An important step towards Lord of the Rings was Peter Jackson going mainstream with The Frighteners, partly altering his previous splatstick style to impress Executive Producer Robert Zemeckis. The film starts as a Ghostbusters style comedy centered around a performance by Michael J. Fox that is comfortably on his wavelength but also a little older and more haunted by the past. A seriousness enters the film when the villain is revealed to be death itself, an intimidating foe that moves through mirrors and walls like the unstoppable force it is. What makes Frighteners such a high-ranking classic is that it’s the rare film that gets better as it goes. The more we learn about the mystery, the more Jackson has to play with and the more he can increase both the scares and the delights.
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