The Frighteners

In 1964, in the town of Fairwater, Johnny Bartlett is executed for murdering 12 people at Fairwater sanatorium, driven by his desire to become the most prolific serial killer. His teenage lover, Patricia Ann Bradley, is sentenced to prison despite a lack of evidence that she helped Bartlett. Decades later, she is released into her mother's custody. In 1990, architect Frank Bannister is living a selfish, strained marriage with his wife, Debra. During a heated argument, he drunkenly crashes his car, and police later find Debra dead nearby, with the number "13" carved into her forehead. Though Frank has no memory of the incident, the trauma leaves him able to see the spirit world. In the present, he lives in the decrepit shell of the house he was building for Debra. Consumed by guilt, he has become a cynical con man, using his abilities to "exorcise" hauntings staged by ghostly partners—streetwise Cyrus, nerdy Stuart, and The Judge, an Old West gunslinger. During a job at the home of physician Lucy Lynskey and her arrogant husband Ray, Frank notices the number "37" glowing on Ray's forehead. Ray dies shortly after of a heart attack. Helping Lucy communicate with Ray's ghost, Frank witnesses a Grim Reaper–like entity crush the heart of another man marked "38". Panicked, Frank flees and follows a heavenly light to the museum, where he finds the number 39 victim. Soon after, a newspaper editor, Magda Rees-Jones—who had previously accused Frank of Debra's murder—becomes victim number 40. The Reaper destroys The Judge in the process. The mounting deaths implicate Frank, and he surrenders to the police. He is interrogated by Milton Dammers, a disturbed FBI agent traumatized by years of physical and sexual torture while working undercover in Satanic cults. Dammers is convinced Frank killed Debra and is psychically causing the unexplained heart attacks. Lucy visits Frank in jail, and they form a bond over shared loss. When the Reaper marks Lucy as victim 41, Cyrus and Stuart sacrifice themselves to save her and Frank. Unable to protect Lucy as a human, Frank has her induce a near-death state, slowing his heart with drugs and sealing him in a freezer. Dammers intervenes, capturing Lucy and leaving Frank to die, but Frank's spirit escapes and damages the pursuing Reaper's form, revealing it to be Bartlett himself. After Frank revives, Lucy warns Patricia, her patient, about Bartlett, only to learn Patricia has remained devoted to him. Using his ashes she summoned his spirit from Hell to continue their killing spree, and murders her own mother to protect him. Frank and Lucy trap Bartlett in his urn and flee to the derelict sanatorium, planning to use its chapel to banish him to Hell. Pursued through the ruins by Patricia and Dammers, Frank experiences visions of the 1964 massacre, showing that Patricia actively participated in the killings. Frank also recalls that Bartlett's ghost murdered Debra, while Patricia carved the number into her forehead. Dammers unwittingly frees Bartlett from the urn and is promptly killed by Patricia. Patricia strangles Frank to death, but Frank's spirit forcibly pulls Patricia's from her body and drags it toward Heaven, forcing Bartlett to follow. Bartlett frees her, but the pair are seized by a demonic force and dragged into Hell. In Heaven, Frank is reunited with Cyrus, Stuart, and Debra, who restore him to life on Earth; Debra tells him to be happy. Some time later, Frank demolishes the unfinished house and begins a relationship with Lucy, who has now also gained the ability to see ghosts.

Plot from The FrightenersCC BY-SA 4.0