Why wasn't The Frighteners a hit?
Derek Janssen
Knut Sjurseth wrote:
>
> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
> still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
> Please tell me...
Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Knut Sjurseth
Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
Please tell me...
-Knut-
Derek Janssen
> > every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
>
> expectations or something? I thought it had cool SFX, funny dialogue, and
> actually quite exciting all around.
Higher expectations?
Well, yeah, some of us were expecting one of those thingies, er,...
whatchacall'em, uh...oh, yeah: "Plots".
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Rossevelli
>> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it
was
>> a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared.
It
>> still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
>> Please tell me...
>
>Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
>every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
Well, I saw it... and just got bored. The dialogue was stiff (no pun
intended) and Michael J. Fox's superficial attempts at acting were just
lost on me. (Happily now he's in his medium on 'Spin City') It was just...
stupid. I could go on for awhile, backing up my statement, but when you
boil it all down, it's just a matter of opinion. But apparently, the
majority of the nation shared the same opinion, resulting in its crash and
burn at the box office.
Franknseus
>Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
>every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
Well, not _every_. But the bizarre critical attacks on the film have
still not been explained by science. A *lot* of people love this movie,
but apparently not enough to make it a theatrical hit.
However, it has not disappeared. That was last summer! It's been on US
video for a while now.
Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
http://192.211.16.13/individuals/tdorm/BucketheadMain.html
"If there's a World War III and everyone dies, and they just clone more people so that they can keep fighting, that's not right." -T.J., 16, in the column Fresh Voices
David Fresko
"Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no> wrote:
>Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
>a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
>still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
>Please tell me...
>
The Frighteners was a bomb because Americans wouldn't know a good movie
if it bit their ass, and I'm from New York. The Frighteners was an
incredible mixture of comedy, horror, and romance, with some of the most
spectacular visual effects ever. With the average intellect of most, I see
why movies like Independence Day bomb and movies like The Frighteners
fail. I loved it, and maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on my fellow
Americans, but its really a love/hate movie. Michael Wilmington gave it
three and 1/2 stars, but he's also a fan of Jackson's other work. Roger
Ebert (for reasons still unexplained) gave it one star, and probably has
only seen one previous Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures.
Another thing people complained about was the advertising campaign. People
I talked to didn't know if it was a horror movie or a comedy, or what, so
they just didn't go, but I've not yet heard one (well, maybe one) person
who didn't like it. Its kind of like Army of Darkness. Those who saw it,
loved it, but not that many did.
Great movie, if you can find a bootleg in Norway, get it by all means.
Dave
jse...@ime.net
Knut Sjurseth (knu...@online.no) wrote:
: Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
: a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
: still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
: Please tell me...
Reason #1: The Olympics. The '96 Olympics just shut down
moviegoing in America, and "The Frighteners" was in perfect position to
get ignored.
Reason #2: "Independence Day" & the like. ID4 had been promoted
as _the_ movie event of the summer, and people just seemed to lose
interest after it came out. I think people were also sick of FX-heavy
movies by mid-to-late July: They'd seen "Twister", ID4, "Dragonheart",
"Mission: Impossible", and "The Nutty Professor". All they could see in
the trailers for "The Frighteners" (and, incidentally, "Multiplicity")
were more special effects, and wasn't ID4 supposed to be the end-all
be-all for those? The fact that either "The Frighteners" or
"Multiplicity" alone was better than the aforementioned five put together
just couldn't be conveyed in the trailers.
Reason #3: Critical indifference/damning with faint praise. Most
reviewers seemed to like "The Frighteners", but pointed out that it wasn't
as good as "Heavenly Creatures", which much of the American public had
never heard of.
Reason #4: CARA/The MPAA. Peter Jackson wrote, produced, and
directed a PG-13 supernatural thriller, a movie that he himself described
as being for "older teenagers". There was no harsh language, no sex, and
deceptively little gore, though there was a fair dollop of violence. The
movie got an R rating, though, which means it couldn't reach its intended
audience, and Universal was forced to market it as a horror movie. "The
Frighteners" really isn't scary enough to work as a horror movie, but the
rating really tied the studio's hands.
Reason #5: "The Frighteners" had some real problems; there were
gaps in the story and things that didn't quite make sense. I only liked
three movies more last summer ("Cold Comfort Farm", "Tin Cup", and "Lone
Star"), but that can be taken as Summer '96 being weak rather than "The
Frighteners" being excellent (which it was - just not perfect).
jse...@ime.net
Rossevelli (rosse...@aol.com) wrote:
: >> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it
: Well, I saw it... and just got bored. The dialogue was stiff (no pun
: intended) and Michael J. Fox's superficial attempts at acting were just
: lost on me. (Happily now he's in his medium on 'Spin City') It was just...
And he's not acting on "Spin City"? Comedy done well is just as
demanding as drama done well; it's often harder to make different people
laugh than it is to make different people cry. FWIW, I don't think you'd
get far attacking the acting in "The Frighteners"; Trini Alvarado, Jake
Busey, Jeffery Coombs, and, yes, Michael J. Fox all did pretty well.
: stupid. I could go on for awhile, backing up my statement, but when you
: boil it all down, it's just a matter of opinion.
<RANT>
Oh, of course, let's not back up statements; let's just claim
positions are unassailable because they are opinions.
The most frustrating thing about discussions on USENet (worse, I
think, than spam) is the "opinion" defense, whereby confident statements
are (A) dismissed as being only the poster's opinion and thus have no
objective worth, while (B) more timid posters take care to label their
statements as opinions which cannot be critically analyzed.
Well, (A) it's not hard to tell whether a statement contains
objective fact or subjective opinion, both of which have equal merit in
their places; and (B) people have reasons for having opinions. Supply
them.
</RANT>
: But apparently, the majority of the nation shared the same opinion,
: resulting in its crash and burn at the box office.
Actually, if you look at the North American box office for even a
wildly successful ($300M) film, at $5.50/ticket [1] only about 55 million
people are seeing it, which means that the majority of the US/Canadian
population is _ignoring_ it, at least until it's on TV. "The Frighteners"
didn't bomb because nobody liked it; it bombed because (even relative to
the previous example) nobody saw it.
- Jay Seaver (jse...@ime.net)
[1] The $5.50 is a top-of-my-head figure attempting to account for
matinees, seniors, kids, second-run, and discount tickets in the
average ticket cost. Use $7-8 and the numbers get worse)
Vozhd
>From: "Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no>
>Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it
was a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared.
It still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
Please tell me...
First off, the film was hilarious, featuring brilliant supporting work
from Jefferey Combs, John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, and Jake
Busey. The only fault as far as I was concerned was the inclusion
of a Hollywood happy ending, the disappointing nature of which
I can't discuss without spoiling the film. Quality aside, I think one
reason it flopped here was that people lacked a clear idea of what
the film was. It had a terrible ad campaign that made it look like a
straight horror movie in some ads, then like a Ghostbusters kind of comedy
in others. Here, I suppose, I can sympathize with fans
of Mars Attacks, because The Frighteners was a film I thought was
quite clever and funny, but the majority of American viewers seemed to
disagree. The irony is, I bet most fans of Mars Attacks, which I could
not stand, also liked The Frighterners. What that proves, exactly, I'm
not sure.
"Gangway you heelots!!!"
Rossevelli
> And he's not acting on "Spin City"?
I didn't say that; I said, 'Happily now he's in his medium on 'Spin City'.
Gee, maybe I needed to have spelled it out further. He has a better talent
for for the witty storylines written for him. He's no Olivier, but with
good material he can flourish. There. You happy now?
> <RANT>
>
> Oh, of course, let's not back up statements; let's just claim
>positions are unassailable because they are opinions.
Honey, sweetums, I declared my PERSONAL opinions. My personal taste varies
from yours and most other people's. That's not a hard concept, is it? I
simply said *I* felt it was boring, it was silly, etc. I'm certain though,
if I gave any number of reasons, you or someone else would come up with a
concrete reason as to why I was wrong. Thing is, I might BE wrong. But I
didn't like it, simple as that. Why's that such a problem?
Mike D'Angelo
Rossevelli (rosse...@aol.com) wrote:
: Honey, sweetums, I declared my PERSONAL opinions. My personal taste
: varies from yours and most other people's. That's not a hard concept,
: is it? I simply said *I* felt it was boring, it was silly, etc. I'm
: certain though, if I gave any number of reasons, you or someone else
: would come up with a concrete reason as to why I was wrong. Thing is, I
: might BE wrong. But I didn't like it, simple as that. Why's that such a
: problem?
Because when people merely state their opinions, without explaining the
thinking that led to those opinions, we get threads that look something
like this:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Let's face it, THE FRIGHTENERS was total crap!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Hear, hear!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>I dunno, I kinda liked it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>Are you crazy! THE FRIGHTENERS was the best film of '96!
>>>>>>>>>>>Nah, it stunk. That's just my opinion, though.
>>>>>>>>>>Well, in my opinion, it was underrated but far from perfect.
>>>>>>>>>You suck, dude. FRIGHTENERS kicked ass!!!!!
>>>>>>>>Worst movie I saw all year, except for TWISTER.
>>>>>>>At least TWISTER was entertaining. This just *sucked*.
>>>>>>I thought it was pretty good.
>>>>>Sucked!
>>>>Rooled!
>>>Sucked!
>>Rooled!
>Sucked!
Scintillating, no? Unsupported opinions are about as fascinating as
excelsior, and just as substantial. If all you have to say is "I liked
it" or "I hated it," tell your friends and relations. They'll be
interested. Strangers will not.
Mike "not a hard concept, eh, honey, sweetums?" D'Angelo
"Boy! We have...such little demands we make of movies,
and they're met so infrequently. When we come back,
switching gears: He's back, and he's in trouble again!
FREE WILLY 3 -- this would be a Hollywood movie -- is
next."
-- Gene Siskel, after he and Ebert had favorably reviewed
CAREER GIRLS, LOVE SERENADE, and THE FULL MONTY in
rapid succession.
--
-The Man Who Viewed Too Much-
http://pages.nyu.edu/~mqd8478
David Fresko
frank...@aol.com (Franknseus) wrote:
>
>> The irony is, I bet most fans of Mars Attacks, which I could
>>not stand, also liked The Frighterners.
>
Make that two.
Dave
Franknseus
> It had a terrible ad campaign that made it look like a
>straight horror movie in some ads, then like a Ghostbusters kind of
comedy
>in others.
The GHOSTBUSTERS style trailer greatly contributed to my enjoyment of
the film.
M A J O R S P O I L E R
I was expecting the story to center around Michael J. Fox and his wacky
ghost sidekicks. But then, without warning, his sidekicks get slaughtered
and it turns into a nasty, scary, supernatural serial killer flick. Even
without the ads, this is a movie where you never know where it's going.
Fox going out of his body to fight the soultaker would have been the
climax in most movies - here, it's only the beginning! Anyway, the
misleading commercials made the surprising nature of the film work even
better for me
> The irony is, I bet most fans of Mars Attacks, which I could
>not stand, also liked The Frighterners.
BING BING BING! You are correct in at least one case.
Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
"You're a bad space woman, aren't you?" --GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER
Matt Beckwith
rosse...@aol.com (Rossevelli) wrote:
>>> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what
>>> I've heard it was
>>> a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared.
>>> It still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
>>> Please tell me...
>>Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
>>every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
This was an interesting film. The first third or so of it seems like
a really poorly edited film, with some amateurish attempts at comedy.
But then it starts to get interesting, and the last third is superb.
I highly recommend this one for home video viewing.
Austin 'danger' Powers
> > Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> > a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
> > still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
> > Please tell me...
>
> Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
> every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
Really? I thought it was pretty good! Were there higher
Knut Sjurseth
>
> >>Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
> >>every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
>
> This was an interesting film. The first third or so of it seems like
> a really poorly edited film, with some amateurish attempts at comedy.
> But then it starts to get interesting, and the last third is superb.
> I highly recommend this one for home video viewing.
Well I know it has a score by Danny Elfman, so gotta have *some*
entertainment value! Hell I'm looking forward to it! ;-)
-Knut-
Knut Sjurseth
Franknseus <frank...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970811015...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> >Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
> >every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
>
> Well, not _every_. But the bizarre critical attacks on the film have
> still not been explained by science. A *lot* of people love this movie,
> but apparently not enough to make it a theatrical hit.
> However, it has not disappeared. That was last summer! It's been on US
> video for a while now.
LAST SUMMER??!? Boy are they late with the releases here in Scandinavia!
-Knut-
Chris
Derek Janssen wrote:
>
> Austin 'danger' Powers wrote:
> >
> > > > Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> > > > a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
> > > > still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
> > > > Please tell me...
> >
> > expectations or something? I thought it had cool SFX, funny dialogue, and
> > actually quite exciting all around.
>
> Well, yeah, some of us were expecting one of those thingies, er,...
> whatchacall'em, uh...oh, yeah: "Plots".
>
> Derek Janssen
> dja...@ultranet.com
Plot/synopsis -
Involved in a car accident, man loses wife, but gains the ability to
communicate
with the dead as a result. Under some suspicion for her death, he
squanders
the ability, faking poltergeist hauntings to earn money in a town
plagued by
a string of unexplained deaths, as well as a tragic murder spree in its
history.
Man sees ghostly number "carved" in another man's forehead. When that
man dies,
hero realizes he can tell who the next person to die will be. Pulled
out of his
emotional shell by a beautiful (sorry, personal opinion) widow, he tries
and
fails to protect subsequent victims. When he sees a number glowing on
the
widow's forehead, he decides he can only fight what he now knows to be
an evil
ghost on its own ground - he must have an out-of-body experience...
Etc, etc.
Watched this movie again this weekend, and still love it. The only
drawback for me was Jeffrey Combs (sp?). He was just TOO crazy. He was
a
necessary character to goad the movie along, but he should have been
played
seriously, imo.
I didn't know that the movie ended up on worst lists. Too bad. At
worst, it
shouldn't have made their best lists, but that's all opinion, and you
know what
they say. Just like others in this newsgroup suggest, take their
opinions with
a grain of salt and make up your own mind.
Chris
Daniel Fienberg
Mike D'Angelo (dan...@panix.com) wrote:
: Scintillating, no? Unsupported opinions are about as fascinating as
: excelsior, and just as substantial. If all you have to say is "I liked
: it" or "I hated it," tell your friends and relations. They'll be
: interested. Strangers will not.
: Mike "not a hard concept, eh, honey, sweetums?" D'Angelo
Mike D'Angelo comes rushing to the defense of his #9 movie of
1996!! It's OK, we believe you, Mike. Whatever the ulterior motive,
it's alway good to see you lurking 'round here, Mike.
-Daniel
--
Daniel J. Fienberg
d...@sas.upenn.edu
Daniel's Lion Den -- http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~djf
Managing Editor- 34th Street Magazine http://www.dp.upenn.edu/street
Welcome to Cyprus...Goats and Monkeys!
--
Mike D'Angelo
Daniel Fienberg (d...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: Mike D'Angelo (dan...@panix.com) wrote:
:
: : Scintillating, no? Unsupported opinions are about as fascinating as
: : excelsior, and just as substantial. If all you have to say is "I liked
: : it" or "I hated it," tell your friends and relations. They'll be
: : interested. Strangers will not.
:
: Mike D'Angelo comes rushing to the defense of his #9 movie of
: 1996!! It's OK, we believe you, Mike. Whatever the ulterior motive,
: it's alway good to see you lurking 'round here, Mike.
Uh, thanks, I think. I didn't say a word about THE FRIGHTENERS per se; I
simply get annoyed when people defend their right to state their opinions
without backing them up, which is beyond pointless if we're not actively
taking a poll.
Anybody who cares to explain *why* they disliked THE FRIGHTENERS (and
many have) will attract no vitriol from me.
Mike "though they're wrong, of course" D'Angelo [that's a joke, people]
Greywizard
>Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it
was
>a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared.
It
>still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
Several possible reasons:
(1) Michael J. Fox is no longer a box-office draw. Look at the grosses
of his previous movies where he was the one star: FOR LOVE AND MONEY,
LIFE WITH MIKEY, etc.
(2) It was released in August, a time when traditionally horror movies
have not done well at the box office. These movies do better in the fall
or winter.
(3) Poor advertising campaign. Though to be fair, it was hard to
classify: it was straight horror, a horror/comedy, and a comedy all
mixed together.
You might be pleased to know that it has been building an audience since
it's been on video. In fact, it being rereleased on video in a few weeks
on a widescreen version.
My advice to you would be to write to whoever distributes movies by
Universal in your country.
Flap on, Flap off...
On 10 Aug 1997, Knut Sjurseth wrote:
> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
> still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
I just finished watching my Frighteners Laserdisc for the bizilionth time.
Fantastic film! It has great characters, great acting, it's funny, it's
freaky, the cinematography's wonderful, the special effects are great, the
score is great, and overall it's just great storytelling. I have not idea
why it flopped....here's some theories:
1. People don't get jazzed up my Michael J. Fox...too bad, I think he
rules!
2. People were stupidified by ID4 and couldn't handle a good film.
Other than that I have no idea!
==============================================================================
THE FLAPPER!!!!!!!
==============================================================================
"All green of skin...800 centuries || "No Elvis is not dead, he's just
ago...their bodily fluids included || gone home" -"K", (Men In Black)
the birth of half-breeds...dark is ||====================================
the suede that mows like a harvest" || "...an evil petting zoo?"
-Martian Ambassador, (Mars Attacks!)|| -Dr.Evil, (Austin Powers)
==============================================================================
Flap on, Flap off...
On 11 Aug 1997, Vozhd wrote:
> disagree. The irony is, I bet most fans of Mars Attacks, which I could
> not stand, also liked The Frighterners. What that proves, exactly, I'm
> not sure.
Your theory works for me! Mars Attacks! and The Frighteners are two of my
favorite laserdiscs!
Brian Greer
"Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no> wrote:
>Since Peter Jackson's The Freightners flopped, does this mean that he won't
>be making King Kong or Lord Of The Rings (since he perhaps no longer is
>considered to be "bankable" in Hollywood)?
Word out of Peter Jackson's keyboard (courtesy the official fan club)
is that he is working on a project he can't say anything specific
about... (in other words...Lord of the Rings)...
Andy Whitfield
In article <33EE00...@ultranet.com>, dja...@ultranet.com
says...
>
>Austin 'danger' Powers wrote:
>>
>> > > Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From
what I've heard it wa
>s
>> > > a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has
totally dissapeared. It
>> > > still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why
the film failed.
>> > > Please tell me...
>> >
ended up on
>> > every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
>>
higher
>> expectations or something? I thought it had cool SFX,
funny dialogue, and
>> actually quite exciting all around.
>
>Higher expectations?
>Well, yeah, some of us were expecting one of those thingies,
er,...
>whatchacall'em, uh...oh, yeah: "Plots".
>
>Derek Janssen
>dja...@ultranet.com
You know, Derek, it's really amazing. If you say you're going
to like something, I know I'm going to hate it, and if you
didn't like it, I'll probably enjoy it thoroughly. Add to this
your complete obsession with hating Disney, and I think you
are my anti-opinion. I've never met someone who I so
completely disagree with about movies. Now, if only you would
review every new release so I could know which movies I'd
really want to see...=)
Andy
--
-----------
Check out Mali's Movie Mania...Hollywood Stock Exchange
Advice,
Movie Reviews, and Entertainment News.
http://www.mindspring.com/~mali/
Please remove the viking chant to reply by e-mail.
Andy Whitfield
In article <5sq2t5$l...@camel2.mindspring.com>,
tek...@atlpop.mindspring.net says...
>
>aw...@mail.SPAMSPAMSPAM.duke.edu (Andy Whitfield) wrote:
>>You know, Derek, it's really amazing. If you say you're going
>>to like something, I know I'm going to hate it, and if you
>>didn't like it, I'll probably enjoy it thoroughly. Add to this
>>your complete obsession with hating Disney, and I think you
>>are my anti-opinion. I've never met someone who I so
>>completely disagree with about movies. Now, if only you would
>>review every new release so I could know which movies I'd
>>really want to see...=)
>
>
>
No, I loved the Frighteners. Derek did not.
