Y'know, I think 1996's
The Frighteners may well be my favorite
Peter Jackson film. He's certainly made more ambitious films, and more charmingly scrappy indie flicks.
Heavenly Creatures may be more moving,
The Lord Of the Rings trilogy more epic, and
Braindead more gleefully gruesome. But this one just situates in the perfect middle: Baby Bear's Just Right porridge (and featuring
Jeffrey Combs' greatest performance after
Re-Animator). Interestingly, Jackson originally presented this to
Robert Zemeckis as a potential
Tales From the Crypt feature film. Zemeckis says in the documentary (discussed below) that he didn't think it was a good fit, but wanted to produce it anyway. Really, he didn't think
The Frighteners made a good match for the tone of
Tales From the Crypt, but
Bordello of Blood did?
The Frighteners' distinct blend of humor turning increasingly dark feels like the ideal encapsulation of the TFtC spirit; the best you could ask for outside of an authentic EC tale. But hey, whatever got us to this end point, I wouldn't change it now, because the movie we've got now, as it is, is just about perfect.
So it's interesting that it largely lives on now as an extended
"director's cut." I put that in quotes because, in his own documentary
on this film, Jackson specifies the theatrical cut is still his
preferred director's cut, and he considers the extended cut a fun
alternative for fans. I enjoy the restored material, but I agree, the
tighter cut is better. The extended version, which runs a hefty twelve
and a half minutes longer, mostly features more comic bits with the
comic relief ghost characters, and there's a
pinch too much of that for my tastes in the theatrical cut already. Some of it is
clever, many of the effects are well done and a couple of the action
sequences feel a little more fleshed out; but there's a reason he cut it
in the first place. There's only one cut I regret, and it's no
coincidence that it's the only cut imposed by censors rather than the
filmmaker's inclination towards making a superior picture, where
Dee Wallace stabs
Jake Busey
for their mutual enjoyment. It's a great little moment that says
everything about who they are and where they're at in life; and I'd
actually love a third cut of the film that's just the theatrical version
plus that. But c'est la vie. At least we get to see it in the
extended cut.
Universal first released
The Frighteners on DVD all the way
back in 1998. It was anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1, but pretty
disappointing considering that same year there had been a massive
special edition with four and a half hours of extras and a new extended
cut, while this DVD just had the basic theatrical cut and a fullscreen
trailer. But in 2005, overseas fans got what we all wanted when
Universal released special edition DVD sets in various regions around
the world, with everything from the laserdisc and a new introduction by
Jackson. I personally opted to import the German version because it was
spread over four discs rather then three like in most other countries.
There was no additional content or anything, but I hoped it might have a
better encode? Anyway, they did make a US version, too, but it was a
single flipper disc that dropped the theatrical cut, so it was clearly
the worst option.
And apart from reissues with variant covers or
whatever, that was it until the days of HD, when Universal did pretty
good by the movie in 2011 with a 15th Anniversary edition, which
included both cuts and all the legacy extras. Unlike Jackson's earlier
work, it was looking pretty sweet on home video, and that BD carried us
over to the 4k era. In 2022, Germany's Turbine produced an exclusive 4k
restoration as a pretty massive, and certainly not cheap, 6-disc BD/
UHD set. That included a BD and UHD of a 1.78:1 open matte version,
which I guess has marginal novelty value for truly enraptured Jackson
lovers; but if you asked me, it basically just came down to paying a lot
of money for an intentionally misframed version. So I held out...
...Especially since there was strong reason to hope for a preferable alternative! Arrow included a promotional postcard for a
Frighteners release of their own in their 2020 4k UHD release of
King of New York (confirmed in
this unboxing video,
screenshot above). So when Turbine came out, many of us were already
in ye olde' "wait and see which is better" mode. Of course, there still
has yet to be an official announcement to this day, and everyone
assuming it was just around the corner is feeling pretty deflated.
Speculation is that Turbine signed an exclusivity agreement to be the
sole international distributor for this film for X number of years,
foiling Arrow's initial plans. Maybe it's still coming eventually. But
then there's also always the concern that even if it does happen,
Jackson will want to create some kind of janky AI-enhanced, 200fps DNR'd
redux that would actually be worse than the 2011 blu-ray anyway.
