After a tragic car accident that kills his wife, a man discovers he can communicate with the dead, and he uses that gift to con people. However, when a demonic spirit appears, he may be the only one who can stop it from killing the living and the dead.
“The Frighteners” was the final film Peter Jackson directed before turning his attention to Middle-earth and his landmark LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Upon its initial release in July of 1996, the film underperformed and was considered a commercial failure. It also received mixed, polarizing reviews from critics. However, as with many films, it found a second life as a beloved cult classic on VHS and DVD. The advanced CGI and special effects work by Wētā Digital also paved the way for Jackson to create Middle-earth in “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” just five years later.
“The Frighteners” follows Frank Banister (Michael J. Fox), a psychic con man and former architect who runs a fake ghost-hunting scam. After a heated argument with his wife Debra (Angela Bloomfield) some years earlier, he drunkenly crashed his car, and the police found Debra’s dead body lying near the car with the number 13 carved into her forehead. While Frank can’t remember the incident, the trauma left him able to see the spirit world. Consumed by guilt, he has become a cynical con man, using his abilities to “exorcise” hauntings staged by ghostly partners—streetwise Cyrus (Chi McBride), awkward Stuart (Jim Fyfe), and an Old West gunslinger known as the Judge (John Astin)—he stages hauntings and then charges frightened homeowners to perform fake exorcisms.
Lucy Lynskey (Trini Alvarado) and her physician husband, Ray (Peter Dobson), call Frank about an apparent haunting, but during the visit, Frank notices the number 37 glowing on Ray’s forehead. Soon afterward, Ray dies of what appears to be a heart attack. When Frank begins seeing similar numbers on other people shortly before their deaths, he realizes that something far more sinister is at work. He quickly learns that it is the work of Johnny Bartlett (Jake Busey), a serial killer who was executed for killing twelve people almost thirty years ago. In death, he has taken on the form of the Soul Collector, his appearance drawing on the familiar image of the Grim Reaper, but the film gives it a menacing physical presence of its own.
Together, Frank and Lucy team up to try to stop Johnny, a search that leads them to the house of Patricia Ann Bradley (Dee Wallace), who was Johnny’s teenage lover and was accused of assisting him during his killing spree. Although there was no evidence of this, she was sent to prison and then released into her mother’s custody. When they arrive at her house, they find that she, along with her mother, are being terrorized by Johnny, who has been violently tearing the property apart. They try to intervene but quickly learn Patricia isn’t what she seems. Matters grow even more dangerous with the arrival of Milton Dammers (Jeffrey Combs), a disturbed FBI agent traumatized by years of physical and sexual torture while working undercover in Satanic cults. Convinced that Frank is the one committing the killings, Dammers pursues him relentlessly. Now Frank and Lucy must stop Johnny before he takes more lives, or become his next victims.
“The Frighteners” succeeds as an energetic blend of horror, comedy, and supernatural mystery, thanks to Fox’s undeniable, boundless kinetic enthusiasm, sharp wit, and comic timing. It also offered an early glimpse of the visual imagination Jackson would later bring to his LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. The Ringwraiths (Nazgûl) from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” were very similar to the physical embodiment of the Soul Collector, a towering, faceless entity cloaked in heavy, tattered dark robes. Both featured deep, empty hoods where a face should be, conveying an eerie, otherworldly emptiness.
The film was shot entirely in New Zealand, even though the story was set in the fictional town of Fairwater, in the Midwestern United States. Peter Jackson would go on to work with many key crew members from “The Frighteners” in his LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, including co-writer and producer Fran Walsh, Richard Taylor, the co-founder of Wētā Workshop, Jamie Selkirk, editor and producer, and Production Designer Grant Major.
Below are the special features included with this release:
- 4K restoration from the original camera negative
- Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
- Collector’s booklet featuring Peter Jackson’s 1998 introduction to the LaserDisc release, original production notes, and two 1996 articles from American Cinematographer
Disc 1 – Theatrical and Director’s Cuts (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation of both cuts in Dolby Vision (HDR10/compatible)
- Original lossless theatrical mix in DTS-HD MA 5.1 (theatrical cut only) and original lossless 2.0 stereo audio (both cuts), plus DTS-HD MA 5.1 home video mix (both cuts) and optional Dolby Atmos remix (director’s cut only)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Optional English subtitles on all bonus materials
- Audio commentary by co-writer/producer/director Peter Jackson (director’s cut only)
- Peter Jackson’s 10th anniversary introduction to the film
- Theatrical trailer
Disc 2 – Open Matte Versions (BLU-RAY)
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of both cuts, with the same audio/subtitle options and extras as Disc 1
Disc 3 – Extras (Blu-ray)
- No Way to Make a Living: A Look Back at The Frighteners, a feature-length documentary produced in 2022, featuring new interviews with actors Dee Wallace Stone and Jake Busey, cinematographer John Blick, production designer Grant Major, creature and miniat
- The Making of The Frighteners, an exhaustive 225-minute documentary exploring every aspect of the film’s production, from script development and casting to post-production and release, produced in 1998 for the LaserDisc release, with a 2005 retrospective
- A Conversation with Richard Taylor and Alexandre Poncet, a 2022 interview with the man behind the film’s creature and miniature effects
- Image gallery
Available on Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD™ October 27th
