The Frighteners is a 1996 New ZealandAmerican horror comedy film directed by Peter Jackson and cowritten with his wife, Fran Walsh. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffrey Combs, and Jake Busey. The Frighteners tells the story of Frank Bannister Fox, an architect who develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts after his wifes murder. He initially uses his new abilities to befriend ghosts, whom he sends to haunt people so that he can charge them handsome fees for exorcising the ghosts. However, the spirit of a mass murderer appears able to attack the living and the dead, posing as the ghost of the Grim Reaper, prompting Frank to investigate the supernatural presence.
In 1990, architect Frank Bannisters Michael J. Fox wife, Debra, dies in a car accident. He abandons his profession, and his unfinished dream house sits incomplete. Following the accident, Frank gained the power to see ghosts and befriends three 1970s street gangster Cyrus Chi McBride, 1950s nerd Stuart Jim Fyfe, and The Judge John Astin, a gunslinger from the Old West. The ghosts haunt houses so Frank can then exorcise them for a fee. Most locals consider him a con man.Soon after Frank cons local health nut Ray Lynskey Peter Dobson and his wife Lucy Trini Alvarado, a physician, Ray dies of a heart attack. Frank discovers there is an entity, appearing as the Grim Reaper, killing people, first marking numbers on their foreheads that only Frank sees. Franks late wife Debra had a similar number when she was found. ........
Source: Wikipedia