Oct 2019
Once upon a time, Peter Jackson made good movies. It was a long time ago, before he made his boring epic fantasy garbage about elves and midgets who walked places. He used to make horror movies, and The Frighteners was the last good movie he made and seemingly his last venture into the genre itself. Then he sold his soul and became a Hollywood legend. What a dick...
So while this film starts with a lot of atmospheric haunted house imagery, it also starts with some really bad CGI. It probably looked good at the time, but it's kind of painful to watch now. Of course, there's also some good CGI involving the regular ghosts, because yes. This is a ghost movie, but it's a rather comedic take on these traditionally creepy themes.
Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a paranormal investigator who is also a con-man. He has the profound ability to see and interact with ghosts and he uses this to his advantage to make a living, but as the tagline suggests, "Death is no way to make a living".
The cast is quite wonderful in this. Dee Wallace plays a traumatized shut-in who lives with her overbearing mother after having been involved with a mass murderer played by Jake Busey. Now, if they ever made a good film about Venom and Carnage, Jake Busey demonstrates a perfect rendition of Cleetus Cassidy. He was born to play Carnage, but he seemingly never will.
This film also features horror icon Jeffrey Combs as a peculiar FBI agent butting heads with our protagonist due to Frank's shady backstory. This dude is fidgety and has some serious issues with women. He's always fun to watch.
The side characters are great too, including Chi McBride as the disco afro who helps Frank, R. Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant guardian of the cemetery who naturally wants to protect all those maggot-infested apparitions, Troy Evans as the sheriff who actually believes in Frank's abilities, and then Trini Alvaredo (who I don't know anything else she's been in) does good too.
Spoilers who have seen the movie... Dee Wallace does a fantastic job as a maniacal psychopath. She looks like she had a lot of fun running around blasting holes in the walls with shotguns and stabbing shit with big knives. Too bad you don't see certain actors playing crazy people more often. For instance, I would have loved to see Jack Nicholson play a homicidal maniac in more than just The Shining, and Matthew McConaughey as a psycho in more than just TCM4 and Killer Joe. Some people do too good of a job at having a screw loose and are underutilized in their talents.
The story has some interesting interweaving plotlines going on and some good concepts. Again, some of the CGI is really tacky and the horror elements are more cliche than scary, but Peter Jackson was always more of a horror/comedy guy, and there's no problem with the balance in here. I've always liked this movie.
So while this film starts with a lot of atmospheric haunted house imagery, it also starts with some really bad CGI. It probably looked good at the time, but it's kind of painful to watch now. Of course, there's also some good CGI involving the regular ghosts, because yes. This is a ghost movie, but it's a rather comedic take on these traditionally creepy themes.
Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a paranormal investigator who is also a con-man. He has the profound ability to see and interact with ghosts and he uses this to his advantage to make a living, but as the tagline suggests, "Death is no way to make a living".
The cast is quite wonderful in this. Dee Wallace plays a traumatized shut-in who lives with her overbearing mother after having been involved with a mass murderer played by Jake Busey. Now, if they ever made a good film about Venom and Carnage, Jake Busey demonstrates a perfect rendition of Cleetus Cassidy. He was born to play Carnage, but he seemingly never will.
This film also features horror icon Jeffrey Combs as a peculiar FBI agent butting heads with our protagonist due to Frank's shady backstory. This dude is fidgety and has some serious issues with women. He's always fun to watch.
The side characters are great too, including Chi McBride as the disco afro who helps Frank, R. Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant guardian of the cemetery who naturally wants to protect all those maggot-infested apparitions, Troy Evans as the sheriff who actually believes in Frank's abilities, and then Trini Alvaredo (who I don't know anything else she's been in) does good too.
Spoilers who have seen the movie... Dee Wallace does a fantastic job as a maniacal psychopath. She looks like she had a lot of fun running around blasting holes in the walls with shotguns and stabbing shit with big knives. Too bad you don't see certain actors playing crazy people more often. For instance, I would have loved to see Jack Nicholson play a homicidal maniac in more than just The Shining, and Matthew McConaughey as a psycho in more than just TCM4 and Killer Joe. Some people do too good of a job at having a screw loose and are underutilized in their talents.
The story has some interesting interweaving plotlines going on and some good concepts. Again, some of the CGI is really tacky and the horror elements are more cliche than scary, but Peter Jackson was always more of a horror/comedy guy, and there's no problem with the balance in here. I've always liked this movie.
