The Frighteners: Director's Cut DVD Review:

Peter Jackson immediately had a large number of fans when he took on the project of The Lord of the Ring trilogy, and by going immediately into another fan based film he is only helping that position along. What is truly amazing about Jackson is that he has a great deal of fans, but many of them have probably never seen any of his work before The Lord of the Ring, and if they were to see some of his earliest films they might have an entirely different opinion of the man. The Frighteners may be the only exception to his body of work. It is easily his most accessible film before The Lord of the Ring films. It was also Jackson’s first larger budget, studio film, and the result is a lot of fun, but more than that is apparent. There are obvious remnants of style within The Frighteners which show a clear path from this film to his latest achievements.

Michael J. Fox stars as Frank Bannister, a small-town spiritual psychic of sorts. In fact, he is merely a man who has had a tragedy in his life and as a result is able to see spirits from the other world. He uses this talent to swindle honest people out of money with the help of his “ghostly” friends. Everything changes when a bad spirit disguised as death (looking remarkably similar to the dark creatures which haunted The Lord of the Ring trilogy as well) begins claiming innocent souls. He crushes their hearts so that there is no explanation for their death once they are killed. Bannister tries to help but it only ends up implicating him in the murders, and before long he is running from both sides of the authority.

Peter Jackson just can’t seem to help but wanting to add length to everything these days. Word on the streets is that King Kong may be a bit too long at certain points and he has added fourteen minutes to this director’s cut of The Frighteners as well. The film is still just over two hours and it plays well, and in all honesty it has been so long since I have seen the original theatrical version that I can’t even picture the differences clearly.

As well as a new version of the film, the director’s cut DVD also has a number of special features which are available for the first time on DVD. The DVD is double sided disc, with one side holding the film and the other side containing a feature length making-of documentary. The documentary was actually made by Jackson himself and it has interviews with all of the cast on set with tons of behind the scenes footage. The documentary begins with the cast talking about ghost stories before even getting into the film process. There are also deleted scenes mixed into this documentary as well. Also on the same side as the film is a feature film commentary by Jackson and storyboards. This really is a full DVD that is true to the director’s cut title it is given. It seems like the DVD itself was even produced by Jackson. He has introductions to the film and to the documentary as well as his commentary track.



Ryan Izay