Andy
--
-----------
Check out Mali's Movie Mania...Hollywood Stock Exchange Advice,
Movie Reviews, and Entertainment News.
http://www.mindspring.com/~mali
Knut Sjurseth
Since Peter Jackson's The Freightners flopped, does this mean that he won't
be making King Kong or Lord Of The Rings (since he perhaps no longer is
considered to be "bankable" in Hollywood)?
-Knut-
Daniel Fienberg
Edward Champion (edc...@slip.net) wrote:
: Look at these examples:
: Peter Jackson: HEAVENLY
: CREATURES ----> THE FRIGHTENERS
: Tim Burton: ED WOOD ----> MARS ATTACKS!
: The Coen Brothers: BARTON FINK ----> THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
: Michael Moore ROGER & ME ----> CANADIAN BACON
: Sam Raimi DARKMAN ----> ARMY OF DARKNESS
: John Carpenter IN THE MOUTH
: OF MADNESS ----> ESCAPE FROM L.A.
Is the John Carpenter entry a little joke? Or did I miss IN THE
MOUTH OF MADNESS's critical and box office glory?
-Daniel
Edward Champion
David Fresko wrote:
>
> frank...@aol.com (Franknseus) wrote:
> >
> >> The irony is, I bet most fans of Mars Attacks, which I could
> >>not stand, also liked The Frighterners.
> >
>
> Make that three.
I call it THE HUDSUCKER PROXY syndrome. A filmmaker comes off of a critical/commercial
success with access to larger budgets and decides to make a fun, entertaining movie.
All expect some kind of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS to come from the filmmaker but s/he
decides, "Hey, back off! Let me make the movie I want to make!" Consequentially, the
film is rejected critically and commercially.
Look at these examples:
Peter Jackson: HEAVENLY
CREATURES ----> THE FRIGHTENERS
Tim Burton: ED WOOD ----> MARS ATTACKS!
The Coen Brothers: BARTON FINK ----> THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
Michael Moore ROGER & ME ----> CANADIAN BACON
Sam Raimi DARKMAN ----> ARMY OF DARKNESS
John Carpenter IN THE MOUTH
OF MADNESS ----> ESCAPE FROM L.A.
I suspect that this will happen with Quentin Tarantino's next movie as well.
Ryan Frazier
phil rupp wrote:
>
> On 10 Aug 1997 23:17:45 GMT, "Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no> wrote:
>
> >Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> >a really cool and funny film.
>
> No major stars, it was sort of long and complicated and us Yanks like
> our hits snappy and stupid.
>
> Michal Fox was good, but he ain't the draw he was in the wacky 80's.
> I love the female lead (forget her name)but she also has little BO
> draw.
While he didn't really perform much of a stretch, acting wise, (this character
was pretty much like most of his others) he did quite well with what he was
given. The performances in this movie were all I ask for in a lightweight
film, not distractingly bad (except for that government guy...he was way too
Jim Carrey). What I don't understand is why the awesome special effects and
cinematography in the action sceens, didn't get more of a nod by critics and
moviegoers.
I think the reason a lot of people didn't like the film is because of the end
(everything after the abandoned hospital scene). It was, IMO the weakest part
of the film and may have left viewers with a bad taste in their mouths. I
loved it inspite of the ending, but it could have been better. It's right up
there with the Back to the Future movies for my favorite M. J. Fox flick.
> I liked it alot though--I think MEN IN BLACK stole a lot of stuff from
> it--not the Ghostbuster stuff, but the "we're in cahoots witht he
> supernatural" stuff.
>
While I don't like MiB, I didn't see this ripoff. The big ripoff in MiB IMO
was on the Blues Brothers. Unfortunately, whoever made that mess didn't notice
that it takes more than a suit and shades to make a guy cool. It takes
_attitude_, a quality that the MiB just didn't have.
Ryan Frazier
George W. Harris
In Sun, 10 Aug 1997 13:53:10 -0400 of yore, Derek Janssen
<dja...@ultranet.com> wrote thusly:
=Higher expectations?
=Well, yeah, some of us were expecting one of those thingies, er,...
=whatchacall'em, uh...oh, yeah: "Plots".
I guess you missed the part of the movie where
the ghost of a multiple murderer was going around killing
people, and only the hero knew it and had to find some
way to stop it. Oh, I guess you missed the entire movie
then.
=Derek Janssen
=dja...@ultranet.com
--
They say that there's air in your lungs that's been there for years.
George W. Harris For my actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
Parveen Boora
Knut Sjurseth wrote:
> Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard
> it was
> a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared.
> It
> still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film
> failed.
> Please tell me...
>
> -Knut-
I've got no idea why the film failed. I didn't see it in the theater
but me and a buddy rented it one time and it rocked! We've rented it a
couple more times since then. It was totally original and exteremely
funny (in a sadistic sort of way). That's probably the reason it didn't
do so well. If you don't get the "one big joke" (I won't wreck it for
you) or if you find it offensive, the movie seems stupid. In my opinion
(and in other people's as well, judging by the high ratings it gets at
the IMDB) it was great, Micheal J.'s best work aside from Back to the
Future.
Peace Electric
Well, how about the title? It's a very strange title: 'The Frighteners'. That's
not even a word really, and it takes a while to get used to. A lot of times,
that's what sinks a film: a strange title. Same thing happened to 'Multiplicity'
and 'Trainspotting'. Actually, the first time I told someone about 'Trainspotting',
they're initial response was, "I don't want to see a movie about trains." Even
after I explained the plot, they still didn't want to go, all because of the
title.
Anyway, for most people it's probably easier to remember (and get excited about)
a movie with a title like 'Independence Day' than one like 'The Frighteners'.
(And, yes, I liked both 'Mars Attacks!' and 'The Frighteners', for the record.)
--
peacel
pea...@sk.sympatico.ca
"Cab thing is just part-time."
-Travis Bickle, 'Taxi Driver'
Brian Greer
Brian Greer
Peace Electric <pea...@sk.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Well, how about the title? It's a very strange title: 'The Frighteners'. That's
>not even a word really, and it takes a while to get used to. A lot of times,
>that's what sinks a film: a strange title. Same thing happened to 'Multiplicity'
>and 'Trainspotting'. Actually, the first time I told someone about 'Trainspotting',
>they're initial response was, "I don't want to see a movie about trains." Even
>after I explained the plot, they still didn't want to go, all because of the
>title.
>Anyway, for most people it's probably easier to remember (and get excited about)
>a movie with a title like 'Independence Day' than one like 'The Frighteners'.
I think this points out the biggest problem with people today : their
intelligence.
Gareth Wilson
Knut Sjurseth wrote:
>
> >
> > >>Don't know how it translated overseas, but over here it ended up on
> > >>every critic's Worst-of-the-Year list...Yes, _every_.
> >
> > a really poorly edited film, with some amateurish attempts at comedy.
> > But then it starts to get interesting, and the last third is superb.
> > I highly recommend this one for home video viewing.
>
> Well I know it has a score by Danny Elfman, so gotta have *some*
> entertainment value! Hell I'm looking forward to it! ;-)
>
> -Knut-
>
"genre" categories.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz
"Medical personnel pick their noses
three times an hour, on average"
-Nurse, "ER"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace Electric
Brian Greer wrote:
> >Anyway, for most people it's probably easier to remember (and get excited about)
> >a movie with a title like 'Independence Day' than one like 'The Frighteners'.
>
> I think this points out the biggest problem with people today : their
> intelligence.
I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence at all. For a film to become
a hit, it has to be seen by a lot of people. People who don't often go to movies
(maybe eight times a year, if that) and don't follow them at all. If you don't
follow film and don't know anything about filmmakers, you're not likely to go to
a film that has a title that is either a) not a word (dictionary-wise) or b) not
a word you know the meaning of. If I didn't follow film, I probably would never
have seen 'Trainspotting', mainly because I wouldn't have known what the hell
"trainspotting" even meant. I think it's understandable for a person to not want
to take a chance on something they've never heard of (title-wise).
phil rupp
On 10 Aug 1997 23:17:45 GMT, "Knut Sjurseth" <knu...@online.no> wrote:
>Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
>a really cool and funny film.
It was very good but I can see why it didn;t do great----
No major stars, it was sort of long and complicated and us Yanks like
our hits snappy and stupid.
Michal Fox was good, but he ain't the draw he was in the wacky 80's.
I love the female lead (forget her name)but she also has little BO
draw.
I liked it alot though--I think MEN IN BLACK stole a lot of stuff from
Derek Janssen
Flap on, Flap off... wrote:
>
> On 10 Aug 1997, Knut Sjurseth wrote:
> > Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> > still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
> > Please tell me...
>
> Fantastic film! It has great characters, great acting, it's funny, it's
> freaky, the cinematography's wonderful, the special effects are great, the
> score is great, and overall it's just great storytelling. I have not idea
> why it flopped....here's some theories:
>
> 1. People don't get jazzed up my Michael J. Fox...too bad, I think he
> rules!
>
> 2. People were stupidified by ID4 and couldn't handle a good film.
>
> Other than that I have no idea!
Then you probably didn't notice:
A) Not one remotely likable or sympathetic character (including and, oh
boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
ONE_;
B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
could detect with the naked eye. (Unless the idea of one of the ghosts
being a 70's black stereotype, another nerdy and a third falling apart
in Rick Baker makeup is alone enough to send you into convulsions of
hilarity...And when Fox runs over the obnoxious guy's lawn gnomes with
his car?--we're talkin' _quality_ yuks here, m'friend...)
But for me, it all came down to:
C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
Bob, I'm making a wild guess here that you never even SAW "Heavenly
Creatures": There was some interestingly weird Jackson-psychological
touches with the women in the mansion, which was bewilderingly out of
place considering the other 99% of the movie had Zemeckis' grubby "Death
Becomes Her" fingerprints all over it...
The result was like watching John Hughes hire Mike Leigh to direct his
next "Home Alone" movie--only just a _little_ more disjointed and
disturbing.
But at least, as we saw, Jackson passed his course in the Robert
Zemeckis School of How to Direct Overbearing, Visually Ugly and
Relentlessly Unappealing Films...
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Brian Greer
Ryan Frazier <fra...@cs.nps.navy.mil> wrote:
>I think the reason a lot of people didn't like the film is because of the end
>(everything after the abandoned hospital scene). It was, IMO the weakest part
>of the film and may have left viewers with a bad taste in their mouths. I
>loved it inspite of the ending, but it could have been better. It's right up
>there with the Back to the Future movies for my favorite M. J. Fox flick.
I thought the ending was alright. I felt like it fit in perfect and
seemed very "Peter Jackson-ish" to me.
Needless to say, I am a fan of Peter Jackson, but I've always been a
fan of Michael J. Fox too...all the way back to Alex on Family Ties.
Brian.
Brian Greer
Peace Electric <pea...@sk.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Brian Greer wrote:
>> I think this points out the biggest problem with people today : their
>> intelligence.
>I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence at all. For a film to become
>a hit, it has to be seen by a lot of people. People who don't often go to movies
>(maybe eight times a year, if that) and don't follow them at all. If you don't
>follow film and don't know anything about filmmakers, you're not likely to go to
>a film that has a title that is either a) not a word (dictionary-wise) or b) not
>a word you know the meaning of. If I didn't follow film, I probably would never
>have seen 'Trainspotting', mainly because I wouldn't have known what the hell
>"trainspotting" even meant. I think it's understandable for a person to not want
>to take a chance on something they've never heard of (title-wise).
Before I ever went to the cinema, I always tried to look-up movies and
see what each movie was about (unless of course we already knew what
we wanted to see that particular night).
A lot of people make judgments based on much less than the title. They
judge based on 'stars' and 'name recognition'...
Brian.
Franknseus
>Higher expectations?
>Well, yeah, some of us were expecting one of those thingies, er,...
The version I saw had a plot about a fraudulent ghostbuster named Frank
Bannister who gets blamed for the murders of a supernatural serial killer.
Are you confusing it with SLACKER or something?
Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
"You're a bad space woman, aren't you?" --GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER
Franknseus
>A) Not one remotely likable or sympathetic character (including and, oh
>boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
>ONE_;
I liked both Frank Bannister and the Trini Alvarado character.
>B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
>comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
Who are these guys and have they seen the movie? It starts out as a
comedy, and I agree that the jokes are not on the level of BAD TASTE and
often fall flat. But very early on in the film the comic relief characters
( S P O I L E R ) get slaughtered and it turns into a serial killer movie.
Remember? Jeffrey Combs is, to me, hilarious, but he's still an
intimidating villain and the story is absolutely serious.
>C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
>that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
Honestly, what are you talking about? Give me some details. In what way
is this movie _at all_ like a Robert Zemeckis movie? And how did this
happen when Zemeckis had no creative say in the movie and was not even in
the same hemisphere while it was being made?
David Fresko
Ryan Frazier <fra...@cs.nps.navy.mil> wrote:
>While he didn't really perform much of a stretch, acting wise, (this character
>was pretty much like most of his others) he did quite well with what he was
>given. The performances in this movie were all I ask for in a lightweight
>film, not distractingly bad (except for that government guy...he was way too
>Jim Carrey).
I like Fox a lot. While I've always been a fan of his, this role was far
from his usual type cast self. He's no longer a fast talking teen, but now
he's actually thinking in the roles he's playing. Look at Back to the
Future or the Secret of My Success. Fox is completely different in The
Frighteners and gives a great performance. As for "that government guy",
well, Jim Carrey is like him because Jeffrey Coombs has been around longer
Carrey.
>What I don't understand is why the awesome special effects and
>cinematography in the action sceens, didn't get more of a nod critics
and
>moviegoers.
I completely agree. The movie is technically brilliant and easily contains
the best special effects I've ever seen. It really should've been
nominated for the academy award, but they don't give awards to movies
which don't make a lot of money.
Dave
Brian Greer
frank...@aol.com (Franknseus) wrote:
> Who are these guys and have they seen the movie? It starts out as a
>comedy, and I agree that the jokes are not on the level of BAD TASTE and
>often fall flat. But very early on in the film the comic relief characters
>( S P O I L E R ) get slaughtered and it turns into a serial killer movie.
>Remember? Jeffrey Combs is, to me, hilarious, but he's still an
>intimidating villain and the story is absolutely serious.
Derek is the type who had no idea Peter Jackson had ever done anything
other than Heavenly Creatures and he only wanted to see another
Heavenly Creatures. While that was a good movie, it is hardly
indicative of what most of his work is like. Derek wouldn't know this
because if it wasn't mentioned on The Academy Awards or the critics
universally approved it...he never saw it.
>>C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
>>that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
> Honestly, what are you talking about? Give me some details. In what way
>is this movie _at all_ like a Robert Zemeckis movie? And how did this
>happen when Zemeckis had no creative say in the movie and was not even in
>the same hemisphere while it was being made?
You're playing with fire. Derek probably doesn't even know where Peter
Jackson is from...
Interesting that someone named Derek would be so ignorant of Peter
Jackson, isn't it? Think about Bad Taste...heheh.
Brian Greer
>A) Not one remotely likable or sympathetic character (including and, oh
>boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
>ONE_;
I liked the entire movie. This is a weird response. Do I need to love
the characters (as in, find those characters to be very admirable and
deserving of REAL LOVE? is it wrong to like a character who isn't
pristine?)???
>B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
>comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
>could detect with the naked eye. (Unless the idea of one of the ghosts
>being a 70's black stereotype, another nerdy and a third falling apart
>in Rick Baker makeup is alone enough to send you into convulsions of
>hilarity...And when Fox runs over the obnoxious guy's lawn gnomes with
>his car?--we're talkin' _quality_ yuks here, m'friend...)
For people with a REAL sense of humor (not some weird north american
sense of humor that never laughs unless the 'LAUGH' sign is blinking
right in front of them) the movie was extremely funny. Everytime I see
it, I laugh a lot, the very first time I saw it my friends and I were
in hysterics! Get a sense of humor, please. You probably won't get any
trade-in value for the one you have right now though.
>But for me, it all came down to:
>C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
>that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
>Bob, I'm making a wild guess here that you never even SAW "Heavenly
>Creatures": There was some interestingly weird Jackson-psychological
>touches with the women in the mansion, which was bewilderingly out of
>place considering the other 99% of the movie had Zemeckis' grubby "Death
>Becomes Her" fingerprints all over it...
>The result was like watching John Hughes hire Mike Leigh to direct his
>next "Home Alone" movie--only just a _little_ more disjointed and
>disturbing.
Sure, Zemeckis stuff isn't always great, but this had just enough
Peter Jackson for me. You talk about Heavenly Creatures as if it was
the only thing Peter Jackson had ever done...let me ask you this
question : Have you ever seen any of the following movies :
Meet The Feebles
Bad Taste
Dead Alive (aka Braindead)
Derek Janssen
Brian Greer wrote:
>
> Derek Janssen <dja...@ultranet.com> wrote:
>
> >I'll say this:
> >If it is physically possible for you to watch Jeffrey Combs' performance
> >with anything--ANYTHING--but abject embarrassment and pity, you deserve
> >to watch more than five minutes of this movie at a given stretch. I
> >couldn't and didn't, and it was one of the single most painful
> >moviewatching experiences of recent memory--I am _not_ exaggerating...Thank
> >the video god who invented fast-forward remotes!
<snip>
> So, Derek, sit back and relax. There are plenty of bland major
> American productions out there to keep you safe and secure in knowing
> they ultimately control everything. Why branch out and be able to
> enjoy new things when you can watch the same old things re-hashed in
> film after film? I'm with you, Derek. I wanna throw my mind in the
> garbage can too.
Rest assured, Brian:
I like New. I like Quirky....I just don't like it pushed into my face at
full velocity and demanded that I bow down and worship it as genius.
(Although maybe it _is_ me: When not one but two characters throw up
within a few lines of their entrance, somehow I just, well...don't feel
any innovative new ground has been broken in the art...)
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Brian Greer
Derek Janssen <dja...@ultranet.com> wrote:
>(Although maybe it _is_ me: When not one but two characters throw up
>within a few lines of their entrance, somehow I just, well...don't feel
>any innovative new ground has been broken in the art...)
Hahah. That was one of the funny parts. Maybe it isn't innovative new
ground, but it is humor that you just didn't get. I don't know what
you think is funny, but then again, it's probably something that bored
me to tears.
Brian.
Mark E. Smith
In article <5srm7a$a...@panix.com>, dan...@panix.com (Mike D'Angelo) wrote:
> By the by, did you see it theatrically or on video? Anyone
> who's only seen it in pan-and-scan format hasn't seen it, as
> far as I'm concerned.
I thought the same thing when I saw THE FRIGHTENERS. I found out
later from a source -- and can any of them be considered reliable
these days? -- that the movie was filmed in Super 35, meaning
that the frame was masked for widescreen exhibition in theaters,
but the full frame was available for the video version. The
video version ends up looking different, granted, but nothing
gets cropped out of the picture, and there's no Pan 'n' Scan (TM)
involved -- with one exception. Shots involving optical effects
were produced with a hard mask, so those shots did indeed have to
be panned and scanned unless the whole video was letterboxed.
I understand that the same caveats apply to APOLLO 13, also
filmed in Super 35.
I suppose that considering THE FRIGHTENERS' box office
performance, the prospect of a letterboxed video is a dim one.
--
Mark E. Smith <msm...@tfs.net>
As always, cheerfully prepared to be dead wrong.
Mike D'Angelo
Okay, *now* I'll rush to the defense of my #9 movie of 1996...
Derek Janssen (dja...@ultranet.com) wrote:
: A) Not one remotely likable or sympathetic character (including and, oh
: boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
: ONE_;
1. Why does a movie have to feature a likable or sympathetic character?
(This is not a trick question.)
2. In any case, I disagree; the characters played by Fox and by Trini
Alvarado, while hardly memorable (for memorable, we have Jeffrey Combs'
demented Fed), struck me as eminently likable. Some people seem to be
irritated by Fox as a general rule, but I am not among them; and while I
wouldn't argue that he was the best possible choice for Frank Bannister,
I found him quite serviceable in the part...and given the film's other
merits, that was enough for me.
