Phantoms (1998)

Arriving in a small Colorado town, sisters visiting find the whole area's disappearance to be the work of a race of long-dormant creatures looking to spread the word of their existence to the rest of the world and must rely on a famous scientist to help stop them from leaving.This was an overall solid creature feature. What works most in the film is its spectacular first-half which is a great idea to have such a powerful opening to the film, allowing for the opportunity for a lot of fun to this one. The deserted streets through the town are just simply eerie as the silence and desolation from the walk- through is pretty spine-chilling, while the fact that there's a sinister feeling with the discovery of the bodies and the feeling that there's an unseen presence watching everything going on gives these scenes an added feeling of doom. There's plenty of suspenseful scenes in this as well as there are simply tons of great scenes in the hotel that really stand-out to a big degree. The scenes with the strange tentacles breaking through the walls to launch attacks make for a fine time, and there's the great attack in the kitchen that is home to some of the biggest shocks in the film. The second half does have one memorable sequence, where the creature attacks a military team inside a church with the eerie lighting making the entire thing quite creepy, is blessed with a large amount of kills in here and some pretty great action pieces in here where it begins throwing them around and possessing others in order to turn their weaponry on the others gives this one plenty to like as well. The last big plus is that by keeping it an ongoing mystery as to what's the cause of the disappearances around town, there's a lot of suspense as to what the eventual source actually is making its appearance a nice shock. These are all the points that favor it as there wasn't a whole lot wrong with this one. The biggest flaw is that there's a huge tonal shift halfway through the film that really undermines a lot of these actions significantly. The beginning is a beautifully construed suspense tale that is an eerie, creepy and completely realistic depiction of a mysterious creature preying upon the town, yet the curve thrown as it goes into a normal science fiction film, complete with military scientists, cover-ups and a complete behavior shift from the creature itself is a weird shift. On more than one occasion, it has ample opportunity to attack and get to the characters, yet it lets them go simply for the reason that it wants its existence known. While that in itself doesn't work as a motive, completely demystifying the creature, that it would suddenly stop taking victims despite earlier on actually going to great lengths to get them seems a little off. Beyond one massacre scene that really works, it leaves the creature out of the spotlight and focuses on the hunt to discover what it is, and this is a little hard to swallow following what came before. This shift in tone is what really kills the film.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

I revisited "Phantoms" (1998) the other night, and I thought I'd just speak up briefly here on its behalf. Because this critically and popularly panned movie is one that I happened to like.Ben Affleck actually wasn't "'the bomb' in "Phantoms.'" (Referring to something as "the bomb" was, at one time, a high compliment in American slang.) He mostly phoned it in, and even seriously flubbed a scene or two. (Hey, I actually like the guy a lot, and I'm willing to give him a chance as the next Batman.) The headline above is actually some particularly meta humor from another character played by Affleck, in Kevin Smith's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (2001). Affleck was poking fun at himself a little here, along with his fellow denizens of Smith's "View Askewniverse."Roger Ebert dismissed "Phantoms" as "another one of those Gotcha! thrillers in which loathsome slimy creatures leap out of drain pipes and sewers and ingest supporting actors, while the stars pump bullets into them." You can read his entire review right here:http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/phantoms-1998No, "Phantoms" isn't classic sci-fi-horror. It's sometimes pretty thin stuff on a number of levels … but primarily the levels of acting and screen writing.But, dammit, I still liked this movie a lot. If you're a fan of the book (I've suggested it's Koontz' best), you'll be happy to discover that it indeed conscientiously sticks to its wicked-cool source material. We see a small Colorado mountain town where all the inhabitants have vanished; a clutch of wayward visitors then try to escape the same grisly, mysterious fate as its residents.)The book's central plot device is a nicely conceived and executed idea for a monster, with some effectively creepy historical and scientific context. (I can still remember a colonial victim's warning, which is referenced in the book, but not the movie: "It has no shape; it has every shape.")Despite its clunky script, the film brings us a story that is pretty intelligent — thanks to retaining so many elements of the novel. This is a thinking man's monster movie — like somebody rewrote "Beware the Blob" (1972), but put a hell of a lot of smarts and creativity into it. We've got two groups of bright people who fight back against "the Ancient Enemy," and their actions and strategies generally make sense.Also … Liev Schreiber does creepy incredibly well, and Peter O'Toole does everything incredibly well. The former's face and mannerisms do much to unsettle us. And the latter brings the "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) treatment to the fifties-esque trope of the monster- fighting hero scientist.Finally, this might be an odd thing to praise a film for, but I loved its sound effects. Because that voice (or voices) on the story's single working telephone was exactly how I wanted the adversary here to sound.Slam it all you want. I'll watch this one again.

Sadly the basis of the book was not translated very well to the big screen, now that special effects are much improved, it may be time to rekindle the dying embers of what should have been a great film.The taunting of the people in Snowfield, the arrival and setup of a cordon, the reason why Santa Mira police were there in the first place were all dismissed. Sadly in many ways, the whole point of the movie wasn't really realised because they were so focused on getting to the end that they seem to have entirely forgotten about the story, no suspense moments whatsoever, no what's gonna happen next..It was a major disappointment sadly because it didn't get the treatment it deserved; it should have been so much better, one can only hope that the script is redone; with a better understanding of the book and the nature of the story.

Directed by Joe Chappelle and written by Dean Koontz, who adapts from his own novel, Phantoms (not the greatest title all things considered) is a considerably well put together amalgamation of horror/sci-fi/creature feature tropes. If at times it feels clichéd and formulaic, then that is ultimately a curse of the cinematic genres it lives and breaths in.Plot basically has two sisters played by Rose McGowan and Joanna Going arriving in the town of Snowfield, Cololrado, to find most of the inhabitants dead, diseased or dismembered. A trio of coppers turn up played by Liev Schreiber (shifty malevolence), Ben Affleck (square jawed bastion of heroism) and Nicky Katt (fodder of course), and thus a fight for survival ensues as Peter O'Toole's sharp doctor character comes flying in to become the fulcrum of the story. So yep! There's something very evil and nasty at work here and the makers expand upon the reasons why with a drip-feed mixture of mad science and intelligent thematic ideas.The effects work is more than adequate and the strong cast list perform well up to scratch (nice to see O'Toole doesn't phone it in to denigrate the story). Things are taken very seriously throughout, the makers in no way biting the hand that feeds them, while the requisite insertions of jump - shocks - twists and mayhem are handled with care and attention by the director. You may come away as I did with a hunger to dig out your copy of John Carpenter's sublime The Thing? Which in truth is never a bad "thing," but this is still sturdy stuff, a pic caked in genre cement, and crucially it doesn't waste the time invested by the genre compliant viewers. 7/10