The Skull Sessions

I’m in Windsor this week, doing some hosting and moderation duties at WIFF, which has not left me a lot of time for writing. But it’s Halloween, and how do you not find room for a little Skeletor action?

Okay, so Skeletor is the least interesting thing about the new Masters of the Universe. And I don’t think it’s entirely because he’s played by Jared Leto this time around; the world’s least appealing Method actor – which is really saying something, folks – is wholly unrecognizable under Skeletor’s CGI skull face, and his affected British-villain accent distances us even further from the actor’s usual voice. So that’s a win-win for people who like Masters of the Universe but would rather not think about Jared Leto while watching it.

Also, Skeletor is a bit player at best, standing around barking orders and demanding to be praised for his villainous quips and sneers – which is also pretty Method, I guess – while Alison Brie does most of the evildoing as his henchwoman Evil-Lyn. Brie understands the assignment, and has a great time. This is good.

Nicholas Galitzine is also having a lot of fun as Adam, prince of Eternos, who in this version of the story was sent to Earth as a child when Skeletor conquered his home world of Eternia. Adam does not find himself in the care of a kindly farm couple who raise him to be a superhero. He’s ended up as a guy who works in HR in Oklahoma City, and spends his free time having an endless series of first dates with nice girls who don’t want to hear his richly detailed memories of being extraterrestrial royalty. Stories he’d be able to prove, mind you, if he could just find the Sword of Power that accompanied him on his journey.

And guess what? He does find it, and gets whisked back to Eternia by his old pal Teela (Camila Mendes) and reunited with the remnants of his parents’ royal court. Brave warriors like Teela’s father Duncan (Idris Elba), whom Adam remembers as Man-At-Arms, and, um, Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), who hits people with his head, and Mekaneck (James Wilkinson), who has a telescoping neck with which he can strangle evildoers, and Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannessonn), who has, like, a really big punching hand.

Those are of course the names of Mattel’s original Masters of the Universe action figures, which director Travis Knight and his screenwriters – one of whom is Chris Butler, writer of Knight’s other 2026 feature Wildwood [WWW October 23] –hand-wave by deciding Adam remembers them as a kid would, for their cool powers and abilities. Man-At-Arms’ real name is Duncan, for example. This does not explain why Evil-Lyn, whom Adam never met, is named Evil-Lyn, but Brie makes it feel like a character choice.

Anyway, Adam is reunited with the faithful of Eternia and briefly discovers that he can recite some magic words and become the mighty warrior known as He-Man, even though his HR training still leaves him inclined to talk things through rather than fight. But when your opponent has a skull for a face and wants to kill you and all of your friends so he can claim your sword and rule forever, well, you’re gonna have to punch him out eventually.

That’s the only real conflict of Masters of the Universe, which runs 140 minutes and frequently struggles to fill that time with a compelling story. But I found myself happy to just follow it along. Knight states his intentions by flooding the speakers with Daniel Pemberton’s glorious electro-’80s score – featuring guitar solos by Brian May! – and juggles visually interesting action beats with silly little character moments that make it briefly possible that you can make a Masters of the Universe movie for the present day that isn’t bone-stupid, or as not-bone-stupid as it’s possible to be when you have a guy called Fisto who has a great big punching hand.

And the actors are into it. Idris Elba gets a modest character arc as the defeated Duncan, and Galitzine is exactly the right level of blandly likeable as Adam, whose performance is the feature-length version of Justin Long’s “I knew it!” guy from Galaxy Quest.

Sadly, the only thing people seem to know about this movie is that it failed to set the box office on fire earlier this summer, but I think it’ll find its audience in time. It’s pleasant and optimistic, and Knight uses the generic nature of the toys as an excuse to mash up elements of Star Wars and Highlander for our amusement. Who knew that was what the world needed in 2026?

Continuing with the skull thing, remember The Frighteners?

When Peter Jackson’s goofball horror extravaganza first hit theaters thirty years ago, no one quite knew what to do with it. Wasn’t this the guy who’d just made the dark, delicate and subtly queer period thriller Heavenly Creatures – and made stars of Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in the process? Didn’t he and his partner Fran Walsh get an Oscar nomination for writing that? (They did!) So why were they making Michael J. Fox run around yelling at a bunch of ghosts? Wasn’t that kind of a weird swerve?

But those of us who knew Jackson as the guy who cut his teeth on the truly unhinged horror comedies Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead-Alive understood Heavenly Creatures was the movie that was out of character. The Frighteners was an escalation of the giddy splatter movies he and Walsh loved so much, now with the backing of Universal Pictures and executive producer Robert Zemeckis.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Fox’ semi-fraudulent small-town psychic Frank Bannister spends most of the picture in shirts that are pretty close to the color of Marty McFly's T-shirt; this film means to play in the same ballpark. And while it doesn’t quite do that – Jackson’s directorial approach being a lot more chaotic than Zemeckis’ commercial polish – it does share a certain exuberance. Even at its grossest and weirdest, The Frighteners wants you to enjoy the ride.

