Release Date: January 23, 1998
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Joanna Going, Rose McGowan, Ben Affleck, Liev Schreiber
Directed by: Joe Chappelle
Distributed by: Dimension Films
MPAA Rating: R (sci-fi violence/gore, language)
Horror/suspense movies that fare well at the box office are hard to make. So many elements must work well, in conjunction, that a budget of almost any size seems unreasonable. Dean Koontz, who wrote the book and the based-on script for Phantoms, probably saw the money coming from the ticket fees his followers would pay; the spending seems justified when Koontz's success as a novelist is considered. However, after witnessing the last entry into the genre, it can be said that the motion picture industry is still at a loss for good suspense moneymakers.
The lack of true suspense is due to the script, which is a conglomeration of tired genre trademarks, a semi-plausible story, and a scant cast of unfinished characters. Ben Affleck, whose performance in Good Will Hunting was superb, lets us down here with a rather generic good guy. Joanna Going and Rose McGowan are similarly unfinished; in the book - which I haven't read - there must have been more driving their characters. An uneasy relationship hangs between the two for no apparent reason other than some trite bickering at the film's opening. Peter O'Toole has transcended the range of films with this role: Lawrence of Arabia is far removed from Phantoms' lack of spirit.
The film's onset stars the two women, driving in a decidedly hip SUV towards the picturesque ski town of Snowfield, Colorado. Usually a town of at least 400, Snowfield is unnervingly quiet when they show up. Wandering about, they find that almost the entire town is dead by unnatural causes: mutilated bodies, decapitated corpses, and paralyzed figures hint at what is to come. The only survivors of this unspeakable catastrophe are the sherriff (Affleck) and his deputy squad. Soon the Army is called in, with specialists dressed up like Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, in this sort of movie, enlisted officers are doomed to a grisly fate, and so soon the only one left from the Army's entourage is Timothy Flyte (O'Toole) a doctor on the subject of armageddon-esque deaths. Along with the help of Affleck, McGowan, and Going, he discerns that a parsite being of patroleum jelly has taken over the town and thinks it's Satan (this is explained by the only useful tidbit of scientific knowledge in the movie: it learns the thoughts of those it eats in tapeworm fashion; since the people it ate thought it was Satan, it thinks it's Satan).
The movie's plot is rather uninspired, as is evidenced by the movie's anticlimactic and rather convient ending. It's hard to sympathize with anyone in the movie, because almost the entire cast has no background. The town itself is similarly vague - the dead townspeople are introduced by way of a name and an occupation (and only that if it fits the scene, otherwise bodies are gone moments after they're first discovered). The energy value of the movie is inflated by wild strobe lights and flashing shots of the protagonistic Satanic being. This is antithetical to the suspense that the movie hopes to build: it only enhances the weirdness that the movie reeks of. This is probably only suitable for those who don't mind a flaky plot and no substance.
all contents © 1998 Craig Roush