Many of the best effects tend to go unheralded. Those effects are so well done that audiences never even realize what they’re seeing is an effect at all; it’s just taken for granted. The Frighteners, first released 25 years ago in theaters on July 19, 1996, marks a transitional film for filmmaker Peter Jackson as well as his fuller submersion into exploring VFX. The Frighteners‘ VFX work often overshadows the practical makeup effects and ghost designs, though even they get an appreciative nod. The Frighteners also continues Jackson’s affinity for miniature work, but it blends so well that most never even realize it’s there.
Even the most precursory glance at Peter Jackson’s filmography indicates a filmmaker who enjoys playing around in special effects more than just about any other facet of filmmaking. From his early splatter phase that meant creating effects-heavy gore comedies from shoestring budgets shot over the weekends to large-scaled studio-driven fantasy epics, his trajectory just about covers it all. Before The Frighteners, Jackson directed the acclaimed Heavenly Creatures, the start of his dabbling with VFX. Armed with a much larger budget, Jackson expanded on the VFX for The Frighteners, using it to create the ghostly effects.
Beneath the computer-generated ectoplasm lay practical makeup effects. Legendary makeup effects artist Rick Baker notably designed and created the makeup for The Judge, the affable yet decaying gunslinger played by John Astin. Outside of Baker, the creature effects are attributed to long-time Jackson collaborator Richard Taylor, who created the gore and creature effects for Dead Alive (Braindead) and the puppets for Meet the Feebles. While Taylor and his team helped bring ghostly sidekicks Stuart (Jim Fyfe) and Cyrus (Chi McBride) to undead life, as well as Jake Busey‘s Grim Reaper-like Johnny Bartlett, Taylor is also credited for handling the miniature effects. Miniature effects that are so perfectly executed that you’d be hard-pressed to notice them at all if you didn’t read the opening credits.
Dead Alive (Braindead)
Miniatures and miniature photography make for a more economical means of capturing landscapes, environments, or events that couldn’t be replicated easily, if at all, in reality. In addition to Meet the Feebles’ puppet work, Taylor crafted the miniature model of the stretch limo, a variation of the Morris Minor also seen in Braindead and Bad Taste. Its most noticeable scene sees Bletch the Walrus ordering his driver to plow through a whale after a series of criminal hijinks at the docks. Jackson helped build the miniature sets in Braindead, an impressively intricate recreation of 1957 Wellington. Both used the more economical miniatures to varying effects. The former gave hand-crafted puppets DIY sets to match, while the latter recreated a bygone era through a cheaper means.
Jackson’s immediate follow-up to his 1996 horror-comedy, the award-winning The Lord of the Rings trilogy, most famously utilized “Bigatures,” or large-scaled miniature sets of Middle Earth’s most fantastical settings. Minas Tirith, Helm’s Deep, or the stairs of Khazad-Dum were just a few of the intricately crafted bigature sets created for the sprawling fantasy trilogy. Jackson’s take on 2005’s King Kong also continued using miniatures both on Skull Island and the SS Venture that ferried the giant ape.
The Lord of the Rings
Like The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, The Frighteners‘ use of miniatures gives the visual effects a sense of realism. Grounding VFX to a practical set helps to trick the eye. In a late scene that sees Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) searching for the Grim Reaper killer after being put under a hypothermic-induced sleep, Lucy (Trini Alvarado) gets kidnapped and taken to the cemetery. Jackson employs miniature photography, sweeping over the miniature sets of the town and through the graveyard to mimic the Grim Reaper’s POV as he eagerly hunts Lucy. A rotoscoped R. Lee Ermey is composited onto the miniature set in his confrontation with the VFX rendered Grim Reaper, who then continues his sweeping prowl. It ends in another composite shot, this time of Alvarado in the back of the mini patrol car nestled in the tiny graveyard.
The visual effects take the focus of these scenes. The viewer’s eye naturally follows the characters’ movements, and so the attention falls on Lucy’s attempts to break out of the patrol car or on the battle between ghosts. The use of miniatures helps make the VFX feel more authentic and textured. It’s so effective that Taylor’s exquisite miniature work often goes undetected. In that way, it’s another example of practical effects used to enhance visual effects, with the latter taking all of the credit.
The Frighteners shrunk in the shadows of box office juggernaut Independence Day in its initial release but -like most horror movies- developed a stalwart following in the decades since. The charming horror-comedy boasts a talented cast, new and fun rules for its world of ghosts, and the transition into digital effects. But for The Frighteners‘ silver anniversary, it’s long past time to pay respects to the practical work that laid the groundwork for the visual effects. Miniatures present one of the more unsung components of Jackson’s early work, at least pre-Lord of the Rings. While technology has increasingly negated the need for miniatures, it’s Jackson’s horror work with miniatures that reminds us why the artform is so remarkable.