7Roulette - PHANTOMS

I'm ashamed to admit that I have some skeletons in my closet. Movies that I used to like, and now I've seen infinitely more and better films, I know that they're complete shit. Phantoms ranks high on this list. Bad editing paired with worse acting, and hot-of-the-moment B- and C-list fan favorites. Lest we forget prestigious and respected thespian Peter O' Toole, trying his damnedest to convince us to keep watching. Unfortunately even Lawrence-of-A-fucking-rabia couldn't persuade me. 

I have no idea what this is about and I'm a goddamn genius. Are they aliens? Are they a prehistoric species trying to rise to the top of the food chain? It's very likely it's some third option that went completely over my head and into the toilet. Even the big bad itself doesn't know what it is. Sometimes it's spooky, silent, and unwavering, and other times it's quippy and toys with its prey. In any case, it's very confusing and boring. And why did I ever like it you may be asking? I must admit, I have always been greedy for anything sci-fi horror, and I was way more forgiving in my youth. D-

-Babes

For a small indie studio owned by another small indie studio they tackled quite a few SciFi stories with big ideas. The bad news is the ideas were never anchored with an adequate script and the budget was too small for proper creatures. The good news is that there's an old-fashioned charm to their monster movies; watching Phantoms I couldn't shake the feeling that I was on a date, and that this was not at all dissimilar to any 1950s Drive-In B-movie. I usually don't respond to "camp" but it really is the best thing going for it, complete with Peter O'Toole in your typical John Carradine role, everyone's either military, law enforcement, or scientist (plus one useless damsel), and there's a laughably simple (yet overly complicated) solution to the whole conflict involving syringes full of pure deus ex machina. Director Joe Chappelle doesn't seem to have a grasp on suspense (he did Halloween 6 so I don't wanna hear about the rest of his resume) and once again Liev Schreiber is the only fun one in a cast of otherwise competent people (I guess I'm becoming a fan). The monsters are too abstract to be interesting or scary and everything else is too ham & cheesy to be Psychological Horror, so I suppose the movie doesn't "work" in any rudimentary way; the desired claustrophobic mood is ineffective when you're on a styrofoam soundstage and the main threat can't decide if it's Pinhead, Freddy, or The Thing. Still, it's mercifully short and only sometimes boring, so in the most condescending way I'll say it's so-so. B-

- Paul