The Phantom Empire

"The Phantom Empire" stars Ross Hagen and Dawn Wildsmith as low-rent salvage experts hired by rich girl Suzy Stokey to investigate caves that could potentially contain a windfall of jewels. With Jeffrey Combs (a paleontologist) and Robert Quarry (a mineralogist) in tow, they discover a tribe of sexy cavewomen, Robby the Robot, and B movie goddess Sybil Danning as a feisty alien queen.

Admittedly, "The Phantom Empire" is awfully slow to start, but at least director-producer-co-writer Fred Olen Ray has a sense of humor about what he does, much like his peer Jim Wynorski. The movie is VERY goofy nonsense, but it's too irreverent to dismiss outright. What helps is that scene-stealer Wildsmith has a plethora of sardonic dialogue, as well as constant unimpressed reactions to all the insane stuff the characters experience.

The movie does also benefit from the presence of Michelle Bauer, who, like Danning, is a constant welcome presence in diversions like this; here she plays a mute cave bunny who wears little and is always helping out our heroes. But the movie never really hits its stride until Sybil shows up. (About 55 minutes into the running time.) There are some mildly amusing stop-motion dinosaurs that wouldn't past muster in a Ray Harryhausen picture, but let's face it: Sybil and Michelle are the reasons why many guys will enjoy it as much as they do.

At its best, this is an agreeable update of Z-grade movies of decades past, a mash-up of "The Lost World" and "The Time Machine", with dime store versions of the Morlocks from the latter story.

Six out of 10.

This is hilarious. A classic camp movie, it's just awful in every way. The acting is half a step above terrible, the soundtrack is horrendous, and the directing is barely mediocre. Yet it was still fun, for me at least. The plot alone was enough to watch it. It should have been called "Attack of the Amazon Women from Outer Space Who Have Robots and Who Fight Underground Cannibals and Capture Normal People." Absolutely hilarious. Enjoyable if you're a fan of campy films, but still just a 3 out of 10.

The Phantom Empire (1988) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a young lady whose father disappeared in caves looking for some diamonds but was killed by something in the cave. The young lady hires a team to find her father and the diamonds but will they suffer the same fate as the father?

This movie is directed by Fred Olen Ray (Spidora) and stars Jeffrey Combs (The Frightners), Ross Hagen (Wonder Women), Dawn Wildsmith (Surf Nazis Must Die), Sybil Danning (Halloween), Suzy Stokey (Star Slammer) and Robert Quarry (Count Yorga, Vampire).

The settings for this movie are very well selected and the cave scenes are well shot and delivered. The cast is awesome and I loved both Combs and Danning in this. The movie starts with a great kill and decapitation and then takes some time to get going again. The special effects are inconsistent with the robot being cool, dinosaur sequence being fun but dated and the futuristic cars being cool. The women are gorgeous and there's some great female fight scenes in this with of course, a few flashes of nudity. The writing is nothing special but the concept keeps your attention from beginning to end.

Overall, this is an average movie that's still worth a watch. I would score this a 5-5.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

....and that happens at around the 50-minute mark, when Sybil (as a character in the film exclaims, "WOW!") Danning appears, well-cast as a fighting alien queen. Up until then "The Phantom Empire" is a plodding, sleep-inducing trek, and the cannibals with Halloween masks over their faces and old rags for clothes are beneath Z-grade cinema. The sole bright spot is Michelle Bauer as a bikini-clad "cave bunny". After Danning's entrance, the viewer can at least focus on her phenomenal figure, and it's easier to forgive the unimpressive stop-motion animation effects (I think "One Million Years B.C.", from 1965, has a better dinosaur battle than the one featured here). But if you want to see something from Fred Olen Ray that looks more like a real film and less like a college project, seek out his "Cyclone" from the following year. (*1/2)

P.S.: To claim that you watched this film "for the dinosaurs" is like claiming that you watched "Jurassic Park" for the T & A.

On the disc this was on, before the movie started there was a word (actually more than that) from the director. We apparently get him in his home with his wife (I did not check if this is factually correct), just to get a side character from the movie invading - or is it from the movie? If you find this funny, you're in for a treat with the movie itself (though do not expect nearly as much nudity as you get to see in this short).

You have to actually shut your brain off, not care about the movies actual intro (after we get to see quite a decent effect for a low budget movie), that edits the opening credits with a detective style throwback ... it tries to be funny but does not really succeed. What it does though from time to time (maybe) - it surprises you with some neat choices. Like making the female assistant be more macho than the detective himself. A nice touch, if you care enough. Otherwise very low production values but a nice throwback to claymation towards the end - does it make sense? No not at all - but if you are looking for that, you are way wrong here