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March 1998, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
David Skreiner <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 21:04:09 +0100
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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
 
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