• Directed by Peter Jackson
• Written by Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson
• Starring
  • Michael J. Fox
  • Trini Alvarado
  • Peter Dobson
  • John Astin
  • Jeffrey Combs
  • Dee Wallace-Stone
  • Jake Busey
• Produced by Peter Jackson and Jamie Selkirk
• Executive produced by Robert Zemeckis

But first, a buncha bitching.

See, I looked over the reviews of this movie after I saw it, and I was appalled. Seems every professional critic tried to compare this to Peter Jackson’s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures (which, if case you don’t know, is a deeply unsettling true story about two thirteen-year-old girls who decide to murder one of their mothers) and found it wanting. Good going, guys; Why don’t you do the same to Spielberg? “I’m sorry, compared to Schindler’s List, I found Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to be terribly shallow.”

The Frighteners is not supposed to be a deeply disturbing movie, for crying out loud! Even the critics who had seen (or heard of) Dead Alive/Brain Dead still didn’t get it. Peter Jackson’s having fun with the genre here! Yes, it’s a b-movie, in the best sense of the word — it was made for people who know the genre and know what they’re getting into. Sit back and enjoy it; it chews easily.

Now, maybe it isn’t “great cinema,” and maybe Fellini won’t be greeting Peter Jackson at the pearly gates when he dies. And maybe I’m not qualified to review the latest production of “Waiting for Godot.” But by the same token, those movie reviewers who gave this a 2 out of 5 aren’t qualified to review this movie (and that includes you, Roger Ebert — take two Slim-Fasts and go screen Armageddon again, windbag), and the studio execs who gave it the box office kiss of death with a crummy advertising campaign aren’t fit to sniff my used toilet tissue.

OK, I feel better now.

Michael J. Fox (see?! It stars Marty McFly! Why are you looking for King Lear here?!) is Frank Bannister, a psychic con man. Yes, he can see spirits, and yes, he can get them out of your house; it’s really easy when the ghosts are working for him, setting up hauntings that he can charge to exorcise. His life is a shambles (wonderfully shown by the “dream house” he never managed to finish); his “gift” is his souvenir and constant reminder of the car accident that killed his wife five years ago.

But now, there’s more haunting going on in the sleepy town of Fairwater than his variety — he starts to see a Grim Reaper-type killing the townspeople, leaving behind corpses inexplicably dead. And since he’s the guy that’s always found around hauntings, he becomes suspect number one. With the help of the widow of a recent Reaper victim, he slowly uncovers the truth — that the Reaper is somehow related to Johnny Bartlett (the butt-ugly Jake Busey), a serial killer who mowed down twelve patients at the sanitarium thirty years ago.

Now: Here’s the best bit. Jeffrey Combs, the best underrated actor in Hollywood, plays Agent Dammers of the FBI, their resident expert on the paranormal. Oh, yeah, and a certified nut case. With Hitler’s haircut, Dumbo ears, a twitchy too-much-Vivarin manner and a deep and unresolved issue with dominating women, Dammers is far too paranormal himself for the Feds to actually have on active duty, much less run around without a Scully-style supervisor — but who cares? Watching him, you can tell he was having so much fun that he would have taken the role for free.

What else? You’ve got John Astin as the ghost of a wild west judge with a loose jawbone, a shootout in a museum’s Ancient Egypt exhibit, Michael J. Fox actually acting (!!!), a spooky old house just like the one in Dead Alive, a wonderful crumbling sanitarium as the venue of the final showdown, a terrific soundtrack by Danny Elfman (not nearly as bombastic and intrusive as the ones he’s best known for), and, to cap it off, a beautiful rendition of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” over the closing credits.

And if you don’t like it, go take a Slim-Fast and stand in line for tickets to “Waiting For Godot” again.