What did you find *un*likeable about them, incidentally? I could
understand complaints that they're bland, but unsympathetic I don't get.
: B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
: comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
: could detect with the naked eye.
Your outside reports were incorrect. Though the first half of the film is
somewhat lighthearted, it's not really a comedy per se, and the second
half is firmly in horror/thriller territory. This is one of the biggest
misconceptions about THE FRIGHTENERS, and anyone who goes in expecting
hilarity is guaranteed to be disappointed, for all the wrong reasons.
: (Unless the idea of one of the ghosts being a 70's black stereotype,
: another nerdy and a third falling apart in Rick Baker makeup is alone
: enough to send you into convulsions of hilarity...
The ghost apprentices were easily the lamest part of the movie, save for
the dumb happy ending. Fortunately, they're dispensed with in a hurry.
: And when Fox runs over the obnoxious guy's lawn gnomes with his
: car?--we're talkin' _quality_ yuks here, m'friend...)
Here is where we disagree -- not because I think the "running over the
lawn gnomes" bit was terribly funny, but because it's a set-up for a
quintessentially Peter Jackson cut (of which this movie, despite your
comparisons to Zemeckis' work [which I find baffling], is chock-full).
The first time Frank runs over a gnome, it just looks like a stale gag;
what makes it pay off is the *second* time it happens...and even then,
what works is not the still-pretty-stale gag, but rather the
cut-on-motion from Frank's car slamming into a gnome to Frank himself
slamming open the door of the house. It's not "funny," exactly, but I
found it exhilirating, and precisely the kind of cinematic wit that's
missing from Zemeckis' recent work. (I quite like many of Zemeckis'
earlier pictures, especially the original BACK TO THE FUTURE, but I guess
that's neither here nor there.)
By the by, did you see it theatrically or on video? Anyone who's only
seen it in pan-and-scan format hasn't seen it, as far as I'm concerned.
: C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
: that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
: Bob, I'm making a wild guess here that you never even SAW "Heavenly
: Creatures": There was some interestingly weird Jackson-psychological
: touches with the women in the mansion, which was bewilderingly out of
: place considering the other 99% of the movie had Zemeckis' grubby
: "Death Becomes Her" fingerprints all over it...
*I* saw HEAVENLY CREATURES; THE FRIGHTENERS isn't nearly as good, but
that doesn't make it bad. Meanwhile, have *you* seen any of Jackson's
work prior to that film? If you have, I can't imagine how you could
claim that FRIGHTENERS has Zemeckis' fingerprints all over it, since it's
very much of a piece with stuff like DEAD ALIVE -- the gore factor has
been reduced by several orders of magnitude, but that's about it. Also,
THE FRIGHTENERS was written, well *before* the international success of
HC, by Jackson and his writing partner, Anne Walsh, so here again I fail
to see how Zemeckis' influence plays any kind of role. In short, what are
you talking about?
Like the film or don't; I don't care. But don't mistake it for either a
comedy or a Zemeckis-inspired sop to Hollywood. It's neither.
Mike "will defend underrated box-office disasters for food" D'Angelo
--
-The Man Who Viewed Too Much-
http://pages.nyu.edu/~mqd8478
Derek Janssen
Mike D'Angelo wrote:
>
> 2. In any case, I disagree; the characters played by Fox and by Trini
> Alvarado, while hardly memorable (for memorable, we have Jeffrey Combs'
> demented Fed), struck me as eminently likable.
I'll say this:
If it is physically possible for you to watch Jeffrey Combs' performance
with anything--ANYTHING--but abject embarrassment and pity, you deserve
to
watch more than five minutes of this movie at a given stretch. I didn't
and couldn't, and it was one of the single most painful moviewatching
experiences of recent memory--I am _not_ exaggerating...Thank the video
god who invented fast-forward remotes!
For me, the only enjoyable minute--that's sixty seconds total out of the
entire run, folks--was watching R. Lee Ermey [as the drill-sargeant
ghost]
show up just long enough to remind us how entertaining the first half of
"Full Metal Jacket" really was, and how much less depressing an
experience
we would have had renting that one instead...
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Brian Greer
Derek Janssen <dja...@ultranet.com> wrote:
>I'll say this:
>If it is physically possible for you to watch Jeffrey Combs' performance
>with anything--ANYTHING--but abject embarrassment and pity, you deserve
>to
>watch more than five minutes of this movie at a given stretch. I didn't
>and couldn't, and it was one of the single most painful moviewatching
>experiences of recent memory--I am _not_ exaggerating...Thank the video
>god who invented fast-forward remotes!
You are extremely strange, Derek. This must be what it is like to be
one of the many people in the USA who refuse to enjoy anything other
than spoon-fed (and boring) major studio productions. You only like a
movie if it has special characters you can associate with (just get a
life, cinema is for the un-real, not a place to watch your own life)
or is full of the 'uppity' type stuff film critics seem to love.
Pretty self-serving, and bland, I might say.
>For me, the only enjoyable minute--that's sixty seconds total out of the
>entire run, folks--was watching R. Lee Ermey [as the drill-sargeant
>ghost]
>show up just long enough to remind us how entertaining the first half of
>"Full Metal Jacket" really was, and how much less depressing an
>experience
>we would have had renting that one instead...
Yeah, his part was good. I'm surprised you like that movie at all,
Derek. It would seem to be a film that would cause you to question
things, but then again, it is still a lot more typical of 'american
cinema' than The Frighteners...so I can understand your devotion to
it.
So, Derek, sit back and relax. There are plenty of bland major
American productions out there to keep you safe and secure in knowing
they ultimately control everything. Why branch out and be able to
enjoy new things when you can watch the same old things re-hashed in
film after film? I'm with you, Derek. I wanna throw my mind in the
garbage can too.
Brian.
Franknseus
> I didn't
>and couldn't, and it was one of the single most painful moviewatching
>experiences of recent memory--I am _not_ exaggerating...Thank the video
>god who invented fast-forward remotes!
Did I just read what I thought I read, Derek? After repeatedly trashing
this movie in the most venomous ways you can think of, you are admitting
to us that you've only watched parts of it?
Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
"Did you see how STRONG that guy in the BLUE PAJAMAS was?" --mutant street beatnik, The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo! #3 by Mike Allred
Flappuccino
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Derek Janssen wrote:
> Then you probably didn't notice:
>
> boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
> ONE_;
Well that's your opinion as wrong as it may be. ^_^ I felt that most if
not all of the characters were likable...even the bad guys. I felt Fox's
Bannister was a quirky little conman, Lucy was likeable, Ray was likable
in an asshole kinda way....Milton was one crazy FBI nut which was very fun
to watch, and Jake Busey was a very good bad guy as was his CGI version in
the first half of the film. With all the films I've seen with TONS of
characters (and no decent characterization of those characters), the
Frighteners does a very repectable job of making characters taht are
enjoyable to watch.
> B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
> comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
> could detect with the naked eye. (Unless the idea of one of the ghosts
> being a 70's black stereotype, another nerdy and a third falling apart
> in Rick Baker makeup is alone enough to send you into convulsions of
> hilarity...And when Fox runs over the obnoxious guy's lawn gnomes with
> his car?--we're talkin' _quality_ yuks here, m'friend...)
Well, regardless whether it was MEANT to be a comedy I could care less
about. Fargo wasn't nessesarily SUPPOSED to be a comedy yet it was funny.
The humor in The Frighteners comes from some very nicely timed physical
acting rather than a "ha ha" script. The same type of humor I found in
Mars Attacks! I guess.....
==============================================================================
THE FLAPPER!!!!!!!
==============================================================================
"All green of skin...800 centuries || "No Elvis is not dead, he's just
ago...their bodily fluids included || gone home" -"K", (Men In Black)
the birth of half-breeds...dark is ||====================================
the suede that mows like a harvest" || "...an evil petting zoo?"
-Martian Ambassador, (Mars Attacks!)|| -Dr.Evil, (Austin Powers)
==============================================================================
Franknseus
>> Did I just read what I thought I read, Derek? After repeatedly
trashing
>> this movie in the most venomous ways you can think of, you are
admitting
>> to us that you've only watched parts of it?
>
>Combs came on screen, zoomed through that fast-forward scan for dear
>life.
So, yes then? You probably don't know this since you've only seen part
of it, but Jeffrey Combs is one of the main characters in the movie. If
you fast forwarded through his scenes, you haven't seen the movie.
I doubt I'd get away with saying Heat sucked if I fast forwarded through
all of the Val Kilmer scenes, and he was a far less significant role than
Combs in The Frighteners.
Flappuccino
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Mark E. Smith wrote:
> I suppose that considering THE FRIGHTENERS' box office
> performance, the prospect of a letterboxed video is a dim one.
Well Mars Attacks! didn't do well and it's coming out in LBX VHS in
September....I got 'em both on Laserdisc widescreen so it's all good. ^_^
PanDuh!
Chris <spam...@inseattle.com> wrote in article
<33EF76...@inseattle.com>...
> I didn't know that the movie ended up on worst lists. Too bad. At
> worst, it
> shouldn't have made their best lists, but that's all opinion, and you
> know what
> they say. Just like others in this newsgroup suggest, take their
> opinions with
> a grain of salt and make up your own mind.
I liked this movie as well, it was very fast-moving and held my attention
through-out the whole film, however, I *STILL* am bothered by the plot hole
of how ghosts can KILL other ghosts?!? How does that work?!
----
PanDuh!
ICQ #: 1407994
HomePage: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jjs7011
Mike D'Angelo
Mark E. Smith (msm...@tfs.net) wrote:
: dan...@panix.com (Mike D'Angelo) wrote:
:
: > By the by, did you see it theatrically or on video? Anyone
: > who's only seen it in pan-and-scan format hasn't seen it, as
: > far as I'm concerned.
:
: I thought the same thing when I saw THE FRIGHTENERS. I found out
: later from a source -- and can any of them be considered reliable
: these days? -- that the movie was filmed in Super 35 [...]
It was.
: [...] meaning that the frame was masked for widescreen exhibition in
: theaters, but the full frame was available for the video version.
That's not really correct -- a Super35 film is projected anamorphically,
for example, not simply matted -- but you're quite right in noting that
all of the frame typically survives on video. Except, as you then note:
: [...] there's no Pan 'n' Scan (TM) involved -- with one exception.
: Shots involving optical effects were produced with a hard mask, so
: those shots did indeed have to be panned and scanned unless the whole
: video was letterboxed.
And there were several hundred opticals in the FRIGHTENERS, I believe.
Mike "I rest my case" D'Angelo
Derek Janssen
Franknseus wrote:
>
> > I didn't
> >and couldn't, and it was one of the single most painful moviewatching
> >experiences of recent memory--I am _not_ exaggerating...Thank the video
> >god who invented fast-forward remotes!
>
> this movie in the most venomous ways you can think of, you are admitting
> to us that you've only watched parts of it?
No, I sat the WHOLE DAMN THING...and when Jeffrey "Am I quirky yet"
Combs came on screen, zoomed through that fast-forward scan for dear
life.
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Impulse
The failure of *The Frighteners* can be summed up easily enough.
When I first saw the ads for this movie (pre-ghost ads, btw, showing
only the Angel of Death as the shadowy figure he is for most of the
movie) it was advertised as a grim & gritty horror movie. I was not
impressed with this.
Then, another ad came on saying it was a wacky comedy with Michael J.
Fox and a bunch of retro-70s ghosts and John Astin (in what is
probably the most embarassing set of prostheses I've ever seen)
slumming in a picture like this when he should be doing *The Addams
Family* (not that I don't like Raoul, but -- . . . )
So, now I was confused, but I figured maybe this was the studio's way
of saying they didn't know whether to push the comedy or the horror
and it was a loose combination of both -- sort of like *Ghostbusters*.
This got me excited enough to go see it.
More the fool, I.
What I saw -- instead of the fun-'n'-fancy-free *Ghostbusters* was a
dark, sombre, psychopathic, ugly, miserable, loud mess of a film that
seemed like an advertisement for a special effects house (Yeah, I know
that Siskel and Ebert said the same thing, but I was in total
agreement with them).
Here we have an -incredible- scenario for a film comedy -- a guy with
Second Sight who has all these ghosts hanging around (which was used
to great comic effect in a very brief scene in *Ghost*) because he's
the only person who can see them.
And what do they do?
They swing punches at eachother -- they shoot bug-spray in eachother's
faces. They gripe, they complain, they shout, they meander -- and
what is worse, we get -no- reason as to why these ghosts would even
want to be in the same -ROOM- as this guy they apparently can't stand,
much less work for him.
Throw in an ugly murder subplot and such weirdness as the tattooed
cult expert and you've got a sour film with sour performances and a
lot of visual effects.
In short, *The Frighteners* failed because there was nothing appealing
about it except to effects-junkies. There were -no- characters to
appreciate, because everyone in the film was a dirt-bag of a low-life.
There were no heroes, no heroism and no hope. It was a
black-pit-of-Hades of a mess of a film that never should have been
made, and makes *Dead Alive* look like Tolstoy.
Brian Greer
Impulse wrote:
> In short, *The Frighteners* failed because there was nothing appealing
>
> about it except to effects-junkies. There were -no- characters to
> appreciate, because everyone in the film was a dirt-bag of a low-life.
>
> There were no heroes, no heroism and no hope. It was a
> black-pit-of-Hades of a mess of a film that never should have been
> made, and makes *Dead Alive* look like Tolstoy.
Here's more of that "We need lovable heroes and great happy stuff!"
again... What in the world does any of that up there have to do with
movies? If you need all of that for a movie, then I feel sorry for you.
There's a lot more to movies (at least to me) than following that type
of formula-driven movie format...but your post just points out to me
something I believed for sometime but could never officially prove :
there are indeed people out there who want nothing more than the
formulaic 'hollywood' film and they want it spoonfed by lovable
characters as well... So, trod on back to more wholesome films and leave
the rest of us to enjoy the good stuff.
Brian.
Kim Rivers
> > Why did Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" bomb? From what I've heard it was
> > a really cool and funny film. Sad. And now it has totally dissapeared. It
> > still hasn't opened here in Norway. I'm curious to why the film failed.
> > Please tell me...
>
Did it bomb? I knew it wasn't a big hit, but... oh well.
Anyway, I saw it (in the theater, Mike D':) It's been a while, and I've
probably forgotten big chunks of the movie, but I recall being somewhat
disappointed with it.
It *was* being sold as a "scary" comedy--at least in some of the commercials
I saw, the angle seemed to be "Hey! Look! Michael J. Fox! Goofy Sidekick
Ghosts! Neat Scary Ghost! Come see! It'll be Funny!".
I don't remember going in thinking it was going to be a laugh riot, nor do I
remember thinking, "ooooh! It'll be a thriller!".
I do remember that for me, it a spotty execution of an interesting premise.
Moments of goodness, but largely unsustained.
Maybe it was Fox. Everything I've seen him in suggests that his screen persona
is limited to one type of character, the "Michael J. Fox" character. Or, if
you prefer, Alex P. Keaton. His delivery, his body language, everything.
It's very hard to accept him in a non-comedic roll. It doesn't work (see also
"Casualties of War").
Other things didn't work for me either, but I'd have to see it
again to cite examples and currently, I'm not moved to go rent it.
So, perhaps it didn't do so well because others felt as I did, or perhaps
because some went expecting either of a "Ghostbusters" type comedy or a
horror flick and didn't get it. Just a theory, though.
Liked the poster, though.
kim
--
-- I work for Digital. I don't speak for 'em.
Franknseus
>I liked this movie as well, it was very fast-moving and held my attention
>through-out the whole film, however, I *STILL* am bothered by the plot
hole
>of how ghosts can KILL other ghosts?!? How does that work?!
Why would you call that a plot hole? Any movie that has ghosts in it has
to set up its rules of reality. One of the rules of THE FRIGHTENERS is
that ghosts can be killed.
I think it makes perfect sense. The ghosts are sort of like people
stuck between life and afterlife - souls that have avoided "going to the
light." When the ghosts get killed, they have no choice but to move on to
the afterlife.
Franknseus
>Sorry, Brian, but you can't use that if I'm not aloud to say that
>INDEPENDENCE DAY had a plot of Earth being invaded by aliens and people
>joining together to fight them. (I'm not certain if you were one of the
>people who said iD4 had no plot, but there were some people I do
>remember responding in such a way to. BTW, I loved THE FRIGHTENERS.)
I never said that. It *does* have a plot. I don't like how it's
executed, but obviously there is a plot. I *hate* when people say a movie
"has no plot" unless the movie really has no plot, like SLACKER.
Impulse
On Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:27:09 -0500, elgee <gue...@idt.net> wrote:
>it's well known that like test audiences and test screenings, studios
>will also put out test posters.
This isn't an excuse. The point was that the studio tried the
"straight horror" angle first, and when audiences found that to be
unappealing, moved to "It's a comedy!" As a parallel of what you are
talking about, look at the poster-teaser for *Batman Returns*, which
audiences and theatre-owners dismissed as hideously ugly (I personally
liked it better than the teaser for the original *Batman*, myself!).
The -concept- of the movie didn't change in-between the two posters.
The ad-design did. This is similar to the current trend with *George
of the Jungle* where the advertisements in the newspaper are making
parody of different top-selling movies each week (and their parody of
*Face/Off* was terrific).
The thing to remember about *The Frighteners* was that the original
poster (which never changed) featured a screaming banshee monster, and
the original ads dealt with a "horror" from beyond terrorizing the
walls and stretching out at the audience in CGI-"glory." When
audiences yawned and said "We've seen all that before," (a problem
with the inherent concept of the movie, too, since that's essentially
all it was about) they quickly shifted gears and tried to focus on how
"funny" the film was.
However, as I say below, their style of humor seems to consist of
nothing but insuts, put-downs, bodily dismemberment, pain, torture,
suffering, death and blood. I don't find this particularly funny.
>i think star wars had around three different versions.
I hate all three *Star Wars* movies with a passion that runs deep.
I've articulated this before. Lucas was just as guilty as the rest of
Hollywood in creating the "blockbuster" mentality, by doing whatever
it took to get audiences in the theatre at the sacrificial altar of
artistic intergrity.
> were you not impressed with the poster
It was an uninspired poster -- a stretchy-looking half-seen monster,
white-on-white. And they were surprised that this interminably bland
poster didn't advertise the film well? There are so many powerful
visual moments in *The Frighteners* that could've been chosen.
> or that it was pushing a "grim & gritty horror movie?" that's the type of horror
>flick i'd like to see.
Ghosts and supernatural concepts are so inherently silly to begin with
that I can't take them seriously as "grim and gritty." To me, there's
no such thing as a "grim and gritty" horror movie. Those films (like,
say, *Seven*) that try to be "grim and gritty" while carrying an
underlying theme of horror just end up -- to my way of thinking, being
ridiculous and laughably bad. There is no essential difference
between *Seven* and *Night of the Lepus* -- both are incredibly
outlandish concepts adjusted to different "planes" of versimilitude.
>although i think the "loose" jaw was a bit odd. i think rick baker did
>his usual excellent job on the prosthetics.
Rich Baker is highly overrated, IMO. Basically, he repeats the same
basic designs using bigger and bigger budgets (as does S. Winston),
and the result is that OF COURSE the effects look better. If you're
only trying the same trick -- using better and better equipment -- you
will get it right eventually. However, there was nothing about any of
the prosthetic effects that really jumped out and grabbed me -- and
the Hanging Judge character wasn't much different than the mummified
cowboy in *House II: The Second Story*. Compare for yourself, if you
like. The difference? Probably a few hundred-thousand dollars, maybe
a million even. Who knows any more with inflated designers charging
inflated rates for inflated bladder-effects that try to make inflated
movies. It's -- again -- patently ridiculous.
For my money, the best effects man in the business right now is
Screaming Mad George. While his effects work off a smaller budget
than either of the above-mentioned two, at least he's always trying
something to innovate the industry and create new artistic ideas -- to
do things in a new or more interesting way, visually. The -look- is
important to him, it would seem.
