Phantoms

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Dominic

This is one of those late 90's Dimention horror films that I have a lot of nostalgia for. These were my high school horror films and a lot of fond memories are associated with them. This one in particular seems to be a lesser known title than the others, but there's a lot here that appeals to my sensibilities.

I love the set-up. The deserted town, where everybody's dead and strange things are happening. At the start you don't know if it's going to be a slasher film, and viral outbreak, a monster movie, something supernatural... It could be anything and it plays up as many of those things as it can. In fact it manages to be quite a lot of them all rolled into one.

The way the story develops you really have no idea where it's going to go and when the situations keep getting bigger and more dire it really feels like a big journey you've gone on, even though the whole film takes place inside this small town.

There's a cool cast assembled here, in particular, the great Peter O'Toole being classy as ever and Liev Schreiber whacked out of his mind. Always a delight.

There's some cool imagery and sequences although some of it seems a little heavy handed to me today. The effects don't look that great today but they were cool for the time.

The explanation for all the crazy happenings is one of the more bizarre and interesting I've come across. It's something I'm not sure how I'd take had I been watching it for the first time now, but I do like it, even the cheesy coda at the end. It's a great creepy little movie.