Phantoms

Rating:
Summary: Better than I had expected
Review: First thing is first, Phantoms is a movie to be taken with a grain of salt. There is nothing overly scary or shocking in this run of the mill B-grade thriller, but it is entertaining nonetheless, and mostly delivers the goods. Joanna Going and Rose McGowen play sisters whose return to Snowfield, Colorado is interrupted by the disappearance of every person in the town. Eventually they meet up with a sheriff (Ben Affleck in yet another movie from Miramax/Dimension Films) and his two deputies played by Liev Schrieber and Nicky Katt. Eventually the military is on the scene and we're joined by accomplished actor Peter O'Toole who plays a crackpot paleobiologist whose tabloid fodder may not be so crackpot. A few scares and shocks are abound, with some rather good special effects, and Schreiber nearly steals the entire show with his whacko performance. But, Phantoms is rather predictable and sometimes laughable with huge leaps of logic and a few plot holes here and there, but Phantoms remains a fun ride nonetheless. All in all, Phantoms is a pretty good B-grade horror film that horror or sci-fi fans will get a kick out of.

Rating:
Summary: scary, terrifying thriller
Review: Phantoms is a very entertaining and scary science fiction horror film. Only a few other films such as Event Horizon and Candyman are as intense as Phantoms. The first half of the movie is probably the scariest and creepiest in horror film history. The movie begins quickly and gets right to the action. Two sisters, played by Joanna Going and Rose Mcgowan, return to the town of Snowfield, Colorado to find most of the inhabitants missing and several gory looking dead bodies. They enter a bakery and meet an out of town sheriff, Bryce Hammond, played well by Ben Affleck, and his deputies Shannon and Wargle, played by Nicky Katt and Liev Schrieber. Liev Schrieber definitely goes all the way with an excellent performance as crazy weirdo Deputy Stu Wargle.

Some chilling scenes in the movie include a giant moth that sucks brain, screams coming from everywhere, strange sounds coming from the town's plumbing system, and dead people that disappear then reappear alive. The scene where the giant moth attacks the survivors in the police station is one of the best in any movie. In the second half, the movie has some more chilling scenes with a high body count, but I was a bit disappointed that the movie ended so quickly. It's 100 minute running time didn't feel like it was long enough to fit all the events that occured in the movie. Dean Koontz also made the mistake of not exploring the thematic elements of the movie more deeply like he did in his novel.

The special effects in the movie were very good. The giant moth looked real and so did the other creatures that appeared. The film isn't as gory as it's reputed to be. Sci-fi horror films like Alien Resurrection and Event Horizon are much bloodier. (Although Event Horizon uses the goriness effectively). Overall, Phantoms is a creepy horror film that holds the viewer at the edge of their seat, especially in the final confrontation between Hammond and a boy.

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic
Review: I won't get into how amazing the novel was or how shocked I was at the theater upon seeing this wreck of a movie (or how I highly recommend the novel.)

Instead, consider Ben Affleck. If he's starring as the sheriff in a serious horror movie, you know something's... wrong. I did enjoy the first half of the movie, which builds on ambience and scares you through the unknown horror around every corner.

Then the movie barrel-rolls and plummets head-first into the rocks. It rips shreds from "John Carpenter's The Thing" to "Alien" and everything in between. The ending is overly simplified and lacks any of the terror from the novel (and in addition is far less epic.)

A warning to anyone who's read the book and yet to see this adaptation; don't waste your time.

For everyone else, again I recommend the excellent novel, or if you're still in the mood for a good horror movie, try one of the thousands of better ones out there.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: What a bad movie. I read the book over the summer so I figured I'd check the movie out. While the book wasn't GREAT, it was pretty interesting, unforunatley something the movie isn't. It leaves out at least HALF of the main characters that made up the book. The characters it does keep are terribly cast and act almost the complete opposite way they do in the book. I don't understand why they chose to change around a perfectly acceptable story so much until they made this mess, but they would have been better off saving there money and you will be too by reading the book instead of watching this.

Rating:
Summary: Affleck was the bomb in phantoms.
Review: Word, b****, Phantoms like a motherf***er!

Rating:
Summary: Based on a Dean Koontz novel
Review: I read the book before seeing the movie, thankfully. The movie isn't that bad. It din't win any Oscars but it had a great cast and an intresting storyline, including a classic part where a giant butterfly eats a man's face. CBS-TV thought it was "A Chillingly Original Thriller!" but all in all, you should just see this if you're a horror movie fan or a Dean Koontz fan.