Meanwhile, Turbine eventually released a much more reasonably priced
edition that dropped the 1.78:1 discs and the 1080p version, but still
included both cuts in 4k plus all of the special features in a very
handsome 3-disc BD/ UHD set. So I finally broke down and gave up on
Arrow (which probably means it will be announced tomorrow, amiright?),
and copped the Turbine, which I have for you now.
 |
1) 1998 Universal DVD; 2) 2005 Universal DVD theatrical; 3) 2005 Universal DVD ext;
4) 2011 Universal BD theatrical; 5) 2011 Universal BD ext;
6) 2025 Turbine UHD theatrical; 7) 2025 Turbine UHD ext.
|
The
US disc starts us off at 2.40, while the German disc (on both cuts...
on every release with the two cuts; their transfers are identical) opens
it up a smidgen to 2.35:1. You can also see the framing shift
vertically, showing more along the bottom and less along the top. This
framing persists through the rest of the subsequent releases, which are
also 2.35, though the UHD reveals slivers more picture along the edges.
Color-wise, there are never any vast swings. The original DVD is a bit
red, which was corrected by the special edition DVD, and the UHD is a
pinch cooler than all previous editions. Turbine's Dolby Vision HDR
pulls a bit out of the shadows, but it's not like the previous blu was
crushing stuff. It is more naturally defuse, though, and the 4k
resolution definitely captures the film grain much more thoroughly and
naturally. In short, each edition is a subtle but distinct improvement
over the previous, but you'll really appreciate the boost if you've
skipped any of them along the way.
The initial 1998 DVD starts us
off with the original 5.1 track, optional English subtitles, plus a
French dub and Spanish subs. The special edition keeps all of that and
also adds a new DTS 5.1 to the director's cut. They also add a German
dub (of course) and additional French, German, Arabic, Bulgarian,
Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic,
Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Swedish and Turkish
subs. Then the blu-ray scales back all those options, returning us to
just the 5.1 (now in DTS-HD) and French dub (still lossy) with English,
Spanish and French subtitles. And finally, Turbine gives us The English
and German tracks in 5.1 DTS-HD, 2.0 mix-downs also in DTS-HD and a new
Atmos mix for the extended cut, with optional English and German
subtitles.
So, as I mentioned above, the original DVD only included a
fullscreen trailer as an extra. But the the special edition DVD, and
the subsequent releases covered here, rounded up all of the extras from
the laserdisc, which is a ton. We're talking four and a half hours, not
even including the commentary. And it's a great commentary. Jackson
delivers it over the extended cut, and enthusiastically discusses all
manner of the production, from pre to post. But then that's like a
pittance to the elaborate documentary he crafted, rivaled only by his
Lord of the Rings
appendixes. This has everything, from the deleted scenes, extensive
behind the scenes footage that sticks with scenes for long stretches of
time (as opposed to your usual B-roll, which just gives us frustrating
glimpses), outtakes, cast and crew interviews and more. There's one
section where he animates the film's storyboards, scores them and
provides an audio commentary for that, pointing out all the ideas that
didn't make it to the final film, etc. It's a real treasure. Jackson
also shot a brief, new introduction to the bonus features for the
special edition DVD, which has also made its way to the BD and UHD
editions.
Now, besides that, Turbine has created an all new,
feature-length retrospective. And I am not just happy but surprised to
report this new doc is great and doesn't simply repeat details
adequately covered in the previous extras. It features a Jake Busey,
Dee Wallace and a whole bunch of crew members sharing additional,
unheard memories of what it was like when LA came to New Zealand.
Besides just having the additional perspective of time, they get into
less promotional-areas that the original supplementary materials
skipped, like working with
Michael J. Fox as his Parkinson's symptoms were staring
to flare up or effects artist
Wes Takahashi talking about how he
was made to act as a sort of spy for ILM and Zemeckis when working with
WETA. This feels like the filmmakers did what I always pleading for
them to do: watch the original extras and cut out all the repetition, so
everything is fresh and adds to the conversation rather than repeating
it. So this is a great addition to the already comprehensive collection
of extras, which to be clear, have been carried over in full on the
Turbine release.
The 2022 edition came in an outer slipbox with a
hefty 196-page book (but remember, it's all in German), plus a fold-out
poster, six art cards and a replica of Frank Bannister's Psychic
Investigator business card. The three disc-set did away with all the
swag, but was also released in three cover slipbox variants (using the
same art pieces) with a back slip that does pass Grindhouse Mike's "does
it fit int he box" test. There's also a steelbook version of the three
disc set that comes in a slipcover.
So who knows? Maybe Arrow
will still come out with their version one of these days, and hopefully
not processed through Jackson's virtual reality machine. But even if
that day comes, I'm not sure there's much that bears improving upon
here.
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