The Frighteners

The Frighteners (1996), directed by Peter Jackson, Director's Cut, Turbine Medien 4k remaster, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including 7.1 remaster, original theatrical stereo, commentary track, and English and German subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116365/

Video encoded in two-pass 12 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image.

English subtitles OCRed, proofed and corrected. All other subtitles converted to VobSub and repositioned.

Note : Returning to our old buddy Peter Jackson, this is probably his last horror movie, although it's a horror comedy, produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Michael J. Fox. It's all in all pretty good, a fun, weird romp that's not afraid to get pretty dark, although it suffers a bit from trying to cram way too much stuff in there, and also some digital effects that haven't aged that well. But yeah, if you don't like this part, here's another! Ghostbusters-like funny translucent spirits, a ghost hunting scam, serial killer lore, Jeffrey Combs as an eccentric-verging-on-unhinged FBI agent who's spent way too much time undercover in killer cults, a Starkweather/Fugate-like pair of thrill killers, quirky small town characters, both living and dead, and a literal trip to heaven, go by so fast you can hardly catch your breath. But it's all in good fun, and manages to come together decently as a story in the end.

Frank Bannister was an architect until he was in a car accident and gained the ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the dead, a gift he uses to run a scam where he gets his ghost friends to create mayhem in someone's home, then he comes in and "exorcises" them for a fee. However, the small town of Fairwater is haunted by a series of unexplained deaths, where people have massive heart attacks, but in their autopsies they all seem to have been in perfect health. As Frank gets involved with a recently widowed woman, he starts seeing glowing numbers on people's foreheads, after which those people soon turn up dead, and he chases a grim reaper-like spirit through the town. He finds himself a suspect in the murders, and must clear his name while also trying to stop whatever it is that's killing everyone.

This new 4k remaster looks great, perhaps a tiny bit overbright, but otherwise nice, subtle grain, good color and contrast, and crisp detail. The 7.1 remaster sounds good, and the Peter Jackson commentary track is amusing and informative.

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