Rating:
Summary: Shut Up Complainers!
Review: Phantoms is a horror film that harkens back to old hitchcock films. Why it is getting bad reviews for using suspense rather than gore to scare people is beyond me, I went in to this expecting a turkey like Scream, but boy was I surprised. While the effect wore off a minute after it was done, that is understandable for me, because the only movie that stayed with me for months was The Exorcist. Phantoms is a high quaility horror/thriller film that shouldn't be missed. It looks as though the previous reviewers either didn't get it, or saw the wrong movie. This is definately one that'll scare you, but don't go in expecting The Exorcist.

Rating:
Summary: The book was better but the movie was good.
Review: I know that when a book is made into a movie half the time it is never the same. That would be in this case but I have to say even though there were some changes the movie was still pretty good. I did buy the DVD because I read the book first. I was not disappointed in the movie because if I had not read the book before seeing the movie I would have still liked the movie anyway. It has a lot of scary moments and the acting was good.

Rating:
Summary: PHANTOMS: Special Effects are not Enough
Review: PHANTOMS is a poorly crafted horror film that is redeemed only with the presence of a fine actor (Peter O'Toole) near the end of a long cinematic career and a promising one (Ben Affleck) just beginning his. Director Joe Chapelle misuses the talents of both to highlight a creature based movie that is flawed by some internal inconsistencies. Now there is nothing wrong with a director positing the existence of a creature/monster, regardless of how incredible its origin may be. What ought to happen after the creature hits the screen is that the director should ensure that following its initial appearance, the plot must flow smoothly given what he chooses to reveal about the nature and characteristics of that creature. In PHANTOMS, the creature is a subterranean many-tentacled dweller that has existed unknown to humanity since the dawn of creation. Peter O'Toole, as Doctor Flyte, suggests that this creature had been responsible for the previously unexplained disappearances of, among others, the dinosaurs, a 3,000 strong Chinese regiment in 1937, the Mayans, and the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Now this list of vanishings smacks of a conspiratorial creature, a topic much favored by American audiences who seem to love films about races of creatures that have plagued humanity for millenia. The problem with this angle is that the film ought to do more than just have the Wise Scientist briefly pontificate about them. O'Toole is a disgraced biologist who writes for a tabloid based loosely on the rags that sell on supermarket check-out lines. He claims that many heretofore unexplained mass disappearances are the work of a sentience that he labels 'The Ancient Enemy.' During the scenes that allow this Ancient Enemy to communicate directly with him, the viewer is puzzled as to why it even bothers to try to gain fame by ordering him to announce its presence. One would think that anonymity would ensure its ongoing existence. Ben Affleck, in one of his earliest roles, plays a sheriff who is stranded in a small town that has been taken over by the creature. Affleck is wooden and clearly shows that he is quite willing to play second banana to the immensely more experienced O'Toole. Fans of Affleck who want to see him in roles that allow him to do more than emote on a one-trick pony range will surely be disappointed here. Liev Schreiber is surprisingly effective in a creepy role as a deputy who remains creepy even after the Ancient Enemy enters his body. Joanna Going and Rose McGowan are little more than eye candy walk-ons whose only purpose is to set a scary tone that allows the heroic he-men to save the day.

The special effects are eye grabbing, but they by themselves are rarely enough to maintain viewer interest. What might have saved this film from being just another gross-out monster movie would have been more logic and consistency concerning the creature and less cribbing from other equally unsatisfactory movies. Given the poor track record that Hollywood has shown over the decades in giving audiences a well-crafted horror film, films like PHANTOMS suggest that talent in the Gothic genre is just as rare as in any other.

Rating:
Summary: Not Very Exciting
Review: "Phantoms" starts off on a nice Scooby Doo mystery ride, but things quickly fall apart when Liev Shreiber, aka Deputy Stu, begins to do his best Telly Savalas impersonation from "The Dirty Dozen". The quiet tension that was building is soon replaced by heavy assult of standard military versus monster cliches, painful Ben Affleck overacting, and especially weak special effects.

The DVD is completely a bare bones affair. Not even a trailer is included. The sound and picture quality is okay, but since the movie takes place primarily at night, some of the scenes are hard to make out.