Rish Outfield's reviews
Overlooked. Dean Koontz has even worse luck at the theater than Stephen King does, but this one wasn't too bad. A slow-paced, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here movie, it got legitimately scary at points. The creature was particularly gruesome, as well. There were lots of pretty future stars in this one, including many horror alumni--two Scream actors, one from Dark Shadows, and one from the terrifying Armageddon (terrifying in the thought that I may see it again someday).

The tyranist's thoughts
This was part two of a mini Dean Koontz marathon. Fortunately we watched Watchers Reborn first because this one was so much better. It would have been depressing to see the good one first. I remember the very brief period when this was actually in the theatres and I missed it. In retrospect, I totally regret not having made it to the theatre to see it. This movie is fantastic. I would probably rank it third or fourth on my list of top horror movies of 1998 (at this writing I still haven't seen either Beloved or Vampires although I still intend to see both). The first 30 minutes was pretty terrifying and the rest of the movie really didn't let down that far. I also thought that it was pretty representative of Dean Koontz' novels. I haven't yet read Phantoms (although I have had a copy for about 4 years), but I believe that it will be very similar to the movie.
To comment on the stars: I don't really think that any of them gave particularly outstanding perfomances. Liev Schreiber was pretty creepy, but the rest were more or less just there for the action. Really the star of the show was the creepy setting. If you see this one, and I think you should, don't watch it just because Ben Affleck, or Rose McGowan, or Liev Schreiber is in it. Watch it because you want to see what film adaptations of Koontz can really be like.