> i have to disagree with you on the "slumming,"
> i think frighteners was way better than either
>addam's family movie. imho
It's an example of the difference between us. See, *The Addams
Family* is, to me, just as 'serious' as *The Frighteners* in that both
are patently ridiculous conceptually -- both deal with things that
could NEVER POSSIBLY HAPPEN. And, as a means of comparison about the
nasty humor of *The Frighteners* v. *The Addams Family*, look at how
the characters treat eachother. In *The Addams Family*, the gang
stabs and electrocutes eachother -- but everyone survives and there
are big hugs afterward -- and very little anger gets tossed around.
In *The Frighteners*, you've got characters who can't -stand-
eachother all in the same room. So, I ask myself which I'd rather
spend time watching -- a comic-book-universe family that loves itself,
or a group of caustic and mean-spirited spectres who hate eachother?
I'll opt for the fun-loving atmosphere of the *Addams Family* movies
over *The Frighteners* any day, because I'd rather see joy than anger
and frustration in my fictional charactes.
>i agree, this movie is a combo of both horror/comedy,
Except that it:
1) wasn't scary
2) wasn't funny
3) -was- bloody and gory and grotesque
4) -was- caustic and mean-spirited
If you find blood/gore and caustic/mean to be horror/comedy, then I
can understand why you'd like *The Frighteners*.
> unlike ghostbusters which had comedy written all over it, and sometimes studios
>don't know how to market something like this.
On the contrary -- because *Ghostbusters* was internally consistent,
the advertisers had little-to-no trouble advertising it! The Ray
Parker Jr. song advertised it alone! And the simple symbol of the
ghost with the slash through the middle was enough to get people to
go. The whole point of *Ghostbusters* was to pair up a bunch of
comedians and set them in a ghost-mystery in the spirit of Abbot and
Costello, but the result turned out to be much more thanks to some
great ad-libbing on the part of the centrals.
>if you wanted to see ghostbusters perhaps you should have checked it out
>on video.
I own a copy, and I did indeed watch it after seeing *The Frighteners*
to contrast the two films and take the sour taste out of my mouth left
by this experience.
> as i recall, ghostbusters had as many special effects,
Not as many, no -- but enough. And -- another point here: the
special effects in *Ghostbusters* were -not- part-and-parcel to the
story. The story came from the actors and their performances and
dialogue -- the ghosts could have looked like practically anything and
the humor would've still been there. Take the ghosts out of
*Ghostbusters* and you've still got a story because it's about
-characters-. Take the ghosts out of *The Frighteners* and you have a
miserable Michael J. Fox character, a bizarre cult-specialist and a
dullard doctor.
> more ghosts, and i much prefer elfman's music to ray parker junior's. not
>sure about the ad "for a special effects house" but i'd go cgi for a
>ghost. what would you prefer, sheets?
Elfman's music was horrifically typical -- if you've listened to
enough Elfman ("Music for a Darkened Theatre Vol I-II) then there's
nothing in this soundtrack that's really 'new.' I'll take his work on
*Sommersby* over this; Elfman is capable of doing great musical work,
even in his own style -- *Batman* and *The Nightmare Before Christmas*
along with *Edward Scissorhands* are all painfully Elfman-esque, but
at least he's trying different things with each. This soundtrack
sounded very suspiciously like the one Elfman did for *Scrooged!*
(which, admittedly, no one saw or heard except the few Elfman fans
like myself who bought the abovementioned albums!).
RE: The Characterrs Can't Stand Eachother
>now first you complain about the movie "not" being ghostbusters, now you
>complain because they act "like" the ghostbusters.
You need to learn a little about dialogue, I think. There's a
difference between the "good-natured ribbing" in *Ghostbusters*, which
is quiet and reserved most of the time between the 'Busters themselves
(the caustic wit is directed at ghosts and dullards) and the
shouting-matches that took the place of humor in *The Frighteners*.
To put it another way, consider how virtually every 'joke' that was a
little mean-spirited between the 'Busters was spoken rather quietly,
and deadpan. With *The Frighteners*, we've got BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD
humor -- vomit, bile, spillage, blood, scars, wounds, tattoos . . .
and the dialogue-based humor is composed of yelling mixed with
gun-fire and anger, abuse and mistreatment.
> when fox's character finally "lands" upstairs, his
>buddies are the first to greet him. i figure all the griping,
>complaining, shouting, etc. was just some-o-that tough love thing.
You could've fooled me -- there was no love there. The closest there
was to comeraderie was when the Hanging Judge has a little (and too
brief) talk with Michael J. Fox's "paranormal eliminator" about how
death is no way "to make a living." More scenes like that, where the
ghosts were genuinely interested in helping Michael J. Fox because of
their "enlightened state" as spirits -- would've been funnier. The
idea of Fox and the ghosts working together to hustle customers would
have been funnier -- but it took a back-seat to the Reaper -- and the
one time the crew works together on a hustle that is actually visible
on-camera Fox isn't even really there until very late-on in the scene!
In another scene, a hustle occurs without Fox's help, and he's not
there at all (the babies floating -- a terrible optical effect, btw).
>although i too feel they could've included a basis for their
>relationship, it didn't ruin the movie for me.
It ruined it for me, because you can't have tough love in a movie
without a reason for that love to be there. Who were these people
before they died? Why did they befriend Fox, and why had they avoided
going into the light so often (they -were not- one-year veterans, most
obviously). They had to be willing to give up a chance to go to
Heaven to stay with Fox -- they should have been blood-loyal to
eachother rather than shooting bug-spray in eachother's faces.
>combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
>distracting with his usual over the top perfomance,
-which added -nothing- to the movie, IMO -- his character was just
oine more thrown-in piece of a messy jigsaw puzzle of a film, with no
real basis for being there. What does he add to the story? What is
his purpose to the plot? What 'vehicle' does he carry for the
storyline, besides the annoying murder-subplot about Fox's wife which
gets the hero incarcerated for far too long in a 2-hour movie?
> and i feel the female doctor's role could have been written better.
Or out.
> even though she wasin an unhappy marriage i felt she showed more compassion for fox's
>character than her just dead old man.
Of course, one could argue that it's a little cuel on Fox's part to
put moves on the wife of a just-dead ghost sitting next to him. I
found that scene to be in horribly poor taste and made any heroism
moot in the character that was Fox.
elgee
Impulse wrote:
>
> The failure of *The Frighteners* can be summed up easily enough.
>
> When I first saw the ads for this movie (pre-ghost ads, btw, showing
> only the Angel of Death as the shadowy figure he is for most of the
> movie) it was advertised as a grim & gritty horror movie. I was not
> impressed with this.
different versions. were you not impressed with the poster or that it
was pushing a "grim & gritty horror movie?" that's the type of horror
flick i'd like to see.
> Then, another ad came on saying it was a wacky comedy with Michael J.
> Fox and a bunch of retro-70s ghosts and John Astin (in what is
> probably the most embarassing set of prostheses I've ever seen)
> slumming in a picture like this when he should be doing *The Addams
> Family* (not that I don't like Raoul, but -- . . . )
although i think the "loose" jaw was a bit odd. i think rick baker did
his usual excellent job on the prosthetics. i have to disagree with you
on the "slumming," i think frighteners was way better than either
addam's family movie. imho
> So, now I was confused, but I figured maybe this was the studio's way
> of saying they didn't know whether to push the comedy or the horror
> and it was a loose combination of both -- sort of like *Ghostbusters*.
> This got me excited enough to go see it.
i agree, this movie is a combo of both horror/comedy, unlike
ghostbusters which had comedy written all over it, and sometimes studios
don't know how to market something like this.
> More the fool, I.
>
> What I saw -- instead of the fun-'n'-fancy-free *Ghostbusters* was a
> dark, sombre, psychopathic, ugly, miserable, loud mess of a film that
> seemed like an advertisement for a special effects house (Yeah, I know
> that Siskel and Ebert said the same thing, but I was in total
> agreement with them).
if you wanted to see ghostbusters perhaps you should have checked it out
on video. as i recall, ghostbusters had as many special effects, more
ghosts, and i much prefer elfman's music to ray parker junior's. not
sure about the ad "for a special effects house" but i'd go cgi for a
ghost. what would you prefer, sheets?
> Here we have an -incredible- scenario for a film comedy -- a guy with
> Second Sight who has all these ghosts hanging around (which was used
> to great comic effect in a very brief scene in *Ghost*) because he's
> the only person who can see them.
>
> And what do they do?
>
> They swing punches at eachother -- they shoot bug-spray in eachother's
> faces. They gripe, they complain, they shout, they meander -- and
> what is worse, we get -no- reason as to why these ghosts would even
> want to be in the same -ROOM- as this guy they apparently can't stand,
> much less work for him.
now first you complain about the movie "not" being ghostbusters, now you
complain because they act "like"
the ghostbusters. when fox's character finally "lands" upstairs, his
buddies are the first to greet him. i figure all the griping,
complaining, shouting, etc. was just some-o-that tough love thing.
although i too feel they could've included a basis for their
relationship, it didn't ruin the movie for me.
> Throw in an ugly murder subplot and such weirdness as the tattooed
> cult expert and you've got a sour film with sour performances and a
> lot of visual effects.
combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
distracting with his usual over the top perfomance, and i feel the
female doctor's role could have been written better. even though she was
in an unhappy marriage i felt she showed more compassion for fox's
character than her just dead old man.
> In short, *The Frighteners* failed because there was nothing appealing
> about it except to effects-junkies. There were -no- characters to
> appreciate, because everyone in the film was a dirt-bag of a low-life.
> There were no heroes, no heroism and no hope. It was a
> black-pit-of-Hades of a mess of a film that never should have been
> made, and makes *Dead Alive* look like Tolstoy.
i like it...
elgee
who is not an effects junky
Matt Martinez
Franknseus wrote:
>
> The version I saw had a plot about a fraudulent ghostbuster named Frank
> Bannister who gets blamed for the murders of a supernatural serial killer.
> Are you confusing it with SLACKER or something?
>
Sorry, Brian, but you can't use that if I'm not aloud to say that
INDEPENDENCE DAY had a plot of Earth being invaded by aliens and people
joining together to fight them. (I'm not certain if you were one of the
people who said iD4 had no plot, but there were some people I do
remember responding in such a way to. BTW, I loved THE FRIGHTENERS.)
--
Matt
**Remove MAIL from my e-mail address to reply**
"Do not be so proud of this technological terror you have constructed.
The ability to criticize Star Wars is insignificant next to power of the
Fans"
-Brandon David Short
(-o-)
David Fresko
imp...@teleport.com (Impulse) wrote:
>On Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:27:09 -0500, elgee <gue...@idt.net> wrote:
>
>>it's well known that like test audiences and test screenings, studios
>>will also put out test posters.
>The thing to remember about *The Frighteners* was that the original
>poster (which never changed) featured a screaming banshee monster, and
>the original ads dealt with a "horror" from beyond terrorizing the
>walls and stretching out at the audience in CGI-"glory." When
>audiences yawned and said "We've seen all that before," (a problem
>with the inherent concept of the movie, too, since that's essentially
>all it was about) they quickly shifted gears and tried to focus on how
>"funny" the film was.
I don't agree. I think the poster was enough to peak peoples interests,
but it was the comedy and romance angles of the advertising which killed
movie. Talking to some people they told me that they didn't know what the
movie was about or what it was like, and that's why they didn't see it.
Most people who did see it, though, liked it. I agree, it should've been
marketted better, but the poster is very cool none the less. In Europe it
was advertised much better with actual stills from the movie.
>However, as I say below, their style of humor seems to consist of
>nothing but insuts, put-downs, bodily dismemberment, pain, torture,
>suffering, death and blood. I don't find this particularly funny.
Then you must not like Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, The Three Stooges,
Dead Alive, Bad Taste, or any of Roman Polanski's movies.
[snip]
>> were you not impressed with the poster
>
>It was an uninspired poster -- a stretchy-looking half-seen monster,
>white-on-white. And they were surprised that this interminably bland
>poster didn't advertise the film well? There are so many powerful
>visual moments in *The Frighteners* that could've been chosen.
The poster definitely peaked my interest. "Dead Yet?" was a great tag line
for the movie, and I still think that the monster pressing through the
poster looked great. The video looked great with its motion cover too.
>
>> or that it was pushing a "grim & gritty horror movie?" that's the type of horror
>>flick i'd like to see.
>
>Ghosts and supernatural concepts are so inherently silly to begin with
>that I can't take them seriously as "grim and gritty." To me, there's
>no such thing as a "grim and gritty" horror movie. Those films (like,
>say, *Seven*) that try to be "grim and gritty" while carrying an
>underlying theme of horror just end up -- to my way of thinking, being
>ridiculous and laughably bad. There is no essential difference
>between *Seven* and *Night of the Lepus* -- both are incredibly
>outlandish concepts adjusted to different "planes" of versimilitude.
But that's not what made Seven great. Seven was a commedable movie because
of its premice, direction, and throw back to earlier cop movies from the
70s like The French Connection. As for "grim and gritty" watch Repulsion
(very grim and very gritty) or The Changeling. Two great "grim and gritty"
horror movies.
[snip]
>
>> i have to disagree with you on the "slumming,"
>> i think frighteners was way better than either
>>addam's family movie. imho
>
>It's an example of the difference between us. See, *The Addams
>Family* is, to me, just as 'serious' as *The Frighteners* in that both
>are patently ridiculous conceptually -- both deal with things that
>could NEVER POSSIBLY HAPPEN.
But you can't look at movies within our universe. The Frighteners happens
in its own universe as does the Adams Family, and Scarface, and Falling
Down, or whatever.
>And, as a means of comparison about the
>nasty humor of *The Frighteners* v. *The Addams Family*, look at how
>the characters treat eachother. In *The Addams Family*, the gang
>stabs and electrocutes eachother -- but everyone survives and there
>are big hugs afterward -- and very little anger gets tossed around.
>In *The Frighteners*, you've got characters who can't -stand-
>eachother all in the same room. So, I ask myself which I'd rather
>spend time watching -- a comic-book-universe family that loves itself,
>or a group of caustic and mean-spirited spectres who hate eachother?
>I'll opt for the fun-loving atmosphere of the *Addams Family* movies
>over *The Frighteners* any day, because I'd rather see joy than anger
>and frustration in my fictional charactes.
This is boiling down to personnal tastes. I like The Frighteners, but I
don't find it mean spirited at all. I find the humour very playful and
Three Stooges-esque, and saying the characters hated eachother doesn't
really make sense. If they truly hated each other, then they why do they
stay together. Its all in good fun.
>
>>i agree, this movie is a combo of both horror/comedy,
>
>Except that it:
>1) wasn't scary
There aren't that many scary movies anyway.
>2) wasn't funny
Nope, it was hilarious.
>3) -was- bloody and gory and grotesque
From from bloody and gory and grotesque.
>4) -was- caustic and mean-spirited
Perhaps, but I don't think you've seen enough of these mean-spirited
nihilistic movies. Maybe you should see Polanski's Macbeth for a
mean-spirited movie.
>
>If you find blood/gore and caustic/mean to be horror/comedy, then I
>can understand why you'd like *The Frighteners*.
But it wasn't bloody and it wasn't that gory. Perhaps you're confusing it
with Jackson's other work.
[snip]
>> as i recall, ghostbusters had as many special effects,
>
>Not as many, no -- but enough. And -- another point here: the
>special effects in *Ghostbusters* were -not- part-and-parcel to the
>story. The story came from the actors and their performances and
>dialogue -- the ghosts could have looked like practically anything and
>the humor would've still been there. Take the ghosts out of
>*Ghostbusters* and you've still got a story because it's about
>-characters-. Take the ghosts out of *The Frighteners* and you have a
>miserable Michael J. Fox character, a bizarre cult-specialist and a
>dullard doctor.
But the ghosts in Ghostbusters weren't characters with personalities. The
ghosts in The Frighteners were integral to the story and were characters
all their won. The Frighteners is about characters as much, but more so,
its about a great director making a completely visceral free for all which
seems out of control at points, but is rather perfectly timed, set up, and
produced.
[snip]
>RE: The Characterrs Can't Stand Eachother
>>now first you complain about the movie "not" being ghostbusters, now you
>>complain because they act "like" the ghostbusters.
>
>You need to learn a little about dialogue, I think. There's a
>difference between the "good-natured ribbing" in *Ghostbusters*, which
>is quiet and reserved most of the time between the 'Busters themselves
>(the caustic wit is directed at ghosts and dullards) and the
>shouting-matches that took the place of humor in *The Frighteners*.
I've told off friends and enemies alike, but sometime its just stuff
between friends which is what The Frighteners was.
>To put it another way, consider how virtually every 'joke' that was a
>little mean-spirited between the 'Busters was spoken rather quietly,
>and deadpan. With *The Frighteners*, we've got BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD
>humor -- vomit, bile, spillage, blood, scars, wounds, tattoos . . .
>and the dialogue-based humor is composed of yelling mixed with
>gun-fire and anger, abuse and mistreatment.
I wouldn't describe it as Beavis and Butthead at all. They weren't staring
at donkeys shitting or laughing when someone said cock-pit. Its a
completely different type of humour which is much more akin to the Three
Stooges and Jackson's previous work. Its nothing like Beavis and Butthead.
>
>> when fox's character finally "lands" upstairs, his
>>buddies are the first to greet him. i figure all the griping,
>>complaining, shouting, etc. was just some-o-that tough love thing.
>
>You could've fooled me -- there was no love there. The closest there
>was to comeraderie was when the Hanging Judge has a little (and too
>brief) talk with Michael J. Fox's "paranormal eliminator" about how
>death is no way "to make a living." More scenes like that, where the
>ghosts were genuinely interested in helping Michael J. Fox because of
>their "enlightened state" as spirits -- would've been funnier. The
>idea of Fox and the ghosts working together to hustle customers would
>have been funnier -- but it took a back-seat to the Reaper -- and the
>one time the crew works together on a hustle that is actually visible
>on-camera Fox isn't even really there until very late-on in the scene!
>In another scene, a hustle occurs without Fox's help, and he's not
>there at all (the babies floating -- a terrible optical effect, btw).
But if they focused mainly on the ghosts helping Fox and the con artist
stuff you wouldn't have that complex serial killer plot, which was
excellent. That could've been a whole movie on its own, but you have to
look at things from this angle. Jackson was trying to make a successful
movie so that he could become somewhat of a known quantity in Hollowood.
He had to make something that would make audiences enjoy themselves, yet
retain its originality. Most of the scenes you attack above were all
excellent scenes, and the Reaper was absolutely incredible looking.
>
>>although i too feel they could've included a basis for their
>>relationship, it didn't ruin the movie for me.
>
>It ruined it for me, because you can't have tough love in a movie
>without a reason for that love to be there. Who were these people
>before they died? Why did they befriend Fox, and why had they avoided
>going into the light so often (they -were not- one-year veterans, most
>obviously). They had to be willing to give up a chance to go to
>Heaven to stay with Fox -- they should have been blood-loyal to
>eachother rather than shooting bug-spray in eachother's faces.
Here you raise a really intersting point, but for a movie to be truly
successful with most moviegoers it can't be too long, and what you're
asking for is an epic. I wouldn't have any problem with that, but could
you possibly fit all that into the movie and still keep it under two
hours. Probably not.
The Frighteners was a well written, incredibly crafted horror movie. The
effects only add to that. The fact that they're among the best ever only
add to the movie. I guess its a love/hate thing. I can't get enough of the
Frighteners and Jackson's other work, and I thought Michael J. Fox gave a
truly great performance. Very out of character for him. He's a great
actor, which not to many people acknowledge. Anyway, best film of 1996,
and Jackson's best work to date. Let's see what The Lord of the Rings will
hopefully bring, though.
Dave
Cliff Evans
elgee wrote:
> combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
> distracting with his usual over the top perfomance, and i feel the
> female doctor's role could have been written better.
I said Bruce Campbell... I *meant* Jeffery Combs. <wince>
--
Cliff Evans
<boz...@earthlink.net>
--------------------------------------------------------------
* We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.
--------------------------------------------------------------
David Fresko
rivers@mdnite::riv...@nospamevms.enet.dec.com (Kim Rivers) wrote:
>
>Maybe it was Fox. Everything I've seen him in suggests that his screen persona
>is limited to one type of character, the "Michael J. Fox" character. Or, if
>you prefer, Alex P. Keaton. His delivery, his body language, everything.
