Phantoms (1998)

Adapted from Dean Koontz’s 1983 novel of the same name, “Phantoms” only reaffirmed my suspicion that I’ve seen way to many horror/science fiction films through the years. To be short and concise, the book version of “Phantoms”, while hardly unique in of itself, was a good, solid, sci-fi story. This on-screen version however, is just another “people trapped in isolated area with said monster running amuck” scenario, with director Joe Chappelle (director of “Halloween 6”…nuff’ said) offering nothing new to the same, tired format. Even with this on-screen version being adapted by Koontz himself, things just don’t translate very well from book to celluloid, resulting in a bland, by the numbers piece of sci-fi.

Two sisters, one a doctor (Joanna Going) and the other a teenager (Rose McGowan), arrive home in the remote mountain top town of Snowfield, Colorado. The scene at their house is a strange one, as food is cooking on the stove unattended and with they’re housekeeper lying dead on the floor, covered in strange bruises with no sign of an apparent struggle. The two soon discover that the entire town is incredibly either dead or simply missing. Eventually they stumble across a sheriff (Ben Affleck) and his two deputies from a nearby town who are investigating why Snowfield’s police force aren’t responding to their calls. Our little group soon finds out they are up against a shape shifting entity (ala “The Thing”) that lives underground and proclaims itself to be none other than Satan hisself. This said beastie also absorbs the intelligence of whatever it has consumed, and supposedly is responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs, as well as various mass disappearances of human beings through the ages. Whew.

“Phantoms” suffers from following the same, tired formula that’s been seen in hundreds upon hundreds of various genre films through the years. There’s a monster, there’s a group of people, and their all stuck in one isolated locale…whatever will happen? To be fair, the overall concept by Koontz is fairly interesting in book format, where your imagination can take things in a million different ways, but when applied to the big screen things come across as stale and repetitive. The film generously borrows from a multitude of movies; most disturbing is the obvious thievery form Carpenter’s “The Thing”, a film that Koontz no doubt helped himself to for ideas when writing his book. As is typical with book to movie adaptations, just read the book instead.