Before Lord Of The Rings, Peter Jackson Directed A Classic Michael J. Fox Movie

Universal Pictures

If you had tried to tell people in the early 1990s that Peter Jackson would one day become an Oscar-winning technical maverick and renowned blockbuster filmmaker, you might've gotten some odd looks. At the time, Jackson was known as the weirdo Kiwi behind ultra low-budget, transgressive gross-out horror comedies like the 1987 alien invasion flick "Bad Taste" and the 1989 puppet musical "Meet the Feebles" (which canonically exists in the "Muppets" universe, believe it or not). He then got his first taste of prestige with his award-winning 1994 true story crime drama "Heavenly Creatures," a film that's frustratingly near-impossible to stream today.

However, it was 1996's "The Frighteners" — a mid-budget supernatural horror comedy that nonetheless required a then-unprecedented amount of CGI to realize — that really paved the way for Jackson and the New Zealand based Wētā Workshop's landmark "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Directed by Jackson (who also penned the script with his partner Fran Walsh), the film stars Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister, a once reputable architect who's suddenly able to see ghosts after his wife dies under suspicious circumstances. And though Frank initially uses this newfound ability to con folks by recruiting his dead companions to haunt the locals (who, in turn, pay Frank to "remove" the pesky spirits), he finds a nobler calling upon setting out to defeat a wicked specter who's been killing the living while masquerading as the Grim Reaper.

Overall, "The Frighteners" was a critical success but a box office bomb, and it failed to win over one particularly well-known critic at the time. (More on that later.) Even so, it proved that Jackson and Wētā were up for both the artistic and logistical challenges of bringing Middle-earth to life. Indeed, it's a ghoulishly giddy romp.

Universal Pictures

Calling "The Frighteners" the best "Tales from the Crypt" movie never made is more appropriate than you might think. Having gotten wind that Robert Zemeckis wanted to direct a film version of HBO's revered comic book-inspired horror anthology TV show (which he was an executive producer on), Peter Jackson's agent pitched Zemeckis "The Frighteners" with the idea being that he could re-purpose it as a "Tales from the Crypt" spin-off. Instead, Zemeckis decided to produce the movie with Jackson directing it, feeling that it didn't need the franchise hook.

He was right. Making a horror comedy that's equally funny and scary is harder than it looks, but Jackson and his crew handle that challenge with aplomb in "The Frighteners." The film's humor tends to be broad, but the jokes typically hit their target. In the same way, the movie's villain is genuinely nasty and macabre, and the CGI ghost effects have barely lost a step (save for, admittedly, the now somewhat wonky-looking Grim Reaper). Most of all, Jackson imbues "The Frighteners" with his distinct sense of visual dynamism, packing it with grisly imagery — plus a zestfully spooky score by Danny Elfman, another "Tales from the Crypt" veteran — and keeping the action rolling along at a fittingly frenetic pace.

Of course, "The Frighteners" lacks the substance of Jackson's better-known work, so much so that Roger Ebert (perhaps the movie's most high-profile detractor) claimed it's a film where "nothing of interest happens" in his one-star review. But if you're looking for a spirited mix of laughs and terror with a simple yet sincere moral (don't allow your pain and grief to stop you from doing good in the world), then consider going ghost-hunting with Michael J. Fox.