One movie lover s nightmare is another s raucous joyride, and this special effects-laden horror comedy is bound to split both camps right down the middle. (Or, as Leonard Maltin s Movie & Video Guide puts it, definitely not for all tastes but a wild time for those who get into it.) Michael J. Fox plays a psychic investigator who can actually see ghosts, and lives with a trio of undead spirits who scare people to promote Fox s ghost-busting business. In a town infamous for serial killings, a new series of deaths prompts Fox to induce his own out-of-body experience so he can battle death in a spirit-plagued netherworld where evil reigns supreme--or something like that. So much happens in this chaotic film that you might feel like you re watching several movies at once--a slasher pic, a supernatural thriller, and a black comedy all rolled into a nonstop showcase for grisly makeup and a dozen varieties of special effects. It s an odd but wildly inventive film from New Zealand director Pet...

#Peter Peter, excentric director! (2007-11-21) That s right! It seems everytime Peter Jackson decides to embark on a project, he thinks to himself Allright. . . after I ll be done with this movie, nobody will ever be able to make a better one!And he succedes! With Braindead (Dead Alive), he took the zombies movies and took them to a place so extreme, so gory. . . that I do not think someone will be able to top the blood/gut level of it. With the Lord of the Rings trilogy. . . do I need to say more? There has been a lot of copycats in recent years but none of these adventure/quest mo...

#Wicked fun (2007-04-21) Just before doing Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson (who can be seen in a cameo as Man with Piercings) made an off-kilter horror/comedy movie called The Frighteners, the tale of the undead and the guy who makes a living off of them. Though Frighteners was barely in theaters at all, this cult flick is funny, creepy, well-acted and wonderfully directed. Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) has seen spirits and apparitions ever since the car crash that killed his wife. Now he operates an amateur ghostbusting operation that is supposed to exorcise ghosts fro...

#A very funny look at spirits and the afterworld! (2004-06-05) I saw this movie in the theater years ago and I have always loved it! It is quite a thriller. . . . fasten your seatbelt! I was laughing, crying, and screaming all at the same time. A must for any collection

#A well thought out horror/comedy (2004-06-04) This is one of those well done movies that balances several genres into a single story. On the one hand, you have Bannister s (Fox) tragic character who never fully got over the death of his wife. And his grief has made him pretty self destructive, so he s fallen from a successful and wealthy architect to a con-man living in his own, half-finished masterpiece. On the flipside of this are his partners in crime, the ghosts who scare Bannister s potential clients into hiring him in the first place. The humor gets pretty bizarre at time...

#Creepy Good Fun! (2004-06-04) Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) had pretty much given up on life since his wife died in a freak car accident. He was an up and coming architect before the wreak, but ever since he watched his wife die before his eyes, whispers have followed him around town that he murdered her in cold blood. Frank s erratic behavior since the car accident don t help matters any and its not like most people believe that he can really see ghosts, even though he can. Something about being so close to death opened his eyes and Frank found himself a new line of work as ...

A suave tennis player (Ray Milland) plots the perfect murder, the dispatching of his wealthy wife (Grace Kelly), who is having an affair with a writer (Robert Cummings). Amazingly, the wife manages to stave off her attacker, a twist of fate that challenges the hubby s talent for improvisation. Alfred Hitchcock wisely stuck to the stage origins of Dial M for Murder, ignoring the temptation to open up the material from the home of the unhappy couple. The result may not be one of Hitchcock s deepest films, but it s a thoroughly engaging chamber movie. It also features Grace Kelly at her loveliest, the same year she made Rear Window with Hitchcock. Dial M for Murder was filmed in the briefly trendy 3-D process, and Hitchcock shot some scenes to bring out the depth of the 3-D field, it s especially good for the nail-biting attempted murder of Kelly, and her desperate reach for a pair of scissors that seems to be just outside her grasp. However, the film was rarely shown with the proper 3-D ...

#Do you really believe in the perfect murder? (2007-03-16) Do you really believe in the perfect murder? Tony Wendice (Ray Milland), a former tennis player, does. That is the reason why he decides that asking someone to kill his beautiful and very rich wife is a good idea. But why kill someone just for the sake of doing so? Truth to be told, Tony is afraid that Margot (Grace Kelly) will ask him for divorce in order to marry Mark (Robert Cummings), an American writer she had a brief affair with after marrying Tony. Margot decided to stay with her husband, and is not aware of the fact t...

#At Last!!! (2004-07-12) I have been one of the many people who have sent in, demanding that this DVD be released and now it is! This is a great Hitchcock thriller and most of his films are on DVD, so why not this one. At Last!!!

#Hitchcock Timeout (2004-07-10) According to the director himself and no less an authority than Grace Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock directed this filmed stage play purely to kill time while readying his next picture Rear Window. He was completely disinterested in the plot - (and no wonder) - a stupid theatrical concoction about misplaced keys and a bungled murder scheme. He found time however to fall in love with Kelly and tried to wardrobize her, something he would put in the movie Vertigo five years later. Dial M is watchable primarily because of the suave performances of Ray Millan...

#Interesting movie! (2004-06-28) This is a great Alfred Hitchcock movie. It s one that is even better the second time you see it. Now, about the DVD, does anyone know what the difference is between this one, and the other Dial M for Murder DVD that isn t released yet?? I was confused by that. . . Please respond if you can help!

#Good. (2004-04-26) I can t remember the storyline from Dial M for Murder too much, but I do remember liking it. Once again, the master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock manages to make a fantastic film from a limited story setting.