Phantoms

 ((Horror --- Color))

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Things get off to a briskly horrific start when sisters Lisa (Rose McGowan) and Jenny Pailey (Joanna Going) arrive in picturesque Snowfield, Colo., for a ski vacation and find their landlady dead on the kitchen floor, her skin looking as if it has been marbleized. Retreating downtown, they discover the burg's streets empty and the police station abandoned but for one officer who evidently was killed by the same gruesome affliction that offed the landlady.

A few boos later, the sisters run into three living law officers, Sheriff Bryce Hammond (Ben Affleck) and deputies Stu Wargle (Liev Schreiber) and Steve Shanning (Nicky Katt). Sensing that they're alone in a town that now seems populated only by scattered corpses, some of which have had limbs and heads sliced off, the five are drawn into an old hotel when they hear Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" wafting down from the second floor. Upstairs, they find more death, along with a scrawled message referring to "Timothy Flyte" and "the Ancient Enemy."

The lurking evil takes visible form soon enough. After Shanning ventures outdoors and suddenly disappears, Wargle, who's been acting funny all along, is hit by a fast-moving, moth-like creature that attaches itself to his face and instantly sucks his brain out. Suitably warned, Sheriff Hammond radios the Army for help.

In the outside world, the Feds quickly track down Timothy Flyte (Peter O'Toole), an erstwhile British prof who's been reduced to writing for tabloids because the scientific establishment finds only kookiness in his theory that an Ancient Enemy has been lurking in the Earth's bowels for millennia, surfacing periodically to devour a stray army or civilization. Now, it seems, Flyte's ideas are looking a bit less nutty, but there's a problem: Vindication may involve extinction of the planet's human population.

The cavalry, or rather a specially equipped Army commando unit, comes to the rescue of Hammond and the Pailey sisters, bringing with it the knowledgeable prof and a theory about what can stop the protean Ancient Enemy. But their attack only provokes the elusive creature to defend itself, which produces a veritable blizzard of special effects.

Pic is perhaps most enthralling in its early sections, when the enemy is still unspecified and the horror thus remains purely psychological. After the Army arrives and the visual maelstrom is unleashed, there are moments when it's hard to keep track of the characters or to tell exactly what the sound and fury are meant to signify. Still, the film rights itself in time to deliver a satisfying ending.

Pic's virtues all stem from taking its genre imperatives absolutely seriously rather than condescending to them or playing cute. Even venerable O'Toole resists what must have been an obvious temptation to wink at his role, and delivers a solid, enjoyable turn. Other perfs are similarly skilled. McGowan and Going prove well matched and attractively scarable. Affleck registers rugged authority and natural charisma, while Schreiber is expertly funny and weird as the wigged-out deputy.

In his sophomore outing (the first was 1994's "Thieves Quartet"), helmer Chappelle brings a sure hand to his complex task, and is especially impressive in giving the supernatural events a nuanced, realistic grounding. Lenser Richard Clabaugh and the entire tech crew lend top-notch support.

Camera (Foto-Kem color), Richard Clabaugh; editor, Randolph K. Bricker; music, David Williams; production design, Deborah Raymond, Dorian Vernacchio; art direction, Daniel Bradford, Ken Larson; set design, Jack Bishop; set decoration, Barbara Cole Kaye; costume design, Dana K. Litwak; sound (Dolby digital), Larry Scharf; assistant director, Thomas McAuley Burke; casting, Don Phillips. Reviewed at the Worldwide Cinema, New York, Jan. 21, 1998. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 95 min.