Let me start by saying (again) that I am not a fan of the horror genre. I prefer laughing to being frightened.

In contrast to An American Werewolf in Paris, this film makes no attempt at humour. Well, no obvious attempts, anyway, although there were a few laughs during the screening.

Phantoms sets out to scare, and in the beginning it does give a few frights. The technique is to use smash cuts to a horrific scene, making a loud noise on the soundtrack at the same time. Once you get used to that, you can see the frights coming, and prepare to handle them.

There are also the usual red herrings, when they try to build you up to expect something terrible, which of course does not happen. Well, not immediately, anyway.

I was actually rather disappointed with this film as the poster had led me to believe that it would be about spooks or spirits of the dear departed coming back up to earth to cause mayhem.

No such luck.

What we got instead was some sort of petroleum-based monster that appeared variously as a little boy, a sheriff, a whole crowd of people, a dog, some sort of giant butterfly, or a large black tentacled beast. The creator clearly had no clear idea of what exactly he created.

The monster has a voracious appetite, and the dish of the day is humans. Particularly human brains. Once attacked, the monster could take over your body and 'speak' through you. At such times, you stand with your mouth gaping open like a confused guppy. Naturally your face, which had been totally destroyed, is restored for these scenes.

The film is pretty gory, with bits of human body parts popping up when you need a fright. So eat before you go, not after.

The manner of execution of said humans is also pretty gory, so don't order crayfish.

As to the merits (or otherwise) of the film: one review that I read said that this was an early candidate for worst film of the year for 1998. Well, the plot was full of holes and people doing idiotic things (which is apparently normal in this genre). I can't say I enjoyed it (see first line above). Acting was generally not impressive, with O'Toole taking almost a light hearted approach to his serious role.

The tone of the film is dark and sombre throughout, made worse by most of the action taking place at night. The monster manages to disrupt and restore the power to the lights whenever it needs to (see: plot, holes in).

I strongly suspect that only hard-core horror fans will enjoy this flick.

Moral of the story: be careful around drains.