>It's very hard to accept him in a non-comedic roll. It doesn't work (see also
>"Casualties of War").
I don't know. I thought that Fox was one of the best things in the movie.
He is a great, extremely underrated actor. His problem is that people have
the MJF personna stuck in their minds from Back to the Future and Family
Ties, but he can do a helluva lot more than that. Its just that when he
does, people don't like. He was really great in The Frighteners, as well
as Casualies of War.
Dave
dbarkes
This is all I can say in defense of "The Frighteners."
I saw it last summer on a Sunday night, in a small theater with a
handful of people. There were a couple of teenage guys sitting near the
front, who were being quite loud the first 10 min. or so of the movie.
As it rolled on, though, everyone got quiet.
Near the movie's end, everyone in the theater was on the edge of their
seats, literally. Me included. The only other movies I had been to that
summer were ID4 and Eraser, and they hardly had me this tense.
I knew this movie was gripping the crowd in the scene where Frank
pursues the Reaper, now unmasked as Johnny, into the tomb. Frank has the
scythe, and is about to take out Johnny. He holds the scythe high...and
brings it down...
...and can't hit! He tries again, but Lucy has already brought him back.
During that sequence, there were actually a chorus of "NO!"s that rang
out in the audience, from me included. I can't remember the last time a
movie made me feel that way.
I think Frank and Lucy were sympathetic characters. I cared for them.
Because of that, the end sequence in the hospital was pretty tense.
Jeffrey Combs *was* weird and unpleasant. He *was* supposed to be
unsympathetic. I was more than happy to see the guy get his just
desserts. I also think his character was funny in certain ways. I loved
the way he screamed whenever Lucy would start to verbally abuse him.
Well, anyway, "The Frighteners" is one of my favorite movies, but that's
probably because I'm twisted and like that kind of thing :)
Doug
Impulse
On Sun, 17 Aug 1997 11:25:18 -0400, Erkki D <eda...@iwn.fi> wrote:
RE: *The Frighteners* is Filled with Blood and Gore
>Exaggerations.
I guess it depends on what you call blood and gore. Jaws falling off
people's heads, the scene between the Hanging Judge and the mummy, the
bile that oozed from all just-dead ghosts (their slime), the
gunning-down scene in the hospital, the
"kill-myself-to-stop-the-Reaper" scene, the bug-spray-in-the-face
scene, the . . . need I go on? I'm not saying, by the way, despite
your claim that I am a proponent of "family values" that there's no
place for "gory" films: wasn't *Scream* gory -- and didn't I give it
a positive review? In fact, *Scream* makes an excellent opportunity
to point out the inconsistencies of your arguments against my claims
about *The Frighteners*.
RE: *The Frighteners* is Not Funny
> But of course, if _you_ don't find the humour in
>"The Frighteners" "particularly funny", who cares?
Me.
> It's your loss.
Yep. $3.50
>You seem to be anyway a person who likes too much to put films
>strictly into genres and if a film 'fails' to do so, you think
>you have a good reason to put it off.
Not at all. A film can blend genres perfectly. *Scream* blends
horror and comedy in virtually every scene. However, it has the class
and wit that a loud and obnoxious mess like *The Frighteners* lacked.
Better yet, Jackson's *Heavenly Creatures* mixed laughter with gore,
and did so beautifully -- with very smooth transitions and a very low
dependence on visual effects. Many of the most comedic scenes in
*Heaveny Creatures* turn 'dark' after a bit.
RE: I hate *Star Wars* with a deep passion.
>Here you go again. What is the exact point then when a film loses
>its "artistic intergrity", and it becomes merely a mess of loosely
>intertwined 'bad' subplots? Where do you draw the line?
I draw the line by not going, and by writing negative reviews, and by
telling the people I know exactly what's in the movie. This is one
area where I have the advantage in this discussion, because I'm simply
talking about things that were -in- *The Frighteners*. Of course,
your likely response if any would be that I am merely spouting "family
values" rhetoric, which is wholly untrue (popping a copy of *Heavenly
Creatures* into my VCR).
>And I've heard that several people who'd seen the 'reaper' poster
>before the release of "The Frighteners" got really interested
>because of it and were looking forward to seeing it.
Are these the same people who got really excited about *Spawn*?
Because the posters are similar enough to choke a goat -- a shadowy,
silhouetted figure against an obscuring background (black-on-black
versus white-on-white) with minimal copy.
>It was an inspired poster indeed, a true interest raiser.
It actually almost made me not go. What changed my mind was when I
heard it was a Peter Jackson film. I didn't even bother looking at
who was involved because seeing "Dead Yet?" just made me think of
*Dead Again* and its silverated grey poster, and the 'stretchy
banshee' made me think of every *Nightmare on Elm Street* movie where
ghosts stretch out of the walls (read: dental rubber -- that's how
they do it, folks).
>But maybe the people who didn't go to see it were those who need to
>know almost the whole plot beforehand. (And it often even _is_
>predictable in the recent Hollywood productions...)
I knew practically the entire plot of *The Frighteners* going in --
this paranormal eliminator guy is a fraud who works with ghosts to
hustle money, but then a really dangerous ghost shows up and threatens
the town with extinction, so it's up to the mortal and the ghostly
pals only he can see to thwart the Reaper.
Boy, was I wrong. What I got instead was a turpentine-laced, loud,
dull, flat, lifeless, uninspired shouting match followed by extreme
and unnecessary scenes of throat-slitting, dismemberment (the Reaper
and his victims -- I kinda think pulling out even a ghostly heart is
dismemberment).
RE: Concepts of the Supernatural are Inherently Silly
>If you indeed can't even stand 'supernatural concepts',
Didn't say that. I said they're inherently silly, because there's no
such thing, any more than there's such a thing as a thousand aliens
launching attacks on Earth (a favorite of mine, *Independence Day*) or
a mummy who comes back to life to look like Jaye Davidson (*Stargate*)
or a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold being chosen as the escort to a
billionaire (*Pretty Woman*, which I can't stand). All are equally as
ridiculous. But some are good and some aren't.
> then why did you even bother to see it in the first place then,
Out of the dim hope that I could salvage something out of that summer.
I was wrong.
> as you _surely_ knew that aspect of the film before viewing it...
You've made a non-sequiter in your logic. Just because the concept is
inherently silly doesn't mean I don't want to go see it. Rather, it
means I think the concept should be true to its nature -- if it's
silly, then open the bag and go for it. Jackson, instead, tried to
make up "rules" for ghosts and contrivances to move his plot along and
get as much bile as possible out of the story (the ectoplasm -- was it
really necessary that all the ghosts be constantly bleeding snot out
of their noses and eyes? No, but Jackson does it anyway).
>You seem to have an inherent need to keep you feet on the ground
Self-interest, and they're already there.
>and let yourself enjoy only films that are 'true to life' and
>'possible' to happen in real life too.
BZZT. Why is LOST IN SPACE my favorite television show of all time?
Why do I like *Stargate*? Why do I watch BABYLON 5. In all those
examples, it's because I came for the characters and got characters I
could like -- characters I could identify as human -- who weren't
yelling-machines of blind hatred against the world.
>And such a guy comes and tells how others should react to a film
>like "The Frighteners"...
Nope. I'm just telling you why it was a bad movie. How you react is
your own business.
>What is the correct genre name for a film of "grim and gritty"
>nature then?
Cinema Verite.
>Unfortunately, not even in real life all the people are joyful
>and friendly, as even you may have seen by now.
>But if you enjoy your escapist sessions with love'n'passion,
>that's fine...
It's not escapism. I'm just asking who I'd rather spend time with. I
disliked the Hannibal Lektor character in *Silence of the Lambs*
because of the way the film glorified his psychoses, but I enjoyed
Clarisse's fight to uncover the mystery and was willing to forgive the
film's transformation of Lektor into some kind of Christ-figure who
knows-all because he was portrayed as having a deeper personality than
one initially believes, in his last few scenes with Clarisse -- there
is redemption of a sort there, even if Lektor does not redeem himself
in the end.
>A hell ;^) of a lot people have claimed otherwise...
Some people are scared by different things.
>And for a good reason. It isn't scary the whole film through,
>but that's not the point.
No, it's not.
>You claim so, but on the other hand, a friend of 'pure
>and clean, and not mean' humour would be expected to say
>something like that.
You make a mistake again. I love *Evil Dead II* and *Army of
Darkness*. Why? Because Ash is a heroic character, despite all the
despicable things he does. That's the inherent silliness of the film
I talk about above -- Ash is an Everyman dealing with ghosts the only
way he really understands -- with his technology and on his terms.
And it's funny, because his "gun and thunder" attitude actually works.
>Blood? Gore? Where?
Uh -- dripping out of every orifice of every ghost.
>Well, it _was_ a serial killer - death film, even you should
>have realized that by the end of the film...
See my comments about *Silence of the Lambs*.
>The "blood/gore" aspect was (very) minimal,
But visible in every scene . . .
RE: *Ghostbusters* good, *Frighteners* bad . . .
>Ehum, maybe _partly_ because "Ghostbusters" didn't in fact even
>have true horror elements in it. It was indeed more of a nice whole
>family picnic film with those nice comedians ('familiar from TV!')
>and a catchy song that everyone can hum aloud while chewing popcorn
>and being 'entertained'. But no _horror_ to speak of. That made the
>marketing so easy...
Yet again, you let your feelings that I am advocating the "religious
right" Michael Medved reviewer-technique get in the way of what I
actually said. *Ghostbusters* was, in fact, considered rather a
poor-taste comedy when it came out, with lines like "So? She's a
dog.", "He slimed me," "Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?" A
lot of fuss was made over the idea that it was a family film but also
had 'blue' jokes in it. This was back in the 80s, too, remember. But
it -worked- because those jokes were not the focal point of the film.
The focal point of the film was that it was about -characters-, not
effects nor how much gore/glop you can fill every scene with. It
wasn't about being bigger, faster, louder or having more effects than
other pictures. It -wasn't- priding itself on being a
"roller-coaster" ride (all shout and no substance) which seems to be
the rallying cry of most cinema today (and which I believed some
people called *The Frighteners* with pride).
>"Ghostbusters" was far from having the extremes of _scary_ horror
>combined with a humorous undertone and multiple different character
>types and sub-plots over a long timespan.
Sounds like *Scream*, which I mentioned above as a favorite. Now, if
I'm the 'proponent' of family values/cheesy "As Seen on TV!" pictures
as you say, why do I like *Scream* or *Evil Dead II*? Or even -- to a
much lesser degree -- Jackson's *Dead Alive*, which while horribly
gory was also very inventive, creative and original about how it did
its gruesome effects? Or, why do I like the *Hellraiser* series
(except 3 and 4) and *A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child*,
or *Lord of Illusion* or *Nightbreed* or the original *Halloween* or
-- . . . the list goes on and on, and refutes your claim
wholeheartedly and with pride.
>Yes, hopefully you could then suck your thumb contently, knowing
>that you're now at least free from having to see meanness ("no,
>the world isn't mean - it _can't_ be...") or (nonexistent)
>"blood/gore" of "The Frighteners".
Ah -- I see you believe we live in a malevolent universe of
self-hatred and self-loathing. I understand now.
RE: Without ghosts, *Ghostbusters* is still a movie . . .
>Why should one take them out, if they are "-characters-" just
>like the living persons?
Well, they weren't just like the living people. They spend most of
their time moaning, complaining, getting it on with mummies, losing
their jaws, bleeding purple slime everywhere, wreaking havok, yelling,
screaming, fighting, arguing, wrestling, etc.
RE: Shouting Match Horror
>Oh, isn't that just too bad!
>Except from being an oversimplified description, the above shows
>that Mr. Straight like yourself is very keen on himself defining
>what is 'desirable' humour and what is 'crap'.
For me? Yeah, I'm very keen on knowing what I think is cr** and what
is desirable humor. Saves me my money when I hear that another film
like *The Frighteners* comes along. I don't pretend to be the arbiter
of what other people should or shouldn't see, and I'm not a censor.
Why is it censorship to stand up and say "At long last, Hollywood,
have you no quality?"
> And of course as both "The Frighteners" and "B&B" are 'non-confirmative' in
>terms of your definition of 'good humour', they should be
>dismissed and totally ignored by all...
I happened to like *Beavis & Butt-Head Do America*. It was rather
conformative -- there's nothing "renegade animation" about it despite
Siskel and Ebert's review (IMO), but it's still fun.
RE: Love and Kindness?
>Love and kindness. If that's your (over&over repeated) vision of
>a 'horror film with comedial elements', then I can't help it.
You -can- help the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of what I
am saying. I'm saying that I'd rather spend 2 hours with characters
whose company I'd care to share in an intellectual sense (and hey,
that even obviously from the above includes *Beavis & Butthead* who
get into arguments and beat the cr** out of eachother). The
difference is that, in the case of B&B, they're too idiotic to really
come up with hateful barbs -- they're too lazy to even -be- hateful.
But do I want to share my time with hateful characters? No -- no more
than I'd want to go and listen to Michael Medved give a lecture --
it's like nails on a chalkboard. And it gives me a headache (as *The
Frighteners* diid).
>But of course you are always in good terms with your friends,
>with no horse-play or rough jokes.
Actually, you're right. I respect people I know, and I value them
enough that I don't engage in rough, crude humor directed toward them
or smack them upside the head for a good "laugh." I guess things work
differently among your peers?
>Maybe you with your 'only-one-genre-per-film' preferences find
>it unacceptable,
What limitation am I placing on *Heavenly Creatures*, pray tell?
> but that would have only resulted in another
>(pardon me) overly good-natured film like "Ghostbusters", but
>it indeed took the turn to a _horror_ film in that point...
So it's possible to have too much good nature? Hmmmmm . . .
>And more of love... I'm sorry if that was another point that
>made you lose your analyst mind, but if the supernatural is
>anyway a silly concept for you, why'd you care about the
>basis of the relationship between the living and the dead...
Got it in one, grizzly. That's the first bit of reasonable logic
you've analyzed out of the entire letter I wrote so far. Good job.
If only this trend continued.
>Well, _maybe_ he is an indication of the fact that Bannister is
>indeed, very positively, suspected of the murders, sent in from
>the Bureau to check the scene.
And -maybe- it's yet another
thrown-in-I-don't-know-where-this-is-going-or-what-I'm-doing-here
subplot to prop up the tired
film? Just maybe.
> But of course you had so much
>hurry to fast-forward half the film that you didn't realize
>even that...
I saw it in the theatre.
>You really seem to have a problem with characters that are beyond
>your grasp as over-the-top, and not nice, amiable, caring and
>friends forever...
*Heaveny Creatures*, *The Reflecting Skin*, *The Night of the Hunter*.
Need I go on?
Impulse
On 17 Aug 1997 03:43:08 GMT, David Fresko <D.Fr...@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:
>I don't agree. I think the poster was enough to peak
pique (no, this isn't a spelling and grammar flame, relax) -- it's
just a word a lot of people misspell and use a lot to talk about films
in general.
>peoples interests, but it was the comedy and romance angles of the advertising which killed
>movie.
You're absolutely right -- the audience went in there looking for a
straight-horror picture or a straight-comedy picture, got neither and
came out disappointed. The romance angle just added confusion, as did
the Combs character and the whole Reaper/CITIZEN X thing.
>Talking to some people they told me that they didn't know what the
>movie was about or what it was like, and that's why they didn't see it.
>Most people who did see it, though, liked it. I agree, it should've been
>marketted better, but the poster is very cool none the less. In Europe it
>was advertised much better with actual stills from the movie.
I'd like to see those alternative posters.
RE: I don't like insults or 'gore-humor'
>Then you must not like Evil Dead 2,
Love it.
> Army of Darkness,
Love it just a little less than *Evil Dead 2*.
> The Three Stooges,
They're okay.
>Dead Alive,
It gave me a satomach-ache because I'd just eaten a roast-beef
submarine sandwich before seeing it. At least, it wasn't custard. It
got a little too carried away at times with "how gross can we be"
while not connecting to the plot, but at least it was humorous and
played the "Undead From the Grave/Bite Infection" concept of all the
"Dead" movies for a good run of laughs.
> Bad Taste,
Yuck.
> or any of Roman Polanski's movies.
Yuck II.
>The poster definitely peaked my interest. "Dead Yet?" was a great tag line
It wasn't the worst tag I've ever seen.
RE: There is no real conceptual difference between the outrageousness
and silliness of *Seven* and *Night of the Lepus*.
>But that's not what made Seven great. Seven was a commedable movie because
>of its premice, direction, and throw back to earlier cop movies from the
>70s like The French Connection.
Yes -- it was a highly-stylistic homage. The only thing I really
enjoyed about it was Morgan Freeman's performance -- and perhaps on a
secondary note the strong cinematography and crisp directing. The
lingering death-scenes were just pointless exercises in shlock.
> As for "grim and gritty" watch Repulsion
>(very grim and very gritty) or The Changeling. Two great "grim and gritty"
>horror movies.
Haven't seen them -- will check them out.
>But you can't look at movies within our universe. The Frighteners happens
>in its own universe as does the Adams Family, and Scarface, and Falling
>Down, or whatever.
True. The point I was getting at was that since cinema is mostly
silly to begin with, trying to make it serious or "realistic" is
fighting a losing battle.
<snipping points I have no argument with>
RE: Character Interaction
>I wouldn't describe it as Beavis and Butthead at all. They weren't staring
>at donkeys shitting or laughing when someone said cock-pit. Its a
>completely different type of humour which is much more akin to the Three
>Stooges and Jackson's previous work. Its nothing like Beavis and Butthead.
No, but look at the scene where Barrister comes home and meets the
ghosts in his not-built house. I don't have the exact script with me,
but basically the tone goes like this:
"Ah, man, I hate you!"
*fssst* (bugspray in the face) "I hate you, too!"
"I don't even know why I spend time with you!"
"Neither do I!"
"Leave me alone!"
"Same to you!"
"So there!"
"Nyah!"
If that's friendship, no thanks.
<snip of you asking me how they could've fit it all into two hours
while explaining the relationship of the ghosts to Fox>
could've been done effectively if you'd done the following:
1) eliminate the wife-murder-gives-me-powers subplot
2) eliminate the overlong chase in the abandoned hospital to find the
ashes of the Reaper
3) Eliminate the arrest of Barrister and the Combs character
4) Eliminate the mock-hatred of the ghosts.
What you'd get then is a lean, crisp movie about a guy wqho can see
ghosts -- you open to a scene where Fox meets the jogging-ghost,
ex-wife to a beautiful woman. Barrister explains at the beginning
what's going on to this ghost, and brings him home to meet his buds,
who help him hustle the living. They hang out with him, even though
he's not too happy, because they want to make a difference in the
liife of a mortal because they were bast***s in real life. The new
ghost likes the idea, and joins in. Show a scene of the hustle, but
then introduce a murder by the Reaper. Fox lost his own wife in a
similar type of murder a long time ago, and doesn't want to get
involved. But when the ex-wife of one of the ghosts is threatened, he
and his pals can't keep out of it, and decide to bring down the whole
graveyard on the head of this ghost who's killing the living. Yes,
even the general with his machine-guns at the graveyard. The Reaper
keeps escaping (in clever ways) and they track it down to an abandoned
hospital, where they find out from one of the ghost's research that a
number of murders took place. After a battle in which half the
ghostly-allies sacrifice their non-lives and go into the light, they
manage to get the Reaper into the tunnel, too, where he's sucked into
Hades -- and all the good ghosts go off to their Earthly reward,
lreaving Fox and his love-interest. Not too hard, is it? And
essentially the same picture, minus the gore and unnecessary scenes of
caustic shouting.
Thomas Andrews
In article <5t723l$a...@mtinsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
I disagree.
Acting is, at least in part, about transformation. I think a big part
of Fox's problem as an actor is the limit of his vocal range. But
he also has a fairly limited body language. He does have good timing,
which is great for comedy, and particularly for the sorts of comedy
that are on television (more verbal than slapstick...)
