"I like it when they lie still like that."

Peter Jackson is most known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what most people don't know is....he made movies before those. Jackson was into making horror movies before Lord of the Rings and one of those was The Frighteners. It stars Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister, a man that can see and talk to ghosts. After a car accident that killed his wife and he was only injured, he developed the abilities to see ghosts and communicate with them. He starts his own business to scam people into thinking they need a ghostbuster, when really it's just the ghosts he is friends with.
When Frank starts seeing numbers on people's heads and those people start dying, he becomes determined to stop the ghost that is killing them. He meets a woman, Lucy Lynskey (Trini Alvarado), who's husband was just killed by the ghost and they begin to work together to figure everything out. They find out that a serial killer named Johnny Charles Bartlett used to carve numbers in the heads of his victims, but he had been put to death. They believe that it's his ghost, come back to add to his kill count.
When Detective Milton Dammers (Jefferey Combs), interferes with them because he believes Frank is killing all these people. With the help of Lucy and his ghosts, Frank gets Bartlett to come out of the ghost he was hiding in and they have a final confrontation, with Dammers caught in the middle.
I first saw this movie, while randomly flipping through the channels and right away I was hooked. When it was finished I loved it, thought it was a very original idea, which Jackson is very good at. The comedic relief comes from Bannister's ghost friends. There is Cyrus, played by Chi McBride; Stuart, played by Jim Fyfe and Judge, played by John Astin. All these characters have their own funny quirks and the effects used on them adds to the humor.
To me this is one of Michael J. Fox's better films, in his career he didn't have too many, other than the Back to the Future films. He does a solid job in the movie and makes a believable small town hero. The best performance in this film is done by Jeffrey Combs. The strange and creepy Dammers is a perfect character for Combs to play. In Re-Animator he played the weird and eccentric Herbert West and the character in this movie has aspects of West, but new and somewhat creepier ones as well. Combs plays his character to a T and makes the viewer somewhat like him because how different he is then the others. Also Jake Busey did a good job as being the killer. His voice and look were probably the most evil part about him.
The Dvd is the Peter Jackson Director's Cut. The cover sleeve has a 3-Dish picture on the front, of the ghost/reaper. There are no reviews on the front or back, which I think is strange, with how good this horror is. The Frighteners was released in 1996 and directed by Peter Jackson. Released by WingNut Films and Universal Studios.

Collection#:
The Frighteners: #13