The first film in which Peter Jackson started reaping the financial benefits of the success of
Heavenly Creatures casts Michael J. Fox as a conman trading as a medium and exorcist. The twist is that he does actually work with ghosts to achieve his stunts. Comeuppance for deceptions will be had, in any case, and when the ghost of a serial killer turns up to resume his record-breaking spree from beyond the grave, the charlatan must reluctantly step in to fix things.
Jackson is an imaginative filmmaker in his own right, but here he just seems to have channelled the spirit of Sam Raimi, complete with wacky characters, skewed angles and arch Danny Elfman soundtrack, and not added anything of his own. It's a degraded copy which starts perkily and then, bereft of its own ideas, descends into shouty hokum. This is a shame for Fox, as this was his last screen role to date.
4/10
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