Fantasmas

This may have been based on a Dean Koontz novel, but Phantoms should acknowledge itself as being an unofficial remake of an old Hammer Studios film, X The Unknown, with which it shares it's main antagonist. The only real difference is that Phantoms lends a more mystical slant to the idea (though primarily just at the beginning of the movie).

As a horror film, this movie is fun...very reminiscent of a good old 50's or 60's horror movie that immediately immerses you in the situation. The one problem with the film is that each character is interesting by themselves, but they don't really gel together that well as a whole. Peter O'Toole is at his quirky best, and Ben Affleck is always enjoyable, so it's really hard to complain about that.

The SFX are okay to middling, but work well with the atmospheric cinematography.

Definitely worth a rent!

This film was a fascinating melding of various classics and not-so-classics of the creature feature genre done with style. It did exactly what a good B-movie Sci-fi should do: Rip off better films and do it knowingly with tongue firmly in cheek. The cast was interesting and had decent star power for the grade of motion picture (film legend Peter O'Toole, "Scream 2" Star Liev Schreiber, Ben Affleck and "Boston Publics" Nicky Katt"), except for Rose McGowan, who, as talented as she is, was way too old to play a 14-year-old. It was also good to see Ben Affleck not trying to win awards in some silly Michael Bay movie. Whoever did the makeup effects must have seen 1989's "Leviathan" and the script had elements of the movies "Leviathan," "The Thing," "Virus" and even the remake of "The Blob" (the final scene had shots that were exactly the same, minus the snow machine, of course) In short, if you are kicking back and want to see something with some cool effects but not much thought, rent this and have some fun.

Phantoms is one of my favorite horror/sci-fi films of all time (which is saying a lot). I've seen it several times and I find it still is entertaining. I actually purchased the book after I viewed the film and now it is one of my favorite books as well. Ben Affleck is good as the hero in the film. This was made before he made it as a big time star. Even Peter O' Toole does a very credible job as a "National Enquirer" type reporter. The tension is well placed throughout the movie. What I really enjoyed about the story was as the audience you didn't really see what the creature(s) looked like during the movie. You were given bits and pieces (pardon the pun) of this "monster" throughout the movie. Even as the movie ended it left it wide open for a sequel, which probably won't happen because it did not do well at the box office. However, if another movie company did decide to make a sequel, direct to video, I would be the first to rent it. I really did not want the movie to end. That is how much I enjoyed it. I'm sure you will to.

An atmospheric Lovecraftian horror. Takes a simple, but focused and no nonsense approach and it works well. There's pretty much zero downtime and it does a good job building tension.

Inappropriately titled, like the book itself by Koontz, Phantoms is a surprisingly effective monster movie, especially in the first half. The best monsters are the ones which are very difficult to kill; in addition, these types of monsters can destroy fragile human beings with ease. This is what is confronted here, with humans little more than insects to be crushed and absorbed. Of course, certain insects can cause a lot of damage when they put their minds to it. The atmosphere in the first half hour is very eerie and there's a lot of mystery. You have pretty much an empty town, a couple of young women just arrived, and a couple of bodies - no answers. That gloom & foreboding of doom may not be too difficult to create, but we hardly see it anymore, even in horror films. Even if one has seen this film, however, they may be compelled to watch that first half hour again just to get that sense of doom all over. When some cops show up, things get even worse. Then an entire army shows up and, of course, we think things are under control now, but it makes no difference. At least the pic is consistent with its menace.

This picture was virtually ignored on release and I don't think video has helped it much. When the monster is revealed, it obviously takes away all the suspense built up earlier, but it's still creepy going (without revealing too much, the monster is a more advanced version of a famous one from the fifties; think also along the lines of "The Thing" remake by Carpenter in '82). Writer Koontz was involved in the adaptation, which always seems to help. Actor O'Toole appears around the midway point as the only so-called expert on the creature, all based on conjecture, of course. He lends a bit of gravity to it all, tho I suppose he's slumming here in a 'typical' fright flic. The rest of the younger cast do fine, with Affleck a bit irritating as usual. I'm not sure what Schreiber was aiming at, but he was almost as creepy as the creature. There's a bit of a twist ending, which wasn't really necessary.