52
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerEntertainment WeeklyKen TuckerThe Frighteners is also that rare horror film that actually gets better as it proceeds; this scare machine has a heart and a brain.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSaucy, scary and pleasantly unsettling.
- 67Austin ChronicleAustin ChronicleA thoroughly preposterous movie that's as outrageously entertaining as it is relentlessly chaotic.
- 63ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliFollowing director Peter Jackson's powerful, true-life matricide tale, Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners falls short of expectations by being just one of many in the long line of 1996 summer movies.
- 50Chicago TribuneGene SiskelChicago TribuneGene SiskelA dreary, needlessly violent and ugly comic thriller about a psychic hustler (Michael J. Fox) who gets more than he bargained for with his latest scam. Fox seems to be trying to get hip in the movies, and he's lost his way here.
- 50VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyStory was originally conceived as an episode of Tales From the Crypt, and that is perhaps what it should have remained, as the thinness of the conceit shows throughout, painfully so in the first half.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannSan Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannSmothers whatever merits it may have had in a rush of bells, whistles, bombast and smoke.
- 50San Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserSan Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserThe Frighteners is a gooey pastiche of Casper, Ghost, Poltergeist, Back to the Future (it's produced by Future director Robert Zemeckis), Ghostbusters, and episodes of Columbo.
- 42The A.V. ClubThe A.V. ClubAn overlong, overstuffed mess with only sporadic moments of clarity and purpose.
- 25Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertLast year, I reviewed a nine-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen, and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners.