So I took a break to walk the dog around the block after writing this, and it was still running through my mind. What's interesting about the structure of this film is that it has the feel of being divided into three acts, each in their own genre:

Act One, the comedy: They wacky hijinks of Michael J. Fox and the dead, along the tone of Ghostbusters or Beetlejuice.

Act Two, the comic book adventure: There's an evil cloaked figure preying on the innocent, and our hero has to come to terms with the fact that, with his powers, he's the only one with a chance to stop it in a climactic battle.

Act Three, the horror film: It's not that easy as the horror stands revealed. To finally put an end to it will require our protagonists to take a mind trip through a chilling mass murder while scrambling for their lives through a dilapidated abandoned hospital.


It's definitely an interesting attempt to get from "Beetlejuice" to "The Shining" by transitioning through a hero film on the way. I think "Buffy" handles things by keeping to the first two acts and foregoing the third entirely... Had the battle between Michael J. Fox and the Reaper character resolved the matter, then it would have fit well within the tone of your average Buffy adventure (and probably had a much greater chance for being a commercial hit.)

Jackson, however, pushes further into unsettling territory, and there's a decided tonal shift as the monstrous spirit casts off the more theatrical, comic-book appearance into something more grounded and disturbing. I think the film loses a segment of the audience that was not prepared for an actual horror film to break out of this comedy-adventure they thought they signed up for, and I think horror fans didn't show up to the theater at all after the trailer suggested it was a toothless zany comedy.

These kinds of tonal transitions are easier to pull off in prose than they are on film, no doubt, as I find that the readers inject their own preferences and expectations of tone onto the characters and events to even out the overall work. There's less worry that an actor will play a part too broadly... The same scripted opening interaction between Urthula and Vinnie could be interpreted as witty, understated banter or broad sitcom style delivery depending on the actors and direction of a film, either one likely to upset the total balance of the piece. However, in the reader's mind these things tend to smooth over just fine as they form an evolving expectation of tone over the course of a work rather than a knee-jerk reaction to the first scene.

It's a fairly interesting challenge to go from one extreme to the other... I look forward to seeing you tackle it.