'The Frighteners' triumphs as well-crafted schtick

'The Frighteners' triumphs as well-crafted schtick

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): Balance is hardly the word that comes to mind
given the Scream meets Ghostbusters theme. Yet, despite its
juggernaut of characters, multi-level sub-plots and slam-bang
special-effects, The Frighteners comes off surprisingly balanced.
And expensive. And unpredictable.

Standard expectations are foiled at every turn, as a not-so-
common team of ghostbusters goes on the trail of a supernatural
killer, wringing peskier humor from its otherwise common shlock
horror premise. The wisdom?

Well, for one, comedy and thriller are not so incompatible
after all. And although New Zealand low-budget gorefest
specialist Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles, Braindead
a.k.a. Dead Alive) seems hardly the man to prove it, he's, well,
really done it this time. The Frighteners may be a far cry from
his redemption, the powerful psychological thriller Heavenly
Creatures, yet it certainly knows how to pack a wallop without
coming across as extraneous.

On board as executive producer is Oscar-winning director
Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump), whose reputation for wild
imagination may or may not explain it. But he is, after all, the
man who once brought us Death Becomes Her and the Back to the
Future trilogy. He's obviously dipping back into familiar
territory, and then some.

The movie opens in the sleepy provincial town of Fairweather,
the kind of suburban setting that would gratify those
connoisseurs of 1980s horror kitsch (dilapidated mansion on top
of an isolated hill, a few spooky characters, and the specter of
doomsday looming in the air). Nobody knows this better than
"psychic investigator" Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox).
Snooping around funerals with business cards in hand, he runs a
bogus ghostbusting business.

The modus operandi is as simple as it is compelling. His three
ghost buddies wreak havoc in selected households and Frank shows
up to "exorcise" them -- to the tune of US$300 and thereabouts.
Such scenes include the usual clanky mayhem and flying objects of
pans, saucers, toasters, babies, you name it. Yet they also
reveal something else. Frank, bless his soul, is not a complete
fraud. He can definitely see and communicate with the dead.

Things change, however, when people all over town start dying
of heart attacks. Soon, Frank is called upon to exorcise for
real, as only he and his spectral "business partners" know the
identity of the killer. Cloaked in black and armed with a sickle,
the supernatural Grim Reaper, alias "Soul Catcher", is a dead-
ringer for Scream's psychopath. His modus operandi? Sticking his
hand into victims' chests and squeezing their hearts to
smithereens. Yikes? You bet.

As Frank and his obligatory romantic interest, Lucy Lysnky
(Andie McDowell look-alike Trini Alvarado from Little Women) run
around dancing a grim dance with Death, they have to contend with
some local history involving a executed serial killer (Jake
Busey), a deranged, agoraphobic woman (Dee Wallace Stone), her
even scarier aging mother, a jumpy and delusional FBI agent (Jeff
Coombs), more spectral sightings and the slasher hard on their
heels.

Although the meandering plot is convoluted and hybrid,
splicing together bits of DNA from The X-Files, Ghost, the 1980s
horror genre, and slapstick comedies, there is actually a
discernible continuity beneath it all. Granted, it may just be a
case of inspired improvisation, not deliberate planning, but
whatever it is, it works, and amazingly so.

Then there are all those spiffy visual effects, of course.
The entire brainchild of a New Zealand team under the supervision
of Wes Ford Takahashi (Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, the
Back to the Future trilogy), they are as good as anything ever
done by Industrial Light and Magic. Watch out for a scene in
which an ectoplasmic face drips down a tombstone (not to mention
the running profanity that accompanies it).

At glance, the preternaturally cute Fox seems back on terra
firma, thanks to his irresistible blend of tongue-in-cheek
boyishness and the sardonic intelligence such movies are
seemingly made for. Frank Bannister, however, is a complex
character deserving of greater emotional range than meets the
eye.

And yet Fox manages to respond to the material with a hitherto
untapped confidence. Superficially, Frank may not be a far cry
from the shabby, downbeat perpetually frazzled misfits he is used
to playing, thanks to that rip-roaring Back to the Future. But
there is an innate seriousness and an understated aura of tragedy
about him as he teeters for all eternity on the brink of a
nervous breakdown. It is this side of him that makes the
balancing act possible.

Alvarado's acting is also par for the course. She is an
appealing mix of wholesome femininity, innocence and competence.
There is a genuine rapport between her and Fox as they
protractedly skim the surface of their feelings, rendering their
relationship all the more interesting. Look out for a scene when
she's having dinner with Fox while the spirit of her dead husband
looks on, a sly take on Ghost's bleeding cauldron of grief.

Much of the comedic mileage comes during the movie's first
part, largely thanks to the ultracartoony quirky "good" ghosts.
The Judge (John Astin) is a grouchy, Old West gunslinger type
with a warped sexuality (watch him cavort with a mummy and you'll
know what I mean); Cyrus (Chi McBride) is decked out in a 1970s
outfit and loathes it; Stuart (Jim Fyfe) is, well, the geek.
They revel in conning the living and provide the perfect antidote
to Frank's cynicism.

But the breakneck pace finally overruns itself, propelling the
movie into a loud and muddled roller-coaster conclusion that one
can't help but wonder whether the "wallop" it packs up hasn't
finally overstayed its welcome. But that this realization should
come so late in the movie is testament to The Frighteners' not
inconsiderable triumph.

Beyond the heaping dose of visual candy, the message is
intact, subtle though it may be. The deconstruction of the horror
genre no longer means self-parody (goodbye, Wes Craven). Well-
crafted shtick will also do fine.