The Weekend Horror Double Bill: Dogs and Monsters

Watchers (1988) Region 2

Corey Haim out acted by a dog shock! Come to think of it Corey Haim out acts a dog would have been more of a surprise. Haim plays the teenage hero in this adaptation of the Dean R. Koontz bestseller. When he finds a lost dog he takes it home with him little suspecting the mutt has escaped from a secret research lab or that it’s probably more intelligent than he is. It was part of an experiment to create the perfect killing machine, the dog itself acting as a lure to draw another genetically engineered creature to its victim and that other creature is free as well and looking to carve itself a little Haim sandwich.

While the novel this is based on had an equally silly premise it was still able to craft some effective moments most notably the climax which manages to elicit the reader’s sympathy for the “bad” beastie. There’s none of that here, everything is black and white. With the best moments of the novel excised this has been turned into a simple boy and his dog tale albeit with horror/SF slant. Nothing wrong with that per se, I’ve enjoyed many a shaggy dog story but then they never starred Cory Haim. He’s all 80’s hair and zero acting ability, I really wasn’t kidding about the dog having superior thespian abilities.

Helping to make things slightly more bearable is horror stalwart Michael Ironside, an actor capable of great performances when given something decent to work with. On the other hand when he knows he’s making a dog (pun intended) he can be so over the top that he’s worth watching just to see how much of the scenery he’ll chew. Here his performance is equal parts ham and cheese and while he doesn’t make the film worth watching he does liven things up if you are unable to avoid it.

The film gets a decent anamprphic transfer and plain old mono sound.

Zero on the extras front.

Phantoms (1998) Region 2

Another Koontz book gets the movie treatment but at least this one has a decent cast. We may have seen the “everyone in the town’s gone missing” thing before yet, while this may not be original, the first half of Joe Chappelle’s film is at least effective, creating a nice creepy atmosphere that has you wondering what the hell is going on. It only starts to fall apart when it starts to reveal its secrets.

Sisters Lisa (Rose McGowan) and Jennifer (Joanna Going) arrive in Snowfield, California to discover most of the residents missing and the rest dead. While looking around town the bump into Sheriff Bryce Hammond and two of his deputies. Hammond is played by Ben Affleck, who appears far too young to be an ex-FBI agent turned small town peace officer. Liev Schreiber gets to act nuts as Deputy Stu Wargle and you get the impression Wargle didn’t have both oars in the water even before things went crazy so it’s not much of a surprise that the unseen enemy uses him to work through.

As I said, this is all enjoyable enough but things begin to fall apart with the introduction of Peter O’Toole as a scientist who’s the only one who knows what’s going on. He arrives in town with the military and starts spouting about “ancient evil” and the like. It’s clear his character is only there to explain what they are up against while the military are there just to provide more victims. It’s a thankless role and one not worthy of an actor of O’Toole’s stature. Still he does his best with what he’s got, delivering lines like “But this thing is what wiped out the dinosaurs! Which were pretty tough fucking customers!” with tongue firmly in cheek.

Not a bad film but one that leaves you with the feeling it could have been so much more had it not stayed so slavishly close to its source material.

Being a film that takes place mostly at night a good transfer is essential and thankfully gets it, with dark scenes not lacking in detail. The 5.1 Dolby Digital audio adds to the atmosphere, with placement used to great effect during the more confined scenes.

Once again no extras.

Next Week: My Bloody Valantine and Valentine

February 8th, 2007 Posted by Ian W | DVD Reviews | 3 comments