[ When I say his voice is limited, I do not mean that he needs to
do Streep-like accents. It's just that his voice doesn't carry
emotions well - his shouts of anger and shouts of joy and shouts
of despair all sound the same. ]
--
Thomas Andrews tho...@best.com http://www.best.com/~thomaso/
"Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always
optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest
idea what the heck is really going on." - Mike Royko
David Fresko
imp...@teleport.com (Impulse) wrote:
>On 17 Aug 1997 03:43:08 GMT, David Fresko <D.Fr...@worldnet.att.net>
>wrote:
>>peoples interests, but it was the comedy and romance angles of the advertising which killed
>>movie.
>
>You're absolutely right -- the audience went in there looking for a
>straight-horror picture or a straight-comedy picture, got neither and
>came out disappointed. The romance angle just added confusion, as did
>the Combs character and the whole Reaper/CITIZEN X thing.
If you bothered to pay attention then it didn't add confusion (not saying
you, per se, didn't, but people in general). It gave the story dimension,
originality or plot structure, and depth. Then again, why do things have
to be straight comedy or straight horror, why not a combination. Evil Dead
2 did wonderfully, as did Jackson's other films.
>
>>Talking to some people they told me that they didn't know what the
>>movie was about or what it was like, and that's why they didn't see it.
>>Most people who did see it, though, liked it. I agree, it should've been
>>marketted better, but the poster is very cool none the less. In Europe it
>>was advertised much better with actual stills from the movie.
>
>I'd like to see those alternative posters.
Not usenet posters, I'm talking real face to face discussions.
>
>RE: I don't like insults or 'gore-humor'
>>Then you must not like Evil Dead 2,
>
>Love it.
Then why complain about gore, or lack there of in The Frighteners.
>
>> Army of Darkness,
>
>Love it just a little less than *Evil Dead 2*.
Hey, you're okay.
>
>> The Three Stooges,
>
>They're okay.
Blasphemer!
>
>>Dead Alive,
>
>It gave me a satomach-ache because I'd just eaten a roast-beef
>submarine sandwich before seeing it. At least, it wasn't custard. It
>got a little too carried away at times with "how gross can we be"
>while not connecting to the plot, but at least it was humorous and
>played the "Undead From the Grave/Bite Infection" concept of all the
>"Dead" movies for a good run of laughs.
Its not that gross if you look at it as a comedy. When I first saw it, I
said to myself "This is gorriest movie ever made?". Its the comedy which
makes it great, and the comedy is just as "mean-spirited" as in The
Frighteners. Dead Alive is just as much a revenge flick as it is a gory
zombie movie.
>
>> Bad Taste,
>
>Yuck.
A work of pure genious, with hard working talent on a shoe-string budget
is more approriate.
>
>> or any of Roman Polanski's movies.
>
>Yuck II.
Woah, now you're really making me sick. At you least you like The Evil
Deads, though.
[gone]
>
>RE: There is no real conceptual difference between the outrageousness
>and silliness of *Seven* and *Night of the Lepus*.
>
>>But that's not what made Seven great. Seven was a commedable movie because
>>of its premice, direction, and throw back to earlier cop movies from the
>>70s like The French Connection.
>
>Yes -- it was a highly-stylistic homage. The only thing I really
>enjoyed about it was Morgan Freeman's performance -- and perhaps on a
>secondary note the strong cinematography and crisp directing. The
>lingering death-scenes were just pointless exercises in shlock.
Shlock-HA!. They were excellent because, they show off the amazing sets as
well as the great Rick Baker work. You say he's redundant, but his work in
Seven was as far cry from The Frighteners to me.
>
>> As for "grim and gritty" watch Repulsion
>>(very grim and very gritty) or The Changeling. Two great "grim and gritty"
>>horror movies.
>
>Haven't seen them -- will check them out.
You might not like Repulsion because its directed by, *gasp*, Roman
Polanski.
[snipped]
>RE: Character Interaction
>No, but look at the scene where Barrister comes home and meets the
>ghosts in his not-built house. I don't have the exact script with me,
>but basically the tone goes like this:
>
>"Ah, man, I hate you!"
>*fssst* (bugspray in the face) "I hate you, too!"
>"I don't even know why I spend time with you!"
>"Neither do I!"
>"Leave me alone!"
>"Same to you!"
>"So there!"
>"Nyah!"
>
>If that's friendship, no thanks.
May not be friendly, but there must be a reason that they remain
together. A bit like brotherly love.
>
><snip of you asking me how they could've fit it all into two hours
>while explaining the relationship of the ghosts to Fox>
>
> could've been done effectively if you'd done the following:
>
>1) eliminate the wife-murder-gives-me-powers subplot
Then how did he get the powers?
>2) eliminate the overlong chase in the abandoned hospital to find the
>ashes of the Reaper
Why? That was a really cool part of the movie.
>3) Eliminate the arrest of Barrister and the Combs character
What? No Combs!
>4) Eliminate the mock-hatred of the ghosts.
No way. The ghosts were some of the most memorable characters I've seen in
the last few years.
[snipped good plot summary]
You summary is good, and while different would still make a good movie.
Better than what we already have, perhaps, perhaps not. But still good.
Dave
Derek Janssen
Adam Cameron wrote:
>
> It never ceases to amaze me that people would prefer to go to some
> paint by numbers film, than something that is a wee bit of a challenge
> to watch.
>
> Oh well.
Don't be so quick to judge:
Try considering those people in the audience who chose to go to a movie
that was "a wee bit of a challenge to watch", and found instead a movie
that was more than a wee bit of a challenge to look at...
Derek Janssen
dja...@ultranet.com
Joseph N. Hall
Thomas Andrews wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> [ When I say his voice is limited, I do not mean that he needs to
Oh, please. "Streep-like accents?" There are so few actors and
actresses that do convincing accents. Bob Hoskins comes first to
my mind. Tracey Ullman would be the obvious female counterpart.
Now *that* would be an interesting duo on film. Imagine
Quentin Tarantino directing Bob Hoskins and Tracey Ullman in
a 1990's Bob Hope Road movie.
-joseph
Cliff Evans
Impulse wrote:
>
> In short, *The Frighteners* failed because there was nothing appealing
> about it except to effects-junkies. There were -no- characters to
> appreciate, because everyone in the film was a dirt-bag of a low-life.
> There were no heroes, no heroism and no hope. It was a
> black-pit-of-Hades of a mess of a film that never should have been
> made, and makes *Dead Alive* look like Tolstoy.
I take you aren't a Peter Jackson fan, then.
Personally, I found enough redeeming qualities to Fox's character to
make me want to see him succeed. I enjoyed watching the annoying husband
get his. I *enjoyed* watching John Astin have sex with a mummy. I
enjoyed the black humor that permeated the film in the same vicious,
slapstick way that it did in "Dead Alive." Seeing Bruce Campbell do his
stock wacko with a worse haircut than usual was a treat, like welcoming
back an old friend.
In short, it was a genre film, and if you clamor for heroes and hope,
you are already in the wrong theater at a Jackson film. I don't think it
was his best...still not topping "Heavenly Creatures", but entertaining
for those of us who don't need gee-whiz triumphs of the human spirit.
And you *really* don't want to see "Meet The Feebles."
David Fresko
Cliff Evans <boz...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>elgee wrote:
>
>> combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
>> distracting with his usual over the top perfomance, and i feel the
>> female doctor's role could have been written better.
>
>I said Bruce Campbell... I *meant* Jeffery Combs. <wince>
Well, I was watching From Beyond yesterday and thought that Coombs looked
a lot like Campbell. Strange.
Dave
Erkki D
Impulse wrote:
>
>On Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:27:09 -0500, elgee <gue...@idt.net> wrote:
>
>>it's well known that like test audiences and test screenings, studios
>>will also put out test posters.
>
>nothing but insuts, put-downs, bodily dismemberment, pain, torture,
>suffering, death and blood. I don't find this particularly funny.
Exaggerations. But of course, if _you_ don't find the humour in
"The Frighteners" "particularly funny", who cares? It's your loss.
You seem to be anyway a person who likes too much to put films
strictly into genres and if a film 'fails' to do so, you think
you have a good reason to put it off.
>I hate all three *Star Wars* movies with a passion that runs deep.
>I've articulated this before. Lucas was just as guilty as the rest of
>Hollywood in creating the "blockbuster" mentality, by doing whatever
>it took to get audiences in the theatre at the sacrificial altar of
>artistic intergrity.
Here you go again. What is the exact point then when a film loses
its "artistic intergrity", and it becomes merely a mess of loosely
intertwined 'bad' subplots? Where do you draw the line?
>> were you not impressed with the poster
>
>It was an uninspired poster -- a stretchy-looking half-seen monster,
>white-on-white. And they were surprised that this interminably bland
>poster didn't advertise the film well? There are so many powerful
>visual moments in *The Frighteners* that could've been chosen.
And I've heard that several people who'd seen the 'reaper' poster
before the release of "The Frighteners" got really interested
because of it and were looking forward to seeing it.
It was an inspired poster indeed, a true interest raiser. Well done
and stylish. It didn't 'blurt' out too much about what the film was
like, what was the story etc., like most posters do.
But maybe the people who didn't go to see it were those who need to
know almost the whole plot beforehand. (And it often even _is_
predictable in the recent Hollywood productions...)
>> or that it was pushing a "grim & gritty horror movie?" that's the type of horror
>>flick i'd like to see.
>
>Ghosts and supernatural concepts are so inherently silly to begin with
>that I can't take them seriously as "grim and gritty."
If you indeed can't even stand 'supernatural concepts', then why
did you even bother to see it in the first place then, as you
_surely_ knew that aspect of the film before viewing it...
Unbelievable...
You seem to have an inherent need to keep you feet on the ground
and let yourself enjoy only films that are 'true to life' and
'possible' to happen in real life too.
And such a guy comes and tells how others should react to a film
like "The Frighteners"...
>To me, there's
>no such thing as a "grim and gritty" horror movie.
What is the correct genre name for a film of "grim and gritty"
nature then?
>eachother all in the same room. So, I ask myself which I'd rather
>spend time watching -- a comic-book-universe family that loves itself,
>or a group of caustic and mean-spirited spectres who hate eachother?
>I'll opt for the fun-loving atmosphere of the *Addams Family* movies
>over *The Frighteners* any day, because I'd rather see joy than anger
>and frustration in my fictional charactes.
Unfortunately, not even in real life all the people are joyful
and friendly, as even you may have seen by now.
But if you enjoy your escapist sessions with love'n'passion,
that's fine...
>>i agree, this movie is a combo of both horror/comedy,
>
>Except that it:
>1) wasn't scary
A hell ;^) of a lot people have claimed otherwise...
And for a good reason. It isn't scary the whole film through,
but that's not the point.
>2) wasn't funny
You claim so, but on the other hand, a friend of 'pure
and clean, and not mean' humour would be expected to say
something like that.
>3) -was- bloody and gory and grotesque
Blood? Gore? Where?
>4) -was- caustic and mean-spirited
Well, it _was_ a serial killer - death film, even you should
have realized that by the end of the film...
>If you find blood/gore and caustic/mean to be horror/comedy, then I
>can understand why you'd like *The Frighteners*.
The "blood/gore" aspect was (very) minimal, and as it _was_
a horror film (which for obvious reasons can't be 'nice',
rather than "caustic/mean"), so your points above don't describe
too much your reasons for actually loathing the film.
>> unlike ghostbusters which had comedy written all over it, and sometimes studios
>>don't know how to market something like this.
>
>On the contrary -- because *Ghostbusters* was internally consistent,
>the advertisers had little-to-no trouble advertising it!
Ehum, maybe _partly_ because "Ghostbusters" didn't in fact even
have true horror elements in it. It was indeed more of a nice whole
family picnic film with those nice comedians ('familiar from TV!')
and a catchy song that everyone can hum aloud while chewing popcorn
and being 'entertained'. But no _horror_ to speak of. That made the
marketing so easy...
"Ghostbusters" was far from having the extremes of _scary_ horror
combined with a humorous undertone and multiple different character
types and sub-plots over a long timespan.
>>if you wanted to see ghostbusters perhaps you should have checked it out
>>on video.
>
>I own a copy, and I did indeed watch it after seeing *The Frighteners*
>to contrast the two films and take the sour taste out of my mouth left
>by this experience.
Yes, hopefully you could then suck your thumb contently, knowing
that you're now at least free from having to see meanness ("no,
the world isn't mean - it _can't_ be...") or (nonexistent)
"blood/gore" of "The Frighteners".
>> as i recall, ghostbusters had as many special effects,
>
>Not as many, no -- but enough. And -- another point here: the
>special effects in *Ghostbusters* were -not- part-and-parcel to the
>story. The story came from the actors and their performances and
>dialogue -- the ghosts could have looked like practically anything and
>the humor would've still been there. Take the ghosts out of
>*Ghostbusters* and you've still got a story because it's about
>-characters-.
And the name "_Ghost_busters" doesn't then imply the presence of
ghosts (=inevitably SFX) in the story?
That's your great logic, I suppose...
>Take the ghosts out of *The Frighteners* and you have a
>miserable Michael J. Fox character, a bizarre cult-specialist and a
>dullard doctor.
Why should one take them out, if they are "-characters-" just
like the living persons? You shouldn't confuse films with ghosts
as characters with defined characteristics and appearance and
films with white-sheet-over head 'dull' ghosts, whose character
or appearance is of no greater concern, because they merely
exist as a (popularly defined) 'concept' of ghost.
>RE: The Characterrs Can't Stand Eachother
>shouting-matches that took the place of humor in *The Frighteners*.
>To put it another way, consider how virtually every 'joke' that was a
>little mean-spirited between the 'Busters was spoken rather quietly,
>and deadpan. With *The Frighteners*, we've got BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD
>humor -- vomit, bile, spillage, blood, scars, wounds, tattoos . . .
>and the dialogue-based humor is composed of yelling mixed with
>gun-fire and anger, abuse and mistreatment.
Oh, isn't that just too bad!
Except from being an oversimplified description, the above shows
that Mr. Straight like yourself is very keen on himself defining
what is 'desirable' humour and what is 'crap'. And of course
as both "The Frighteners" and "B&B" are 'non-confirmative' in
terms of your definition of 'good humour', they should be
dismissed and totally ignored by all...
>> when fox's character finally "lands" upstairs, his
>>buddies are the first to greet him. i figure all the griping,
>>complaining, shouting, etc. was just some-o-that tough love thing.
>
>You could've fooled me -- there was no love there. The closest there
>was to comeraderie was when the Hanging Judge has a little (and too
>brief) talk with Michael J. Fox's "paranormal eliminator" about how
>death is no way "to make a living." More scenes like that, where the
>ghosts were genuinely interested in helping Michael J. Fox because of
>their "enlightened state" as spirits -- would've been funnier.
Love and kindness. If that's your (over&over repeated) vision of
a 'horror film with comedial elements', then I can't help it.
But of course you are always in good terms with your friends,
with no horse-play or rough jokes.
>The
>idea of Fox and the ghosts working together to hustle customers would
>have been funnier -- but it took a back-seat to the Reaper --
Maybe you with your 'only-one-genre-per-film' preferences find
it unacceptable, but that would have only resulted in another
(pardon me) overly good-natured film like "Ghostbusters", but
it indeed took the turn to a _horror_ film in that point...
>>although i too feel they could've included a basis for their
>>relationship, it didn't ruin the movie for me.
>
>It ruined it for me, because you can't have tough love in a movie
>without a reason for that love to be there.
And more of love... I'm sorry if that was another point that
made you lose your analyst mind, but if the supernatural is
anyway a silly concept for you, why'd you care about the
basis of the relationship between the living and the dead...
>>combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
>>distracting with his usual over the top perfomance,
>
>-which added -nothing- to the movie, IMO -- his character was just
>oine more thrown-in piece of a messy jigsaw puzzle of a film, with no
>real basis for being there. What does he add to the story? What is
>his purpose to the plot? What 'vehicle' does he carry for the
>storyline, besides the annoying murder-subplot about Fox's wife which
>gets the hero incarcerated for far too long in a 2-hour movie?
Well, _maybe_ he is an indication of the fact that Bannister is
indeed, very positively, suspected of the murders, sent in from
the Bureau to check the scene. But of course you had so much
hurry to fast-forward half the film that you didn't realize
even that...
You really seem to have a problem with characters that are beyond
your grasp as over-the-top, and not nice, amiable, caring and
friends forever...
>> and i feel the female doctor's role could have been written better.
>
>Or out.
Well, she does save Bannister and help her combat the reaper.
She moreover gave him a further reason to try to defeat the
killer, to save his beloved one.
If you are so into love and care, what did annoy you so much
about this (the only?) show of true love?
>> even though she wasin an unhappy marriage i felt she showed more compassion for fox's
>>character than her just dead old man.
>
>Of course, one could argue that it's a little cuel on Fox's part to
>put moves on the wife of a just-dead ghost sitting next to him. I
>found that scene to be in horribly poor taste and made any heroism
>moot in the character that was Fox.
Oh, I see now. Happily married ever after, good old American
family values are your turn on. it's so sad that a man flirts
with the wife of a _dead_ man -- that of course makes the hero
a less enjoyable person...
ED
- - - - - - -
"This theory goes as follows and begins now: 'All brontosauruses
are thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle, and then
again thin at the far end.'"
Monty Python: "Miss Anne Elk's theory"
Franknseus
>I knew this movie was gripping the crowd in the scene where Frank
>pursues the Reaper, now unmasked as Johnny, into the tomb. Frank has the
>scythe, and is about to take out Johnny. He holds the scythe high...and
>brings it down...
>
>...and can't hit! He tries again, but Lucy has already brought him back.
>
>During that sequence, there were actually a chorus of "NO!"s that rang
>out in the audience, from me included. I can't remember the last time a
>movie made me feel that way.
Absolutely! That whole out-of-body chase sequence is thrilling, and
unlike anything I can ever remember seeing in a movie. Not many directors
besides Peter Jackson could show me Michael J. Fox's ghost shooting at
another ghost with two machine guns and make me take it completely
seriously.
What's more, many films would have had this as the climax. Indeed,
CASPER did have the living-becomes-a-ghost-to-handle-the-bad-guys as the
climax. But in THE FRIGHTENERS, it's only the beginning of a huge twist in
the direction of the movie. I never knew where this movie was going, and
that's one reason why it's such a great thrill. I was very pleased that
some of the trailers had been really misleading, and that nothing from the
later portions of the film was ever shown in any trailers or
advertisements, at least that I saw. Unlike some movie-goers, I want to be
surprised.
Adam Cameron
>>> were you not impressed with the poster
>>
>>It was an uninspired poster -- a stretchy-looking half-seen monster,
>>white-on-white. And they were surprised that this interminably bland
>>poster didn't advertise the film well? There are so many powerful
>>visual moments in *The Frighteners* that could've been chosen.
>
>The poster definitely peaked my interest. "Dead Yet?" was a great tag line
>for the movie, and I still think that the monster pressing through the
>poster looked great. The video looked great with its motion cover too.
In New Zealand, "the white sheet" section of the advertising poster
was a laser hologram, which looked rather excellent. I think it
changed from a fairly normal looking face to a screaming banshee sort
of thing, as you walked past it (unless you go the other direction, I
guess!). Pity you missed out on that one. I too thought the catch
line "Dead Yet?" was interesting. The combination of the two piqued
my interest sufficiently in themselves for me to go to the movie.
The way I look at it, all the facts that people have described as
being negative:
1) lack of genre;
2) odd casting decisions;
3) unsympathetic characters;
4) general quirkiness of the film
all add to the film. When you add in the excellent (and in
some-places pioneering, I understand) FX, plus - for me - the NZ
locations, it all adds up to a pretty good film.
Joseph N. Hall
Greywizard wrote:
> (3) Poor advertising campaign. Though to be fair, it was hard to
> classify: it was straight horror, a horror/comedy, and a comedy all
> mixed together.
The only horror-comedy that really stands a chance of being well
advertised is An American Werewolf in Paris, since most people
are familiar with the London "original" and its weird mix of scares,
gore and tragicomedy. In general, though, there's no way to
advertise comedy that gets any darker than The Addams Family.
-joseph
David Fresko
imp...@teleport.com (Impulse) wrote:
>"Ah, man, I hate you!"
