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Hey guys, it’s October! You know what that means: Halloween is right around the corner! As such, we will be bringing you some of our favorite horror film suggestions, in the hopes that they will lead to some sleepless nights. This is…Trick or Treat!
Okay, I was going to wait ’til the end of the month for this one, but after waxing nostalgic for Poltergeist III yesterday, I just couldn’t resist. Today’s offering is The Frighteners, and it’s one of my all-time favorite movies ever.
Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a guy who can see ghosts. He uses a couple of these ghosts to fake hauntings so he can exorcise them…for a nominal fee. Things are complicated when ghostly numbers start showing up on peoples’ foreheads and a very grim reaper-esque meance begins tearing through the citizens of Bannister’s sleepy little town. Together with his ghost pals, he must solve the mystery of the Grim Reaper, a task made increasingly more difficult with a twisted FBI agent dogging his every move.
With solid writing, hysterical deliveries, and great action scenes, this movie is absolutely phenomenal. Directed by Peter Jackson, before he became the Lord of the Rings guy, and starring Michael J. Fox, Jake Busey in one of his best roles, a delightfully phantasmal Chi McBride, R. Lee Ermey, and Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs, there’s a ton to love. The only real gripe I have here is that some of the effects don’t hold up all that well, but then again, it was 1996. A solid 90 in my book, The Frighteners is truly a solid entry into anybody’s Halloween horror queue.