YMMV / The Frighteners

• Awesome Music:
  • The score was written by the legendary Danny Elfman.
  • "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult, covered in this film by The Mutton Birds, which plays over the end credits.
    • Though their cover conspicuously lacks the now famous cowbell
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Early in the film, a ghost dog named Rusty appears, stealing the Judge's jaw and running off for a bit before Frank catches it. After that, Rusty is never seen or mentioned again.
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Bartlett and Patricia get viciously tortured by the snakes in the worm taking them to Hell is insanely therapeutic and cool.
• Crosses the Line Twice: At the museum, after the Judge shoots death, he decides to have sex with a mummy.
• Cry for the Devil: Although Agent Dammers is a creepy guy who continuously antagonizes Frank throughout the movie because of his refusal to see things differently, it's eventually revealed that his behavior is due to the immense amount of trauma he's gone through while infiltrating the worst of the worst, and he has the scars to prove it, yet he feels no regret because he felt it was all in the service of his country. While it doesn't excuse his actions, it certainly makes Dammers more sympathetic than the main antagonists. As you can see if you look at the comments sections of some videos relating to him, a good few viewers ended up feeling kind of bad for him and wish he could have teamed up with Frank at the end.
• Cult Classic: The movie despite originally being a Box Office Bomb has gained a lot of affection and interest in the years since to the point that it's starting to become a new favorite around Halloween each year.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Bartlett is outraged at a "Russian cannibal creep" who claims to have killed over 50 people and vows that he will beat that "record". Said Russian is heavily implied to be Andrei Chikatilo. Between 1992 and 2006, another Russian, Alexander Pichushkin, killed between 48-60 people in what some have speculated was an attempt to top Chikatilo's body count.
    • What makes it even harsher is that twisted version of some kind of national pride was one of Pichushkin's reasons. Chikatilo was Ukranian. Pichushkin wanted to outshine both Chikatilo personally and general Eastern European stereotype of "Ukranian maniac/psycho".
  • The scene in which Dammers confronts Frank with his Inspector Javert beliefs that Frank killed everybody the Reaper did (including Frank's own wife) and then sees Frank's hands shaking uncontrollably is this considering that Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1991 but didn't disclose his condition to the public until about two years after the film's release.
  • The outtakes where Michael J. Fox keeps saying "Doc" instead of "Judge" (getting his movies confused) are a little awkward to see, given that Parkinson's can affect memory.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A skilled but highly eccentric detective will stop at nothing to catch a killer whom he believes can kill his victims without ever touching them (usually via heart attack). Granted, in this case, the detective is the bad guy and an Inspector Javert, but... additionally, there's also a serial killer fangirl who kills to express her love for said serial killer.
  • Johnny Bartlet in his Soul Collector form bares a strong resemblance to a Ringwrath.
  • Michael J. Fox here plays a man given ghost-related powers by a near-death experience. David Kaufman, who played Fox's role in the Back to the Future series, would later become best known for playing a boy given ghost-related powers by a near-death experience.
• Jerkass Woobie: Dammers' work as an undercover agent among cultists caused him to sustain multiple massive mutilations and drove him to the brink of insanity, with no apparent outside support or efforts of deprogramming. In the extended version, it's also revealed he had been a victim of Charles Manson and his "Family" in 1969.
• Magnificent Bastard: Frank Bannister gained the ability to see spirits after the death of his beloved wife. Befriending local ghosts, Frank cons townsfolk into paying him for exorcisms to complete the dream home he promised his spouse. When the spirit of murderer Johnny Bartlett, his wife's true killer, resurfaces, Frank teams up with Dr. Lucy Lynskey to escape the skeptical police, even setting up one zealous agent to get killed by Bartlett's equally psychotic lover, saving Lucy and damning the killers to move on with his life happily with Lucy.
• Special Effect Failure: The CGI and chroma keying used to portray the ghosts, Grim Reaper, and various apparitions has not aged very well, with a lot of stretching textures, unnaturally glossy surfaces, uneven lighting, and jarringly unconvincing movements. In particular, the Hellmouth shown dragging Patricia and Dammers to the underworld at the end looks like PlayStation game cutscene.
• Spiritual Successor (no pun intended): To Beetlejuice:
  • Both are Horror Comedies that offer their own spin on exorcisms.
  • In both films the main leads have their lives dramatically changed by a car accident involving their spouse.
  • In both films the Big Bad is defeated through being Swallowed Whole by a gigantic worm-looking monster.
  • Both films have been scored by Danny Elfman.
  • Frank and Lucy gaining the ability to see ghosts after a traumatic experience harkens back to Lydia being able to do so due to her "strange and unusual" nature following her mother's death and Delia and Charles also gaining that ability after being terrified during the climax.
• Squick:
  • Have you ever seen hot ghost-on-mummy action?
    The Judge: I like it when they lie still like that!
  • It gets even squickier when you realize Peter Jackson would later work with Sean Astin, the son of John Astin (The Judge).^note Due to his mother Patty Duke's numerous relationships, Sean Astin actually has four men, including his biological father, that he considers equal members of the role, but John is the one who raised him in childhood. There may have been some awkward moments there.
• Vindicated by History: The movie was judged harshly in the past for not having a lot of story to it and just hand waved as a schlock Horror comedy with impressive visual effects. Since then, it being seen as such is the very reason now why more people are checking it out today. Peter Jackson being such a big director and this being one of his earlier efforts also plays a big part in that too.

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