31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 24: THE FRIGHTENERS (1996)

Psychic investigator Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox). Some call him a charlatan, but his connection to the spirit realm is all too real.

Fairwater, California — After suffering trauma from the drunk driving accident that killed his wife, and accident that he caused, architect Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) finds that he has gained to the ability to communicate with ghosts and perceive the realm of the un-restful dead. Despondent over the loss of his wife, Frank moves into their unfinished dream home, and we catch up with him five years later, when he earns a living as a psychic investigator. Working with friendly ghosts in his employ, Frank leaves his business card at funerals in hope of drumming up work, and his spectral employees enact hauntings that Frank is then called in to exorcise. 

When our story begins, Fairwater has been experiencing a rash of mysterious, apparently reasonless and unconnected deaths, in which the deceased are all revealed to have had their hearts crushed from the inside. Frank soon becomes involved when he starts seeing glowing numbers on the foreheads of impending victims, and with each sighting the number escalates. Frank witnesses the entity responsible for the deaths, a figure that looks exactly like classical depictions of the Grim Reaper, but as his investigation presses forward and the murders continue, Frank is dragged into a widening gyre of apparent familial abuse, the impact of an executed serial thrill-killer's rampage from thirty years prior, encounters with assorted spectres, a near-death out-of-body experience, and insane FBI agent (Jeffrey Combs) who's sent to investigate the mysterious deaths and ends up blaming Frank, all of which is punctuated with the question of how does one stop the literal spectre of death itself? Aided by a recently widowed doctor (Trini Alvarado), Frank is about to find out, but at what personal cost?

The Grim Reaper prepares to strike.

The sixth film by New Zealand director Peter Jackson, and his last before he made cinema history with his beloved and mega-successful adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, THE FRIGHTENERS displays the director's familiar flair for crazy comedy blended with the grotesque, as seen in BAD TASTE (1987), the infamous MEET THE FEEBLES (1989), and the impossibly gory BRAINDEAD (1992, aka DEADALIVE), and the result is one of the few horror comedies that's as scary as it is funny. When the scares and violence come, they are as serious as a heart attack, and the imagery of the Grim Reaper and assorted hauntings would have scared the living shit out of me if I'd seen it as a child. 

The story is solid, the direction brisk, and the performances are all top notch. Michael J. Fox is fantastic as Frank, which only makes his real life career-derailing affliction that much more tragic. And Trini Alvarado as Dr. Lucy Lynsky is always a welcome presence, as she is an actor who has never really received the attention or accolades that she so richly deserves. I've been a fan since TIMES SQUARE (1980), and Dr. Lynsky just may be my favorite of her roles. And what more can be said about the exquisite Jeffrey Combs, who never brings less than his A-game, and who here effects one of his most memorable turns as twitchy and clearly insane government operative Milton Dammers.

 My man Jeffrey Combs strikes again.

The supernatural elements are a lot of fun, with Chi McBride as Cyrus, a brutha who died in the 1970's, the Judge (John Astin), a wild west gunslinger whose jawbone dislocates when he speaks, and R. Lee Ermey as pretty much his legendary Master Sergeant character from FULL METAL JACKET (1987) being the standout ghosts.

It's a living. Or not.

There's other stuff going on that's quite compelling, but that's best left for you to discover for yourself when you seen this oft overlooked little gem. Absolutely worth your time. And though rated R, I say it's actually suitable for those age ten and up.

Poster for the theatrical release. (I would have used the better-known design, the white one with the eerie skull manifesting through a wall, but every image I found of is was blurry.)