So, Frank Bannister. Short-tempered town weirdo left with paranormal abilities after surviving a car wreck and losing his wife. He can talk to the dead, but he mostly talks them into helping him stage fake hauntings which he then “cleanses” for grateful homeowners. The ghosts are real, but the busting is staged. Until Frank runs into a haunting he didn’t set up in advance, and a spectral menace that starts sending him messages about its impending victims.

First to go is yuppie douche Ray Lynskey (Peter Dobson), obnoxious yuppie husband of nice local doctor Lucy (Trini Alvarado), who eventually joins Frank and Frank’s ghost pals Cyrus (Chi McBride), Stuart (Jim Fyfe) and the Judge (John Astin) in the hunt for a spirit who sure looks like the classical Grim Reaper. And it’s not long before Jeffrey Combs shows up as an unhinged FBI agent determined to prove that Frank is behind the murders, because why not.

You know how I said Masters of the Universe didn’t have enough plot for 140 minutes? The Frighteners has the opposite problem, running half an hour shorter in its theatrical cut and stuffed with enough material for a miniseries. Jackson eventually released a longer director’s cut, restoring 13 minutes of footage. Both edits are overstuffed, but that’s part of the fun: All the movies Jackson made before embarking on his Lord of the Rings adaptation are fever dreams – Heavenly Creatures included – and The Frighteners is a fever dream with a budget.

Universal positioned the film as a summer blockbuster, but July 1996 was already overrun by Twister and Independence Day, and audiences just weren’t interested in an R-rated horror comedy with Jackson’s specific weirdness. The vaguely menacing ad campaign was quickly replaced with TV spots that went hard on the “Michael J. Fox, you love him” angle, but people loved disaster movies more. Which, again, is a shame. Fox is solid in the role, letting us into the film’s supernatural universe as well as Frank’s gradual reawakening to life. He also sells the movie’s darkest gag: The moment Frank realizes he’s going to have to cross into the spirit world to save the day, he pulls a gun out of nowhere and puts it to his temple. It’s up to Lucy to suggest a more reversible approach.

The Frighteners found its audience on video, and Jackson found his true calling as an absolute maniac for special editions: Two years later, the director’s cut was given a deluxe laserdisc release in Universal’s Signature Collection, accompanied by The Making of The Frighteners, a production documentary directed by Jackson himself that runs three hours and 45 minutes and somehow doesn’t feel exhausting. The cult movie got the cult following it deserved, and after various DVD and Blu-ray editions Arrow has brought it to UHD in an even more excessive package.

Both cuts of the film are here, restored in 4K with a delicate HDR grade that brings out the subtle evanescence of Fox’s spirit sidekicks in ways that previous discs couldn’t capture. The director’s cut gets a new Dolby Atmos remix, but the original mixes for both versions are also included in DTS-HD, along with the 5.1 remix created for home video. Jackson’s audio commentary for the director’s cut is also here, along with the introduction he shot for a 10^th anniversary DVD.

That’s what’s on the 4K disc. The two supplemental Blu-rays go even deeper. Both cuts of the film are offered in their 1.78:1 open-matte versions, as Arrow did with its Chronicles of Riddick special edition. I guess they’ll have some appeal to people who first encountered The Frighteners in the cable era, but I think Jackson’s signature sweeping camera just plays better in scope.

Disc Three is the real draw, offering both the complete version of The Making of The Frighteners and a more recent doc, Christian Genzel’s No Way to Make a Living: A Look Back at The Frighteners, produced for a 4K set released in Germany by Turbine Media in 2022. Featuring new interviews with co-stars Jake Busey and Dee Wallace, producer Jamie Sekirk, cinematographer John Blick, production designer Grant Major, visual effects artist Wes Takahashi and creature and miniature effects artist Richard Taylor, it’s as comprehensive a catch-up as possible given the absence of most of the major players … so it only clocks in at 94 minutes. Another Turbine supplement pairs Taylor with composer Alexandre Poncet, who’s scored documentaries about Harryhausen and Tippet, for 40 minutes of affectionate conversation about Taylor’s specialty.

It’s an excellent set, and you can still grab it at a discount in Arrow’s Shocktober sale. (There’s also a Blu-ray edition, mastered from the same restoration but obviously less vivid.)

The Masters of the Universe 4K release offers a great presentation of the feature, with eye-popping colors and a Dolby Atmos mix I can only describe as “rambunctious.” Beast-Man bounces all over the soundstage in his first appearance, and it only gets wilder from there. Supplements are limited to 15 minutes of very short marketing-friendly blipverts, none of them running more than 90 seconds, and a “Skies of Eternia” drone stunt that somebody thought was cool.

... eh, just watch the movie. Where else are you going to see this specific thing?

It’s not too late to put together a couple’s costume, is all I’m saying.

Masters of the Universe and The Frighteners are available in individual 4K and Blu-ray editions from Alliance Entertainment and Arrow Video, respectively.

Up next: A big red box of Kubrick, just in time for the great big Criterion sale. Brace yourself.