Phantoms (1998)

Today I finally look to answer the age old pop culture question: Was Ben Affleck the bomb in Phantoms? If you are scratching your head at this point you probably haven’t seen “Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back” or maybe just didn’t like it. Understandable but back in 2001, when Kevin Smith was still funny and in touch with pop culture I was watching and had never actually heard of the film Phantoms (Which only came out 3 years earlier). It’s been on my list ever since but only now, 21 years after that throw away line of dialogue that put the film on my radar have I finally gotten around to watching it. So is Affleck the bomb?

October Review Challenge – Day 24

First thing to mention here is that this is a Dean Koontz adaptation. Often I find Koontz doesn’t translate especially well to screen, however in this case Koontz himself wrote the screenplay (Something he never repeated). The movie is directed by Joe Chappelle whose previous two movies were Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers and Hellraiser IV: Bloodlines. Perhaps not the strongest of films to have on the CV but at least he was experience in the genre.

The movie stars Affleck, Joanna Going and Rose McGowan with support from Peter O’Toole and Liev Schreiber. The casting is perhaps a little confusing. O’Toole received top billing, but was in less than half the film, Affleck meanwhile is clearly the hero but doesn’t himself turn up for the first 20 minutes or so. The story mostly follows McGowan and Going though they are mostly just along for the ride. Schreiber meanwhile is effectively the human face of the antagonist.

Two Girls and One Cop

The story begins with sisters Jennifer (Going) and Lisa (McGowan) Pailey arriving at the small ski resort town of Snowfield, Colorado (Where Jennifer works as a doctor). They find the town appearing deserted but upon further examination they find a number of bodies killed in a variety of ways, all gruesome. At first Jennifer thinks it may have been a virus but as she finds more bodies, including decapitated heads they realise something more sinister is happening.

Into this arrives our hero, Sheriff Bryce Hammond (Affleck) along with his deputies (Including Schriber as Deputy Stu Wargle) who is investigating the killings. They arrive at a hotel where they find the words “Timothy Flyte” and “Ancient Enemy” written on a mirror. The deputies are killed off, one mysteriously and Wargle by a bat like creature. However Wargle appears shortly after to Lisa in the bathroom in a creepy scene and the grop find the body is missing. Hammond radios out for assistance.

The Witness

And this is where things start to come together. The government moves in and brings with it Dr. Timothy Flyte (O’Toole) to investigate. However they are quicly all taken out (other than Flyte and the original three survivors) with something taking over their body to communicate with them. The entity reveals itself as “The Ancient Enemy” (Theorised about in Dr. Flyte’s book) and that it deliberately brought him to it so he can “Bear witness”.

The creature seems to believe it is the devil but Dr. Flyte summises that the organism absorbs knowledge and intelligence from the life forms it feeds on and as it fed on more humans it became more intelligent but also absorbed their spiritual beliefs and beliefs on what the creature is. Thus it assumed the role of a demonic god like being. It then comes down to this remaining four to find a way to stop the monster.

The Thing From The Same World

So first thing’s first, “Thing” being the operative word. The creature here very strongly resembles the alien from John Carpenter’s “The Thing” from 1982 and while this story is source from Koontz novel, that only came out in 1983. The novel is clearly influenced by H.P. lovecraft, but it’s hard not to make some parallels at least in regards to how it is portrayed on screen with The Thing. In any case it’s impossible not to compare the films. In that regard… well I can’t help but feel Phantoms is far inferior. The monsters are far less creative and the effects less scary despite having 16 years more advancements in effects available to them. They even heavily feature a dog monster that simply can’t stand up to Carpenter’s version.

Comparison’s aside though, the effects aren’t bad and the scenes where they create freakish monstrosities are reasonably entertaining, though in this movie these effects are used sparingly. The odd thing is the use of the dead Deputy Wargle as a sort of wise cracking villainous face of the monster. He often seems to act independent of the larger monster and with a twisted sense of humour reflecting the man before he died. It seems odd that of all the things absorbed it is the only one (Well maybe the dog when it first appears) that seems to demonstrate individual characteristics. While there could be in universe explanations for this (and certainly budget ones), I can’t help but feel it doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. That said Schreiber is at least good at playing creepy characters.

Characters and Actors

As far as characters and performances go though, while this is a solid cast and they perform their part well, outside of Affleck’s Sheriff the characters themselves seem largely lacking. Affleck ultimately is the character with the story arc and that leads the battle against the enemies. Jennifer and Lisa mostly are just there and their story climaxes with a fight against the corrupted Deputy Wargle (Who seems isolated from the whole and acting independently), a character who was basically being creepy to the pair even before he died. It almost seems like they are in the wrong movie. It’s a shame because the actresses are talented.

O’Tooles Dr. Flyte though is totally wasted. He comes in very late on, comes up with the way to defeat the ancient enemy and then writes a book about it (Which of course no one believes). While his performance is as top notch as you’d expect from this exceptional actor, the character is largely there to move the plot on and little else. In my view, especially given he has top billing, it would have been nice to have his character involved at the very start. Perhaps this is a problem with having the author write the screenplay, they may be too precious about their work to make necessary changes for it to work on screen.

Conclusion

When all is said and done, the movie is actually entertaining. Unsurprisingly from Koontz the premise is a good one and the acting is solid. However, the pacing is a little iffy, most of the characters seem wasted, the ending comes a little too quickly and easily and ultimately the enemy is just a less cool version of John Carpenter’s The Thing. But is Ben Affleck the bomb? Well, he stands out largely only in comparison to other characters in the film, but yeah, I can agree with that. The film itself though just about makes a 6/10. Better than it’s IMDB score suggests, but perhaps not as good as you may hope from the names involved.

One final note. I think this is a film that has actually aged well. When it came out it was perhaps too similar to a lot of films that had come out in the 80’s and 90’s (The Thing, The Blob, Tremors, Screamers, Mimic, Event Horizon… the list is endless really). I suspect this is a good part of why the movie was originally panned, but now this kind of idea feels a bit more fresh and a change from all the uncanny valley based horror we have these days (Where things look mostly human but then move or do something that doesn’t fit with human, triggering discomfort in the viewer). That alone may make it worth revisiting or checking out for the first time.