>*fssst* (bugspray in the face) "I hate you, too!"
>"I don't even know why I spend time with you!"
>"Neither do I!"
>"Leave me alone!"
>"Same to you!"
>"So there!"
>"Nyah!"
Okay, I just re-watched the movie, and there is absolutely no real hatred
between the two ghosts. None. Nothing like the above. Most of the time
they're complaining to Michael J. Fox about being in the trunk of the car,
but mostly they all worked together, like when they tried to kill the
Reaper.
Also, there was practically no ectoplasm. The closest thing we got to gore
was when Combs' head was shot off.
Dave
David Fresko
David Fresko <D.Fr...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>Shlock-HA!. They were excellent because, they show off the amazing sets as
>well as the great Rick Baker work. You say he's redundant, but his work in
>Seven was as far cry from The Frighteners to me.
Whoops. Rick Baker didn't do the make-up work in Seven, it was Rob Bottin.
Dave
Flappuccino
On 17 Aug 1997, David Fresko wrote:
> I don't know. I thought that Fox was one of the best things in the movie.
> He is a great, extremely underrated actor. His problem is that people have
> the MJF personna stuck in their minds from Back to the Future and Family
> Ties, but he can do a helluva lot more than that. Its just that when he
> does, people don't like. He was really great in The Frighteners, as well
> as Casualies of War.
He has a pretty bizarre cameo in "Blue in the Face"...it's definitely a
different side of Fox!
==============================================================================
THE FLAPPER!!!!!!!
==============================================================================
"All green of skin...800 centuries || "No Elvis is not dead, he's just
ago...their bodily fluids included || gone home" -"K", (Men In Black)
the birth of half-breeds...dark is ||====================================
the suede that mows like a harvest" || "...an evil petting zoo?"
-Martian Ambassador, (Mars Attacks!)|| -Dr.Evil, (Austin Powers)
==============================================================================
deering
Thomas Andrews (tho...@best.com) wrote:
: Acting is, at least in part, about transformation. I think a big part
: of Fox's problem as an actor is the limit of his vocal range. But
: he also has a fairly limited body language. He does have good timing,
: which is great for comedy, and particularly for the sorts of comedy
: that are on television (more verbal than slapstick...)
: [ When I say his voice is limited, I do not mean that he needs to
: do Streep-like accents. It's just that his voice doesn't carry
: emotions well - his shouts of anger and shouts of joy and shouts
: of despair all sound the same. ]
And Fox lacks resonance as an actor, as well. He never gives you the sense
that his characters have any real substance, depth, or inner life--they
all come off surfacey and glib no matter what the material. I thought he
was one of the reasons CASUALTIES OF WAR didn't work as well as it
should--he didn't have near enough talent to make either his character's
idealism or shattered sense of the world believeable. (Think Edward Norton
in that same role. I rest my case--:)). Same to a lesser degree with THE
FRIGHTENERS--that role needed someone who could show the misery and
hauntedness under the con-artist surface, and Fox just wasn't up to the
game as well as he needed to be.
C.
**
Franknseus
>Shlock-HA!. They were excellent because, they show off the amazing sets
as
>well as the great Rick Baker work. You say he's redundant, but his work
in
>Seven was as far cry from The Frighteners to me.
Not to be too picky, but I don't believe Rick Baker worked on SEVEN. The
corpses were done by the legendary Rob Bottin, who also did the incredible
monster in John Carpenter's THE THING and is credited as creature designer
for the upcoming MIMIC.
David Fresko
frank...@aol.com (Franknseus) wrote:
>>Shlock-HA!. They were excellent because, they show off the amazing sets
>as
>>well as the great Rick Baker work. You say he's redundant, but his work
>in
>>Seven was as far cry from The Frighteners to me.
>
>corpses were done by the legendary Rob Bottin, who also did the incredible
>monster in John Carpenter's THE THING and is credited as creature designer
>for the upcoming MIMIC.
Yeah I noticed that myself yesterday, just after I posted.
Dave
David Fresko
frank...@aol.com (Franknseus) wrote:
>> The closest thing we got to gore
>>was when Combs' head was shot off.
>
>of Combs' head, thus eliciting more giggles of delight from the audience
>than gasps of disgust.
> I still can not come up with a single theory as to why Roger Ebert
>referred to it as a "non-stop gorefest". I have studied this issue and the
>second goriest sight after the one mentioned above is a bloody ghost
>corpse that drops onto the hood of the car and is on camera for around
>half a second.
Perhaps it was the repeated close-ups of people foreheads with numbers
carved in them. There wasn't even a lot of squib work. The killings
weren't bloody, and I think that the only reason this was even rated R was
because of the tone.
Dave
Erkki D
Impulse wrote:
>
>On Sun, 17 Aug 1997 11:25:18 -0400, Erkki D <eda...@iwn.fi> wrote:
>>imp...@teleport.com (Impulse) wrote:
>
>RE: *The Frighteners* is Filled with Blood and Gore
>>Exaggerations.
>
>I guess it depends on what you call blood and gore.
your text that the film would be of nothing but dismemberment
and splatter. According to your examples you seem to find so
much 'bloody and gory'...
>Jaws falling off
>people's heads, the scene between the Hanging Judge and the mummy, the
>bile that oozed from all just-dead ghosts (their slime), the
>gunning-down scene in the hospital, the
>"kill-myself-to-stop-the-Reaper" scene, the bug-spray-in-the-face
>scene, the . . . need I go on?
Yes, except for the mummy scene and the rather-supernatural-than-
gory "kill-myself" scene, these indeed do have characteristics
leaning towards that definition. But is the film _filled_ with
these, or are they distracting from the story is another
matter...
>I'm not saying, by the way, despite
>your claim that I am a proponent of "family values" that there's no
>place for "gory" films: wasn't *Scream* gory -- and didn't I give it
>a positive review?
Surprise. And then he complains about "The Frighteners'"
'goriness'... Try to make up your mind.
>In fact, *Scream* makes an excellent opportunity
>to point out the inconsistencies of your arguments against my claims
>about *The Frighteners*.
I'm thrilled...
>RE: *The Frighteners* is Not Funny
>>You seem to be anyway a person who likes too much to put films
>>strictly into genres and if a film 'fails' to do so, you think
>>you have a good reason to put it off.
>
>Not at all. A film can blend genres perfectly. *Scream* blends
>horror and comedy in virtually every scene. However, it has the class
>and wit that a loud and obnoxious mess like *The Frighteners* lacked.
It indeed may have (your fortune). But was "The Frighteners" even
meant to be a 'smoothened' mixture of horror and comedy? No.
>Better yet, Jackson's *Heavenly Creatures* mixed laughter with gore,
>and did so beautifully -- with very smooth transitions and a very low
>dependence on visual effects. Many of the most comedic scenes in
>*Heaveny Creatures* turn 'dark' after a bit.
Yes, there it came, expectedly, the inevitable comparison
"Heavenly Creatures"/"The Frighteners" that seemed to so
set up reviewers (and you too)...
"Low dependence" isn't a rather correct term... When it comes
to accurately (and most importantly so enchantingly, giving
the film much of its wonderful spirit) depict the dream-
world of the girls, good and rather ample (whatever you claim)
use of SFX was needed for this aspect of the story of their
friendship and their increasing dependence on the 'other side'.
"Heavenly" is a masterpiece, but to seriously start crying
that "The Frighteners" isn't in the vein of "Heavenly", rather
than an over-the-top cruise more in the vein of Jackson's
earlier works, is plain silly.
The comedial approach in the films was very different, from
"Heavenly's" everyday comedy from the acts and
attitudes of persons to "The Frighteners'" less restricted,
plain silly comedy and more 'graphic' mixture of horror
and comedy.
>RE: I hate *Star Wars* with a deep passion.
>>Here you go again. What is the exact point then when a film loses
>>its "artistic integrity", and it becomes merely a mess of loosely
>>intertwined 'bad' subplots? Where do you draw the line?
FYI: I meant, what is your exact _distinction_ between the
"artistic intergrity", and a mess of loosely intertwined 'bad'
subplots? When is a film of the former or the latter nature?
>I draw the line by not going, and by writing negative reviews, and by
>telling the people I know exactly what's in the movie.
...Or what's in the movie in your opinion...
>This is one
>area where I have the advantage in this discussion, because I'm simply
>talking about things that were -in- *The Frighteners*.
So, you're the one who _knows_, and other people who've seen the
film are the ones who don't. Interesting case...
I thought we were talking about the same film, of what's "_in_"
that film, but obviously you are the one to be respected as the
'authority'... Napoleon revisited...
>Of course, your likely response if any would be that I am merely
>spouting "family values" rhetoric, which is wholly untrue
Not at all, I didn't even mean to...
>(popping a copy of *Heavenly
>Creatures* into my VCR).
Argh, pan & scanned "Heavenly"...?
>>It was an inspired poster indeed, a true interest raiser.
>
>It actually almost made me not go.
I can believe that.
>What changed my mind was when I
>heard it was a Peter Jackson film.
Oh, yes, 'gee, another film in the vein of "Heavenly
Creatures"'...
>I knew practically the entire plot of *The Frighteners* going in --
The _whole_ plot? Very unlikely. What you may have known was
what was told about as a summary, hardly more. And that's hardly
the "entire plot".
The proceedings in the latter half aren't really even predictable.
(And now comes again something about 'messy, unlogical, loud'
ending...)
>Boy, was I wrong. What I got instead was a turpentine-laced, loud,
>dull, flat, lifeless, uninspired shouting match followed by extreme
>and unnecessary scenes of throat-slitting, dismemberment
Yes, yes, we've heard all that from you already.
>RE: Concepts of the Supernatural are Inherently Silly
>>If you indeed can't even stand 'supernatural concepts',
>
>Didn't say that.
Oh?
>I said they're inherently silly, because there's no
>such thing
How does the claim of supernatural being "inherently silly"
differ from dislike of supernatural as a _concept_
(I don't mean the films in itself)?
>any more than there's such a thing as a thousand aliens
>launching attacks on Earth (a favorite of mine, *Independence Day*)
"ID4"... This explains a lot...
>All are equally as
>ridiculous. But some are good and some aren't.
Good that you clarified the so-evident 'facts'...
>> then why did you even bother to see it in the first place then,
>> as you _surely_ knew that aspect of the film before viewing it...
>
>You've made a non-sequiter in your logic. Just because the concept is
>inherently silly doesn't mean I don't want to go see it.
Oh, really? So, 1) you don't generally like a genre as it's
"silly", and then 2) you think it's illogical to say that you
wouldn't thus be likely to go and see such a film?
An Interesting point-of-view...
>Rather, it
>means I think the concept should be true to its nature -- if it's
>silly, then open the bag and go for it. Jackson, instead, tried to
>make up "rules" for ghosts and contrivances to move his plot along and
>get as much bile as possible out of the story
So, if there are no rules already, it's very bad to create them
anyway, however far-fetched they are...?
Making up (bad) rules _can_ work in a comedial approach, not
necessarily in more sombre films, though.
It shouldn't annoy you, as the genre is anyway "silly"...
Or how do I know your whims.
>(the ectoplasm -- was it
>really necessary that all the ghosts be constantly bleeding snot out
>of their noses and eyes? No, but Jackson does it anyway).
And it really seemed to put you off...
>>and let yourself enjoy only films that are 'true to life' and
>>'possible' to happen in real life too.
>
>BZZT. Why is LOST IN SPACE my favorite television show of all time?
>Why do I like *Stargate*? Why do I watch BABYLON 5.
[Intense shrug]
I don't know, and I really am not even _slightly_ interested...
>In all those
>examples, it's because I came for the characters and got characters I
>could like -- characters I could identify as human
Heh, yes, I suppose it's a bit difficult to "identify" to ghosts
"as human"... OK, we'll proceed:
>who weren't yelling-machines of blind hatred against the world.
Blind hatred? That was good, of a serial-killer film, that is.
Yet you seemed to have gone a bit to over-revving side with
that one. The complaining of the 'ghost-pals' was hardly a case
of ravaging "blind hatred"...
>>And such a guy comes and tells how others should react to a film
>>like "The Frighteners"...
>
>Nope. I'm just telling you why it was a bad movie.
...In your opinion of its comedial and visual elements...
>How you react is your own business.
Yes, it's good that I don't need to take _your_ view as
anything plausible.
>>>1) wasn't scary
>>
>>A hell ;^) of a lot people have claimed otherwise...
>>
>Some people are scared by different things.
And you still through your own 'experience' are ready to
claim it not-scary for other people?
>>>2) wasn't funny
>>
>>You claim so, but on the other hand, a friend of 'pure
>>and clean, and not mean' humour would be expected to say
>>something like that.
>>
>You make a mistake again. I love *Evil Dead II* and *Army of
>Darkness*. Why? Because Ash is a heroic character, despite all the
>despicable things he does. That's the inherent silliness of the film
>I talk about above -- Ash is an Everyman dealing with ghosts the only
>way he really understands -- with his technology and on his terms.
>And it's funny, because his "gun and thunder" attitude actually works.
Happy that you're happy with these funny proceedings...
>>>4) -was- caustic and mean-spirited
>>
>>Well, it _was_ a serial killer - death film, even you should
>>have realized that by the end of the film...
>
>See my comments about *Silence of the Lambs*.
And you hated the 'meanness' aspect of that film _too_...
Even some integrity in opinions, on the other hand...
>>The "blood/gore" aspect was (very) minimal,
>
>But visible in every scene . . .
Your interpretation of "every scene" in a film is very
liberal indeed.
>RE: *Ghostbusters* good, *Frighteners* bad . . .
>>Ehum, maybe _partly_ because "Ghostbusters" didn't in fact even
>>have true horror elements in it. It was indeed more of a nice whole
>>family picnic film with those nice comedians ('familiar from TV!')
>>and a catchy song that everyone can hum aloud while chewing popcorn
>>and being 'entertained'. But no _horror_ to speak of. That made the
>>marketing so easy...
>
>Yet again, you let your feelings that I am advocating the "religious
>right" Michael Medved reviewer-technique get in the way of what I
>actually said.
Oh my, "Ghostbusters" _was_ an easier one to market to general
public, it was more straightforward, consistent, with better-known
cast -- notwithstanding what you so much like to claim as twisting
of what you've said. Heh.
>The focal point of the film was that it was about -characters-, not
>effects nor how much gore/glop you can fill every scene with. It
>wasn't about being bigger, faster, louder or having more effects than
>other pictures.
I see that you've got your fixation about "The Frighteners'"
nature. So be it.
>>"Ghostbusters" was far from having the extremes of _scary_ horror
>>combined with a humorous undertone and multiple different character
>>types and sub-plots over a long timespan.
>
>Sounds like *Scream*, which I mentioned above as a favorite. Now, if
>I'm the 'proponent' of family values/cheesy "As Seen on TV!" pictures
>as you say, why do I like *Scream* or *Evil Dead II*?
Ehum, may _I_ now claim you twisting what I've actually said...?
Did I ever refer to you as one 'for whom the film was made'
(although I as well could...), rather than in general point
out the reasons the film was easier to _market_?
But to answer your question, I really don't know why you
like those films, as "blood and gore" and "shouting" and
general confusion seem so much put you off.
>-- . . . the list goes on and on, and refutes your claim
>wholeheartedly and with pride.
Good for you. The same applies as above...
>>Yes, hopefully you could then suck your thumb contently, knowing
>>that you're now at least free from having to see meanness ("no,
>>the world isn't mean - it _can't_ be...") or (nonexistent)
>>"blood/gore" of "The Frighteners".
>
>Ah -- I see you believe we live in a malevolent universe of
>self-hatred and self-loathing. I understand now.
Oh dear. This man really reads a bit badly. (Or selectively,
like films are treated too...)
Self-hatred and self-loathing -- it'd be interested to know where
that prefix "self" found its way to your brain (you know, the
organ that so horribly bursted in every single scene of "The
Frighteners", if you're to believe...), as I surely never
referred to self-inflected suffering -- mental or physical.
If your views of "The Frighteners" come through a similar
'filter', then I can see the 'point' of your opinions...
But if you think that everything's fine in the world, I'm most
willing to let you feel so.
>RE: Without ghosts, *Ghostbusters* is still a movie . . .
>>Why should one take them out, if they are "-characters-" just
>>like the living persons?
>
>Well, they weren't just like the living people.
No, they were dead. Good that you noticed that one at least...
>They spend most of
>their time moaning, complaining, getting it on with mummies, losing
>their jaws, bleeding purple slime everywhere, wreaking havok, yelling,
>screaming, fighting, arguing, wrestling, etc.
Hahhah! That was a good one! More like this, and I can
really enjoy reading your bursts...
But, to set your opinions aside and continue on the point,
the ghosts did present integral characters in "The Frighteners",
as important to the story as any of the living persons.
>RE: Shouting Match Horror
>I don't pretend to be the arbiter
>of what other people should or shouldn't see, and I'm not a censor.
Thank god.
>Why is it censorship to stand up and say "At long last, Hollywood,
>have you no quality?"
Hell, no! But you seem to define the quality (perhaps of even
others' tastes) through your own preferences.
"At long last", hmmm. 'For some time', I'd say rather...
>> And of course as both "The Frighteners" and "B&B" are 'non-confirmative' in
>>terms of your definition of 'good humour', they should be
>>dismissed and totally ignored by all...
>
>I happened to like *Beavis & Butt-Head Do America*. It was rather
>conformative -- there's nothing "renegade animation" about it despite
>Siskel and Ebert's review (IMO), but it's still fun.
Yep, and action with similar fast-forward silliness then
suddenly turns out "loud etc. etc." in "The Frighteners".
First you claim "B&B" plainly spoken 'bad humour',
"Frightenersque", and then you like it. 'Consistency wanted...'
>RE: Love and Kindness?
>>Love and kindness. If that's your (over&over repeated) vision of
>>a 'horror film with comedial elements', then I can't help it.
>
>You -can- help the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of what I
>am saying. I'm saying that I'd rather spend 2 hours with characters
>whose company I'd care to share in an intellectual sense
..."and characters having respect for each other." (Of which
you found no trace in "The Frighteners"?) One can of course
always ask whether it's necessary to have the characters so
totally, in a sense, "intellectual" to be able to enjoy a film
as it is... If supernatural is so silly anyway, why should
the characters then suddenly come out so intelligently
acceptable and enjoyable, even as heroes (who, moreover.
don't mess with a dead man's wife)...
>(and hey,
>that even obviously from the above includes *Beavis & Butthead* who
>get into arguments and beat the cr** out of eachother). The
>difference is that, in the case of B&B, they're too idiotic to really
>come up with hateful barbs -- they're too lazy to even -be- hateful.
Yes, so stupidity and meanness out of lack of compassion is OK,
as long as the proponents are lazy enough to not actually harm
anyone (verbally or physically)? (Which in fact isn't true even in
"B&B"...)
Very nice concept, and one that could then make "B&B" silliness
acceptable in "intellectual sense"? Just 'no hatefulness' is
enough?
How does this fit your point-of-view of inherent machine-gun
silliness creating an intelligently enjoyable character...?
>But do I want to share my time with hateful characters?
If you're looking at a killer/horror film, that is somewhat
a necessity... A film in that genre has always its share of
malevolence. Where was that 'hate' between Bannister and L.
Lynskey then? Anyway, if you have chosen to emphasize some
of the relations between characters as 'hatredness', that's
merely your view...
>>But of course you are always in good terms with your friends,
>>with no horse-play or rough jokes.
>
>Actually, you're right. I respect people I know, and I value them
>enough that I don't engage in rough, crude humor directed toward them
>or smack them upside the head for a good "laugh." I guess things work
>differently among your peers?
Bitch away all you want. The truth is that occasional worse
moments do come forth every now and then, especially among
people constantly in touch with each other. Ever heard of
quarrels in marriages?
>>Maybe you with your 'only-one-genre-per-film' preferences find
>>it unacceptable,
>
>What limitation am I placing on *Heavenly Creatures*, pray tell?
