MOVIE REVIEW...
FLASHBACK...
One of my favourite all time movies has to be The Frighteners. The film might be 11 years now - it was made in 1996 - but it has not dated and still plays well on the small screen (credit surely must go to the set- and costume designers, I am sure!), what with Halloween upon us now!
Directed by supertalented Kiwi director Peter Jackson (now of the Lord of the Ring trilogy fame), this film has an engaging script, wonderful special effects and a fantastic cast.
Starring Michael J. Fox as a widower with the ability to see spirits after a tragic auto accident in which his wife died. Fox plays a sad character drifting aimlessly through life while conning people into hiring him to rid their houses of spirits and hauntings.
Although he is a con, there’s something sweet and decent about Fox’s character and so it is not surprising that he is assisted in this otherworldly pursuit of ghostbusting by a band of friendly ghosts. It is quite funny indeed to se the antics he and his spirited friends get up to to make a few bucks.
As usual, when you mess around with the dead, you tend to make enemies and Fox does it fabulously well with a woman newspaper editor breathing down his neck, she being determined to show him off as the fraud that he is, and also a bunch of ghosts who are unhappy with his supernatural exploits of the unholy dead.
Trini Alvarado plays Fox’s love interest with a warm measure of heart and warmth.
As with any good supernatural flick, the baddies are suitably demented and creepy, wonderfully played by by the kooky Dee Wallace and the psychotic Jake Busey.
These two baddies give Fox and Alvarado a good run for the money. As the mystery of the increasing number of death in Fox’s quaint little town is solved, the adventure is heightened as Fox and his lady love try to defeat the Wallace-Busey tag team of terror.
The ride towards the end of the movie is edge-of-the-seat and nail-biting worthy and audiences will be pleasantly given twists and turns that will have everyone screaming and shrieking for more. Heaven knows that during Halloween, that’s exactly what everyone wants to hear.
Jackson to his credit has captured a cold and idyllic New Zealand (where The Frighteners was filmed) and condensed it into a suitably creepy smalltown.
The film is shot, scene-by-scene in a simple manner, but the special effects and scripting are inspired.
For a film that is more than a decade old, it is impressive indeed that the special effects have not dated. It still works well.
As for Fox, this film captures the nice guy in him beautifully. Fox now suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and this film was made five years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991.
If one watches closely, there’s a scene or two that hints at the disease slowly ravaging Fox but such is his adorable screen charisma that his performance is what you remember him most for in The Frighteners.
The King, his family and U
4 weeks ago
2 comments:
Great observations! Should really try to get this printed in the mainstream media since the movie is being aired by Astro. Very readable. Admirable writing.
Thanks Shari.
Post a Comment