T he Family Dollar a little bit of a trek down the street from me frequently sells DVD 4 packs of films, of which along the way I’ve picked up a couple: all the Burton/Schumacher Batman films and 4/5 of the Final Destination films which was like appointment viewing for me as a kid, I still remember seeing some of the later sequels in theater with friends as a teenager including 3 which I own and believe is the best of the bunch because it understands exactly what it is and constantly delivers. However, what I am reviewing today is the original film in the series. I don’t think this will particularly be one of my longer reviews cause I don’t have a whole lot that I can pick apart here. The writing and acting for some of the characters can be extremely one-note stereotype, like Kerr Smith as the high octane asshole for the entire film until the plot needs him in the stinger and Seann William Scott who in particular feels like he’s out of a totally different film tone wise as the come
I’ve had good luck recently with randomly picking films I thought I wouldn’t enjoy much but gave a shot and ended up really having a good time with, so I thought The Frighteners was a can’t miss prospect. I grew up the biggest Michael J. Fox fan and I worship the ground Jeffrey Combs walks on. Peter Jackson’s earliest films were all pretty good, I’d generally consider myself a fan of them, particularly Heavenly Creatures. It is billed as a horror-comedy, one of my absolute favorite subgenres to which many of my most beloved films belong. I genuinely believed I would at least mildly enjoy it despite its mixed reputation. Welp, I kind of hated it. The biggest thing for me is how broad, obvious, corny and often just outright cartoonish all of the comedy was. Outside of a couple performances, the acting throughout was like the most lowest common denominator sitcoms of the era and the film’s sense of humor shared this quality twofold. I found myself outright cringing at times at some of