay Shermans
The Frighteners is available on Netflix Instant.
