If there’s one giant monster I’ve ever truly felt sorry for, it’s The Ancient Enemy. Most cinematic behemoths don’t get much in the way of inner conflict or psychological depth. Phantoms, however, provides the audience with a study of the God complex, in the guise of an intelligent oil slick with visions of deification and serous inferiority issues who just wants to be remembered. I feel rather bad for the poor ol’ goop.

And it tries so hard to be one of the greats. It replicates humans like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It haunts the sewers like The Blob. It manifests the creepiest dog this side of The Thing. It uses giant moths to sucks out brains; it wipes out an entire town in an afternoon; and it even gives birth to a Lovecraftian cross of Liev Schreiber and a land squid.

But it just can’t seal the deal. All it takes to defeat it is a few vials of virus and Peter O’Toole (in an endearing performance of the sort only older English actors can pull off: equal parts gravitas and ham, replete with droll line readings that completely obliterate everyone else onscreen, including Sheriff Ben Affleck and Rose McGowan).

Phantoms is hardly perfect, often barely more than good, which is par for the course for anything author Dean Koontz has ever touched (the man positively reeks of adequacy). But director Joe Chappelle (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) understands how to create atmosphere, even if he doesn’t always succeed. He plays with silence and long takes, yet knows when to go for the gusto, makes the most of a low budget, keeps the cheap CGI to a bare minimum, and succeeds with a few of the creepiest moments I’ve seen in film. (That dog. That dog!)

All told, Phantoms is an effective creature feature that has quickly become a personal late-night staple, a cinematic snack to gobble down with cheap liquor and chips. Bonus points for the genius second act; the military and scientists arrive to survey the situation — a scenario which would normally result in an epic end battle of guns, mortars and tanks à la Godzilla — and The Ancient Enemy wipes them out in five minutes. Five! —Corey Redekop

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Although he’s second-billed, Jim Hutton (TV’s Ellery Queen) plays Arnold Masters, the Psychic Killer in question. Wearing red-rimmed glasses that likely make him the least popular man behind bars, he’s institutionalized for a murder he swears he did not commit. And he didn’t. But give the man some time.

After a fellow mental patient commits suicide, Arnold learns the man willed him some sort of voodoo necklace, which enables him to astral-project into others’ bodies and do some crimes. Once the murder charges are dropped and Arnold is free, he uses his new jewelry as often as a teenage boy does erections.

Anyone responsible for the death of his mother and his wrongful imprisonment are at the top of Arnold’s shit list. A rapey doctor goes kablooey; a hot nurse is scalded to death in the shower, as its head cranes to follow her around the tight space; a cop drives his car off a cliff; a contractor is smashed by a cement block; a butcher is chased by slabs of meat until he gets caught in a machine that turns him into ground round. It’s tough not to think of the Final Destination series since the culprit is nowhere present at these grisly deaths.

Because Hutton was such a likable actor — or perhaps I’m just a sick bastard — I was rooting for Arnold, and not for the gruff detective (Paul Burke, Valley of the Dolls) eager to get his goat. Directed and co-written by Ray Danton (Deathmaster), the film alternates between police procedural and speculative fiction, with some surprising gore sprinkled about, and topped with one of the screen’s oddest stripteases (courtesy of Love Me Deadly’s Mary Wilcox). Yet for some reason, it doesn’t feel like a mess; it feels like an undiscovered gem of weirdo ’70s cinema. —Rod Lott

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