49 - Phantoms

    A pair of sisters arrive in town, when they find that the whole town seems to be mostly deserted.  Most people are missing, a few bodies are laying around, and there are a few mutilations around.  After finding the sheriff and a few others, they try to figure out what's going on.
    As I watched this, I started off liking it.  It seemed like a fun kind of mystery, almost like a darker X-Files episode.  Then at a certain point, I found myself mentally listing the other movies that it reminded me of.  That list kept growing.  IT, In The Mouth of Madness, The Langoliers, and so forth.  It's a strange movie, and it had a lot of Lovecraftian elements, but it seemed more annoying than it should be.
    This could be attributed to a few weak points.  Characters are dull.  It's hard to care about any of them.  The photography is mostly dark, and there are a few sequences that seem to have been shot on video.  Lastly, there's a massive problem with using strobe lights.  I honestly don't understand why this is happening during the last third of the movie.  It's annoying, it's hard to tell what's happening, and it doesn't add to the tension or horror.
    I had some mixed feelings about the development that explains the first half of the movie.  In some ways, it works, but the more time I invest in thinking about it, it doesn't seem to be the right direction.
    The horrific elements were modestly enjoyable.  They reminded me a little of In the Mouth of Madness, but they didn't reach the same heights as those ones.
     I also have no idea why this movie is titled Phantoms.