"Heavenly Creatures" didn't in fact comprise the genres of
horror, comedy, thriller and drama so 'over the top' and
fullfledgedly than "The Frighteners", which also had its
distinct change of tone to darker. "Heavenly" was developing
its plot more placidly, and I in fact even wouldn't place it
so much to the horror genre (with distinctly drawing from
comedy) rather than a morbid, psychological drama.
And a superb one, for that matter!
>> but that would have only resulted in another
>>(pardon me) overly good-natured film like "Ghostbusters", but
>>it indeed took the turn to a _horror_ film in that point...
>
>So it's possible to have too much good nature? Hmmmmm . . .
In a film meant to be primarily a killer/horror film, yes, that's
correct...
>>And more of love... I'm sorry if that was another point that
>>made you lose your analyst mind, but if the supernatural is
>>anyway a silly concept for you, why'd you care about the
>>basis of the relationship between the living and the dead...
>
>Got it in one, grizzly. That's the first bit of reasonable logic
>you've analyzed out of the entire letter I wrote so far. Good job.
>If only this trend continued.
Shucks! Maybe I shouldn't have then pointed out your illogical
scribblings above, but anyway, you've reached this far, so,
too late...
Anyway, this admittance of yours, of not really having a proper
logic or standing with which to grasp malevolence, gore,
characterization or reasons for liking differing horror films
in general, only confirms the useless nature of this
conversation.
With someone who can't seem to make up one's mind on
consistent basis about the stand on these issues, that's
futile. 'Here it's good, there the same thing is bad...'
>>Well, _maybe_ he is an indication of the fact that Bannister is
>>indeed, very positively, suspected of the murders, sent in from
>>the Bureau to check the scene.
>
>And -maybe- it's yet another
>thrown-in-I-don't-know-where-this-is-going-or-what-I'm-doing-here
>subplot to prop up the tired film? Just maybe.
Indeed, just maybe in your mind as so many of the elements
in the film...
>>You really seem to have a problem with characters that are beyond
>>your grasp as over-the-top, and not nice, amiable, caring and
>>friends forever...
>
>*Heaveny Creatures*, *The Reflecting Skin*, *The Night of the Hunter*.
>Need I go on?
Do go on. Finding truly 'over-the-top' (Combs-like...) characters
in "Heavenly" is a good accomplishment. Especially main characters
lean more to the 'friends forever' category...
ED
elgee
> "straight horror" angle first, and when audiences found that to be
> unappealing, moved to "It's a comedy!" As a parallel of what you are
> talking about, look at the poster-teaser for *Batman Returns*, which
> audiences and theatre-owners dismissed as hideously ugly (I personally
> liked it better than the teaser for the original *Batman*, myself!).
> The -concept- of the movie didn't change in-between the two posters.
> The ad-design did. This is similar to the current trend with *George
> of the Jungle* where the advertisements in the newspaper are making
> parody of different top-selling movies each week (and their parody of
> *Face/Off* was terrific).
can't argue about the poster, frankly, i don't even recall seeing it. i
base my decision to see a movie, on trailers, word of mouth from people
i know like my kind of stuff, magazine write-ups, etc..
> The thing to remember about *The Frighteners* was that the original
> poster (which never changed) featured a screaming banshee monster, and
> the original ads dealt with a "horror" from beyond terrorizing the
> walls and stretching out at the audience in CGI-"glory." When
> audiences yawned and said "We've seen all that before," (a problem
> with the inherent concept of the movie, too, since that's essentially
> all it was about) they quickly shifted gears and tried to focus on how
> "funny" the film was.
sorry, i just don't see this as a negative issue. studios regularly
shift gears, sometimes before a movie is complete. jurassic
park-speilberg was so happy with the cgi, he re-scripted the final
t-rex/'raptor atrium fight sequence. i don't recall the original ending,
but i'm sure someone around here does...
> However, as I say below, their style of humor seems to consist of
> nothing but insuts, put-downs, bodily dismemberment, pain, torture,
> suffering, death and blood. I don't find this particularly funny.
this sounds fairly consistant with an addam's family description, which
you do like..
i agree, frightener's had a "different" delivery style, however, while
jerry seinfeld delivers his comedy one way and steven write another, and
penn and teller another... i like all them equally and consider all
comdey.
it apperas that you are comparing apples to oranges here. you really
can't compare frighteners to other flicks 'cause it wasn't like other
flicks... to me it leaned more towards the horror side, yet still popped
in a little humor. i would to know what movie you've seen that
successfully merged the two of truly frightening aspects and good comedy
the way this did.
> I hate all three *Star Wars* movies with a passion that runs deep.
> I've articulated this before. Lucas was just as guilty as the rest of
> Hollywood in creating the "blockbuster" mentality, by doing whatever
> it took to get audiences in the theatre at the sacrificial altar of
> artistic intergrity.
i really enjoyed the first, liked the second, and absolutely hated the
last..
> It was an uninspired poster -- a stretchy-looking half-seen monster,
> white-on-white. And they were surprised that this interminably bland
> poster didn't advertise the film well? There are so many powerful
> visual moments in *The Frighteners* that could've been chosen.
>
> Ghosts and supernatural concepts are so inherently silly to begin with
> that I can't take them seriously as "grim and gritty." To me, there's
> no such thing as a "grim and gritty" horror movie. Those films (like,
> say, *Seven*) that try to be "grim and gritty" while carrying an
> underlying theme of horror just end up -- to my way of thinking, being
> ridiculous and laughably bad. There is no essential difference
> between *Seven* and *Night of the Lepus* -- both are incredibly
> outlandish concepts adjusted to different "planes" of versimilitude.
so are you saying that any movie which includes "ghost and supernatural
concepts" should be outright comedies
'cause they are all "inherently silly"? that leaves us with serial
killers, aliens, and natural disasters for horror flicks. i say ghost
and supernatural stuff is spooky and scary..
> Rich Baker is highly overrated, IMO. Basically, he repeats the same
> basic designs using bigger and bigger budgets (as does S. Winston),
> and the result is that OF COURSE the effects look better. If you're
> only trying the same trick -- using better and better equipment -- you
> will get it right eventually. However, there was nothing about any of
> the prosthetic effects that really jumped out and grabbed me -- and
> the Hanging Judge character wasn't much different than the mummified
> cowboy in *House II: The Second Story*. Compare for yourself, if you
> like. The difference? Probably a few hundred-thousand dollars, maybe
> a million even. Who knows any more with inflated designers charging
> inflated rates for inflated bladder-effects that try to make inflated
> movies. It's -- again -- patently ridiculous.
>
> For my money, the best effects man in the business right now is
> Screaming Mad George. While his effects work off a smaller budget
> than either of the above-mentioned two, at least he's always trying
> something to innovate the industry and create new artistic ideas -- to
> do things in a new or more interesting way, visually. The -look- is
> important to him, it would seem.
rick baker, stan winston, etc., create visuals which have to coincide
with the film-makers vision. if i take on a design project and insist
that the art director use my vision instead of his, guess who's gonna be
out of a job? besides, how many different ways can you come up with for
"new" ghost designs? you've already stated that this "concept" is
"inherently silly" which would illustrate to me that you may have been
biased before actually watching the movie. i have seen s.m.george's
stuff years ago when he was also on a shoestring budget, judging from
your post, it doesn't seem as if he or his vision has caught on yet.
> It's an example of the difference between us. See, *The Addams
> Family* is, to me, just as 'serious' as *The Frighteners* in that both
> are patently ridiculous conceptually -- both deal with things that
> could NEVER POSSIBLY HAPPEN. And, as a means of comparison about the
> nasty humor of *The Frighteners* v. *The Addams Family*, look at how
> the characters treat eachother. In *The Addams Family*, the gang
> stabs and electrocutes eachother -- but everyone survives and there
> are big hugs afterward -- and very little anger gets tossed around.
> In *The Frighteners*, you've got characters who can't -stand-
> eachother all in the same room. So, I ask myself which I'd rather
> spend time watching -- a comic-book-universe family that loves itself,
> or a group of caustic and mean-spirited spectres who hate eachother?
> I'll opt for the fun-loving atmosphere of the *Addams Family* movies
> over *The Frighteners* any day, because I'd rather see joy than anger
> and frustration in my fictional charactes.
i like a little "joy" in my movies too, but i'm open minded enough not
to exclude other movies which i may have missed had it not been for a
joyous atmosphere.
> >i agree, this movie is a combo of both horror/comedy,
>
> Except that it:
> 1) wasn't scary
parts were to me
> 2) wasn't funny
parts were to me
> 3) -was- bloody and gory and grotesque
i believe the one really bloody scene was of the old mother in bed, but
no gore. gory and grotesque are as subjective as ugly and gross. while
it did have a bit of all i expected that in this movie and didn't find
any of it offensive.
> 4) -was- caustic and mean-spirited
caustic? i can't find any definition of this term which would could
apply to movies. let me know yours. mean-spirited? was that a pun?
> > unlike ghostbusters which had comedy written all over it, and sometimes studios
> >don't know how to market something like this.
>
> On the contrary -- because *Ghostbusters* was internally consistent,
> the advertisers had little-to-no trouble advertising it! The Ray
> Parker Jr. song advertised it alone! And the simple symbol of the
> ghost with the slash through the middle was enough to get people to
> go. The whole point of *Ghostbusters* was to pair up a bunch of
> comedians and set them in a ghost-mystery in the spirit of Abbot and
> Costello, but the result turned out to be much more thanks to some
> great ad-libbing on the part of the centrals.
ghostbusters tried to be a total comedy which happened to have big
rubber ghosts floating around trying to be cute. a big fat green rubber
ghost eating hot dogs and passed off as comedy? that's offensive.
> >if you wanted to see ghostbusters perhaps you should have checked it out
> >on video.
>
> I own a copy, and I did indeed watch it after seeing *The Frighteners*
> to contrast the two films and take the sour taste out of my mouth left
> by this experience.
why in the world "contrast" the two films? they are totally different. i
could ask why wasn't ghostbusters scary?
> > as i recall, ghostbusters had as many special effects,
>
> Not as many, no -- but enough. And -- another point here: the
> special effects in *Ghostbusters* were -not- part-and-parcel to the
> story. The story came from the actors and their performances and
> dialogue -- the ghosts could have looked like practically anything and
> the humor would've still been there. Take the ghosts out of
> *Ghostbusters* and you've still got a story because it's about
> -characters-. Take the ghosts out of *The Frighteners* and you have a
> miserable Michael J. Fox character, a bizarre cult-specialist and a
> dullard doctor.
wrong, take the ghost out of ghostbusters and you get a bunch second
rate comedians throwing "mean-spirited" barbs at each other with nothing
to shoot. part of the comedy was in the ghost's appearence, wacky
slimer, and the sta-puff marshmellow man. why get hypothetical?
>
> RE: The Characterrs Can't Stand Eachother
> >now first you complain about the movie "not" being ghostbusters, now you
> >complain because they act "like" the ghostbusters.
>
> You need to learn a little about dialogue, I think. There's a
> difference between the "good-natured ribbing" in *Ghostbusters*, which
> is quiet and reserved most of the time between the 'Busters themselves
> (the caustic wit is directed at ghosts and dullards) and the
> shouting-matches that took the place of humor in *The Frighteners*.
> To put it another way, consider how virtually every 'joke' that was a
> little mean-spirited between the 'Busters was spoken rather quietly,
> and deadpan. With *The Frighteners*, we've got BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD
> humor -- vomit, bile, spillage, blood, scars, wounds, tattoos . . .
> and the dialogue-based humor is composed of yelling mixed with
> gun-fire and anger, abuse and mistreatment.
you need to learn a little about comedy.. while i like the deadpan humor
of louie anderson or rita rudner, ialso rolled around listening to sam
kineson or chris rock.
> You could've fooled me -- there was no love there. The closest there
> was to comeraderie was when the Hanging Judge has a little (and too
> brief) talk with Michael J. Fox's "paranormal eliminator" about how
> death is no way "to make a living." More scenes like that, where the
> ghosts were genuinely interested in helping Michael J. Fox because of
> their "enlightened state" as spirits -- would've been funnier. The
> idea of Fox and the ghosts working together to hustle customers would
> have been funnier -- but it took a back-seat to the Reaper -- and the
> one time the crew works together on a hustle that is actually visible
> on-camera Fox isn't even really there until very late-on in the scene!
> In another scene, a hustle occurs without Fox's help, and he's not
> there at all (the babies floating -- a terrible optical effect, btw).
you're trying to make this a comdey again. more "talks and comeraderie
discusions" would've slowed it down and then we'd have people griping
about too much talkin'-not enough action. imho the "hustle" should have
taken a backseat to the reaper. this wasn't a buddy flick, it was about
fox fighting this "demon".
i agree on the opticals here, i thought i was watching a t.v. detergent
commercial or something.
> >although i too feel they could've included a basis for their
> >relationship, it didn't ruin the movie for me.
>
> It ruined it for me, because you can't have tough love in a movie
> without a reason for that love to be there. Who were these people
> before they died? Why did they befriend Fox, and why had they avoided
> going into the light so often (they -were not- one-year veterans, most
> obviously). They had to be willing to give up a chance to go to
> Heaven to stay with Fox -- they should have been blood-loyal to
> eachother rather than shooting bug-spray in eachother's faces.
we could all ask for bio. sheets but we have a limited amount of time in
which to watch a movie. why not ask about frank bannister's childhood?
or the dr.'s marriage? how long did they date? see, it doesn't matter to
most people. director jackson could go the lucas road and put prequals
which deal with these issues, but again, it doesn't matter to most
folks. the bug spray, if you recall, was a side effect of fox spraying a
fly which had landed on the ghosts face. i didn't feel it was done
maliciously.
> >combs is just plain weird no matter how you slice it. he was a bit
> >distracting with his usual over the top perfomance,
>
> -which added -nothing- to the movie, IMO -- his character was just
> oine more thrown-in piece of a messy jigsaw puzzle of a film, with no
> real basis for being there. What does he add to the story? What is
> his purpose to the plot? What 'vehicle' does he carry for the
> storyline, besides the annoying murder-subplot about Fox's wife which
> gets the hero incarcerated for far too long in a 2-hour movie?
c'mon, did you really watch this film? we all know the obvious reasons,
weird, kinda funny, odd to watch, etc.. what i feel his "role/purpose"
was, to keep the audience off balance, to provide an additional
antagonist to the fox/dr. roles, and when all hell broke loose at the
end he made for a good head shot.. ;-)
i give you enough credit and intelligence to know the answers to your
above questions, and i do agree his character should have been
interpreted better.
> > and i feel the female doctor's role could have been written better.
>
> Or out.
true, or it could have been substanciated by providing gratuitous nude
shots! ;-)
> > even though she wasin an unhappy marriage i felt she showed more compassion for fox's
> >character than her just dead old man.
>
> Of course, one could argue that it's a little cuel on Fox's part to
> put moves on the wife of a just-dead ghost sitting next to him. I
> found that scene to be in horribly poor taste and made any heroism
> moot in the character that was Fox.
poor taste or not, this is prolly one of the things that DO happen in
real life. i felt she also made "moves" in his direction. what did you
expect from a con man? either way, i liked both characters and it didn't
move me one way or the other that these two were getting involved. she
could have just as easily been a longtime girlfriend needing help. i
don't think i'd call frank a hero, maybe more a quick thinking
survivalist would fit.
elgee
Franknseus
> The closest thing we got to gore
>was when Combs' head was shot off.
And even that gruesome sight was cleverly hidden behind a ghost version
of Combs' head, thus eliciting more giggles of delight from the audience
than gasps of disgust.
I still can not come up with a single theory as to why Roger Ebert
referred to it as a "non-stop gorefest". I have studied this issue and the
second goriest sight after the one mentioned above is a bloody ghost
corpse that drops onto the hood of the car and is on camera for around
half a second.
Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
elgee
Impulse wrote:
>
> It actually almost made me not go. What changed my mind was when I
> heard it was a Peter Jackson film. I didn't even bother looking at
> who was involved because seeing "Dead Yet?" just made me think of
> *Dead Again* and its silverated grey poster, and the 'stretchy
> banshee' made me think of every *Nightmare on Elm Street* movie where
> ghosts stretch out of the walls (read: dental rubber -- that's how
> they do it, folks).
one quick one before this becomes a "contact" thread...
"dental rubber" may have been used by NOES, but every shot of the reaper
was 100% cgi. including the three basic transformations he went through.
1. wallpaper man: an animated 3D human figure with custom coded software
to "wrap" him and provide textures, animation, lighting, etc.
2. cloaked and hooded scythe wielding badass: animated in softimage with
alias/wavefront robe effects.
3. blob man: a plaster cast was taken from busey's head, digitized, then
textured and animated with more custom codes.
from an article in cinefex, they did try various methods of producing
the reaper, from puppets to water tanks to people in robes filmed at
different speeds, until they came up with, imho, the best incarnation we
finally saw on film.
they also wrote about how after seeing the first intial test shots,
universal liked it so much, they moved the opening date from a holloween
of '96 to summer. shortening the schedule by about 3 ot 4 months. i'm
not making excuses, but i've had project schedules move up by just one
week, and that threw me for a total loop. i can't fathom what would
happen if my stuff was cut in terms of months. something would suffer.
elgee
E. Blackadder
Brian Greer wrote:
>
> Derek Janssen <dja...@ultranet.com> wrote:
> >Then you probably didn't notice:
>
> >A) Not one remotely likable or sympathetic character (including and, oh
> >boy, _especially_ Fox's character) in the entire two-hour movie--_NOT
> >ONE_;
>
> I liked the entire movie. This is a weird response. Do I need to love
> the characters (as in, find those characters to be very admirable and
> deserving of REAL LOVE? is it wrong to like a character who isn't
> pristine?)???
>
> >B) I've been assured by outside reports that it was meant to be a
> >comedy, despite its utter absence of any actual laughs that an audience
> >could detect with the naked eye. (Unless the idea of one of the ghosts
> >being a 70's black stereotype, another nerdy and a third falling apart
> >in Rick Baker makeup is alone enough to send you into convulsions of
> >hilarity...And when Fox runs over the obnoxious guy's lawn gnomes with
> >his car?--we're talkin' _quality_ yuks here, m'friend...)
>
> For people with a REAL sense of humor (not some weird north american
> sense of humor that never laughs unless the 'LAUGH' sign is blinking
> right in front of them) the movie was extremely funny. Everytime I see
> it, I laugh a lot, the very first time I saw it my friends and I were
> in hysterics! Get a sense of humor, please. You probably won't get any
> trade-in value for the one you have right now though.
>
> >But for me, it all came down to:
>
> >C) It's bad enough that Robert Zemeckis directs his _own_ movies, than
> >that he hire Peter Jackson to direct Robert Zemeckis movies for him--
> >Bob, I'm making a wild guess here that you never even SAW "Heavenly
> >Creatures": There was some interestingly weird Jackson-psychological
> >touches with the women in the mansion, which was bewilderingly out of
> >place considering the other 99% of the movie had Zemeckis' grubby "Death
> >Becomes Her" fingerprints all over it...
> >The result was like watching John Hughes hire Mike Leigh to direct his
> >next "Home Alone" movie--only just a _little_ more disjointed and
> >disturbing.
>
> Sure, Zemeckis stuff isn't always great, but this had just enough
> Peter Jackson for me. You talk about Heavenly Creatures as if it was
> the only thing Peter Jackson had ever done...let me ask you this
> question : Have you ever seen any of the following movies :
>
> Meet The Feebles
> Bad Taste
> Dead Alive (aka Braindead)
>
> >But at least, as we saw, Jackson passed his course in the Robert
> >Zemeckis School of How to Direct Overbearing, Visually Ugly and
> >Relentlessly Unappealing Films...
just to weigh in, I had to see the movie twice at the theatres because
the people in front of me were laughing so hard i missed some dialog.
Franknseus
>There wasn't even a lot of squib work. The killings
>weren't bloody, and I think that the only reason this was even rated R
was
>because of the tone.
I read an article in the Seattle Times where Jackson said that he had
been trying for a PG-13 by toning down the gore. When he couldn't get the
PG-13, he was hitting himself. Ironic, isn't it, that it probably *would*
have been a non-stop gorefest if Jackson hadn't been trying to tone down
for the very people who think it is one.