Trivia / The Frighteners

• Actor-Inspired Element: It was Jeffrey Combs who suggested the Adolf Hitler-inspired haircut for his character, to show Milton Dammers' extreme sense of nationalism after serving his country for so long. Combs also suggested two ear appliances, which made his ears stick out quite comically, and several of Dammers' chest tattoos.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Danny Elfman was so impressed with Heavenly Creatures that he offered to do the score for one of Peter Jackson's next movies, and agreed to do this movie without even knowing what it was about.
• Banned in China: The film was not released to theaters in Tasmania. The Port Arthur Massacre rather spookily mirrored the film's content and happened not long before the film's release. It was released on video and subsequently broadcast.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $26 million. Box office, $16,759,216 (domestic), $29,359,216 (worldwide).
• California Doubling: Inverted. While set in California, the movie was filmed in the port town of Lyttelton, New Zealand, a suburb of Christchurch. Frank, Lucy, and Ray (as a ghost) dine at the Sign of the Takehe, a nearby manor house that, in real life, had been converted into a restaurant.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: The Japanese dub features film actor/newscaster/narrator Ichirōta Miyakawa voicing Frank Bannister.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Italy the movie was released as "Suspended in Time".
  • "Ghosts against Ghosts" in France.
  • "Cute Ghosts" in Turkey.
  • "Ghost Gang" in Finland.
  • "One Man and Three Ghosts" in Romania.
  • "Get Me Those Ghosts" in Spain.
  • "Scared to Death" in Mexico.
• Deleted Role: A character, the Gatekeeper, was deleted from the movie. He was supposed to be a 6-foot cherub and function as a sidekick to R. Lee Ermey's Hiles, but all remnants of him was removed completely from the movie when it was realized that his character, besides being superfluous, didn't really make a lick of sense within the universe of the movie.
• Divorced Installment: The film was originally going to be a Tales from the Crypt movie, but when the producers thought it had potential as its own story, it was reworked into one without any connection to that series.
• Early Draft Tie-In: The novelization by Michael Jahn is based on an early draft of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh's screenplay. In it, Johnny and Patricia's surnames are switched, and The Judge and Rusty the dog continue to play parts in the story.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The film was originally intended to open close to Halloween, but Universal was so impressed with the rough cut of the film that they pushed up the release to July 19, 1996 (against Peter Jackson's wishes) as they didn't have anything opening that month. The choice of date (less than three weeks after Independence Day opened, combined with the Atlanta Summer Olympics starting that day) was considered by Jackson the main reason why the film flopped at the box office.
  • Some good Executive Meddling came out of this movie. Jackson making this movie for only $26 million (with the incredible effects done at his company Weta Digital) were what convinced studio heads that a large-scale production of The Lord of the Rings could be done without an exorbitant budget.
• Fake American: Canadian Michael J. Fox once again uses an American accent to portray Frank Bannister.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Despite playing a maniac who wields a shotgun with glee, Dee Wallace has a deep dislike of firearms.
• No Stunt Double: Michael J. Fox performed many of his own stunts in the film. He broke his foot by a simple fall while filming in the forest at night. Peter Jackson said Fox's injury was actually a blessing in disguise, because it allowed him to work on the script some more and edit some of the film's scenes, while Fox recovered for a week.
• Playing with Character Type: Dee Wallace, who is known for portraying likable leads in movies like The Howling, Cujo, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, portrays a vulnerable woman whose lover was a killer until it is all shown to be an act and she was complicit in his crimes. Jackson has stated that a major factor for casting the much-loved Wallace was so the audience would sympathize with her from the start, making the rug pull even more shocking.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Blue Öyster Cult's 1976 song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", as performed by The Mutton Birds, is featured in the film's ending credits.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were a few different ideas for The Grim Reaper's special effects. They considered doing things like using a puppet or putting a person in a cloak and filming them at a different speed, but couldn't get a satisfying result, so they just went with CGI. The CGI does help to make the Reaper seem much more alien and frightening.
  • Robert Zemeckis was originally going to direct the film, but after he was impressed with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh's first draft of the screenplay, Zemeckis decided to have Jackson direct it. Tim Burton was one of the studio's top choices to direct.
  • Matthew Broderick, Tom Cruise, John Cusack, and Danny DeVito were considered for Frank Bannister if Michael J. Fox turned down the part.

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