I thought _The Frighteners_ was weird because, like _Fargo_, the audience

has a hard time deciding whether or not they are watching a comedy.  I saw

these both in the theatre, and the audience reaction seemed the same.

 

Scott

 

 

 

On Thu, 26 Mar 1998, David Skreiner wrote:

 

> I spent the last week trying to remember the title of the

> film... it definitely qualifies as a Mindbender:

>

> The Frighteners (Peter Jackson, 1996(?))

>

> Link: http://www.hollywood.com/movies/frighteners/

>

> Dave's Three-Sentence-Synopsis:

> "Ghostbuster sees things no-one else can see.

> Is he a crazy murderer after all? Or do these

> rather improbable ghosts really exist?"

>

> Dave's Four-Paragraph-Synopsis:

> Michael J. Fox plays a "Ghostbuster" - he gained the

> ability to see ghosts at a particularly nasty car accident

> where something murdered his wife. He lives in an old

> house, water leaking through the roof, and using some

> friendly ghosts to acquirte customers.

>

> When several murders occur in the community, the

> Sherriff's attention immediately moves onto the 'ghost

> freak' - well, there had not been enough evidence to

> convict him of murder after the car accident, but this

> time the Sherriff knows he has his guy. Seeing ghosts?

> The guy must be psycho.

>

> MJ Fox is captured; in prison, he goes through a period

> on intense self-doubt. Are the ghosts real? Did he murder

> all these people? Though there are clues as to which reality

> is the 'true' one, neither he (nor, I think, the audience; though

> some friends of mine disagreed, but they watched the

> movie stoned) knows for certain at that point in the film...

> But this girl believes in him, and he flees from prison to

> destroy evil (he thinks) or go on a murder spree (the FBI version).

>

> Some of the scenes are explicitly connected to the question

> of "Which Reality?" - in the prison, for example, when the

> main character doubts his own sanity; or when the rather

> (er) unconventional FBI guy confronts the Hero just before

> the mission's success, and tells him that he _knows_ what is

> going on in the MJF character's brain, what he's going to say,

> that he's seen cases like this before...

>

> Hope it helps... I highly recommend this film, but I must admit

> I'm a fan of Peter Jackson's (er) unconventional (cough) sense

> of humour. It's _not_ a splatter movie though.

>

> david skreiner

>

> ----

> Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite

> http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite

>

 

----

Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite

http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite