From Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson (King Kong, The Lord of the Rings) comes this wicked comedy thriller.

Michael J. Fox stars as Frank Bannister, a small-town "ghostbuster" in league with the very spirits he's supposed to be exorcising. The scam works well until a powerful spirit goes on a murderous rampage, forcing Frank to find a way to stop the diabolical ghoul in this special-effects-packed supernatural chiller that's so fiendishly entertaining, it's frightening!

Special Features:
Digitally remastered Director's Cut inclues 14 minutes of additional footage

A special introduction to the film by Academy Award-winning director PETER JACKSON

Storyboarding of key scenes, including the Slimeface and Blobman sequence, with commentary by PETER JACKSON

In-depth feature commentary by PETER JACKSON, his first feature commentary ever! Throughout his commentary, Jackson points out the deleted scenes that have been incorporated back into the movie, making this the "Director's Cut"

The Making of The Frighteners, a full-length documentary on the making of the film, directed by PETER JACKSON and featuring interviews with MICHAEL J. FOX, TRINI ALVARADO, DEE WALLACE STONE, JAKE BUSEY and CHI MCBRIDE. This documentary also includes:
*Outrageous bloopers
*Lost Footage Found: The Gatekeeper, The Judge and other deleted scenes
*Ghost Stories: Jackson and actor Jim Fyfe share their actual, personal close encounters with ghosts
*Script Development: Jackson describes taking an idea from the treatment stage to a full shooting script.
*Behind-the-scenes cast rehearsal
*Extensive exploration of the spectacular special effects, motion control and blue-screen techniques
*Introduction to Jackson's visual-effects facility, WETA
*Close-up look at the use of miniatures
AND MORE!

At last! The 'holy grail' for all Frighteners fans has finally arrived!

The director's cut of The Frighteners contains 14 extra minutes of footage which includes several special effect shots, a few more character exposition scenes and a strangely funny walking-chicken gag.

While I enjoyed seeing new footage, I do have to admit that the theatrical cut of the film flowed much more smoothly. The director's cut seemed to drag just a bit in the beginning and there was only one segment of footage that I wish would have been left in the theatrical cut.

The transfer is beautiful and the sound mix is very rich. About halfway through the movie the score finally settles down and matches what's going on in the plot and there's quite a bit of good Elfman music in there.

Peter Jackson's commentary is very informative and there were few silent gaps. He doesn't simply say things like, "Oh, I remember that day. It was fun. Yeah. Watch this. Cool, huh?" There are WAY too many commentaries like that out there. Bleah.

The feature-length documentary (well, feature length for Peter Jackson - it's 3 1/2 hours long) was extremely detailed. It contains interviews with almost all of the cast including Jim Fyfe and Jeffrey Combs (who were not mentioned on the back of the box, grrr). It contains even more deleted scenes, bloopers and some great information.

One of my favorite sections of the documentary was the discussion of story and gag development. Michael J. Fox, Chi McBride and Jim Fyfe would all get together at Peter Jackson's house and work out what they were going to do on-screen. I hadn't known how collaborative the movie had been with all the actors allowed to input their own ideas. A videotape of one of these sessions is included in the documentary.

I recommend this disc highly and give it an A+ rating. Now, go buy it and watch the dancing chicken!