Phantoms
(1983)
Welcome to Snowfield, California. This
tiny mountain town immediately reveals something wrong at the eyes of Jenny and
Lisa Paige, two sisters who're coming back home after attending their mother's
funeral in another city. Everything is still, nobody's around and a sense of
impending danger seems to seep from every corner. It's an eldritch feeling that
soon evolves into pure panick as Jenny and Lisa discover that most of the
inhabitants are missing, while the few who are still in their houses appear to
have died in horrible ways. Their bodies are unnaturally swollen and a locked
stare in their eyes is a telltale sign that the last thing they've seen was
something too horrible to be real. The police arrives in help but as the night
falls the whole group realize to have ended up in a nightmare. A breathtaking
adventure ensues, in which the protagonists first try to find out what happened
in town, then have to struggle for their own lives against a force that clearly
wants them dead.
Definitely one
of the most "horrific" books in Dean Koontz's production,
"Phantoms" features the appropriate staff and staple a horror buff
could search for. There's enough suspense to make you hold your breath plenty
of times, as well as a lavish dose of mystery, all sprinkled with some timely,
"tasty" dashes of gory details. Chances are you'll be scared more
than once, so don't be surprised if you keep turning your gaze toward the
window while you read this at night.
What's
missing, maybe, is the strength, the solidity of other, most recent DK's
efforts, especially in the way of characters. Most of them are provided with a
sufficiently believable background (the key-ones, at least) and throughout the
book you can't help feeling this engrossing sense of literally walking abreast
of them as they scour the dark recesses of Snowfield, or while they're forced
to lock themselves up at night to be safe. In spite of this, though, they
certainly lack the vivacity and roundness that Koontz's fans see as a
distinctive trait of his works. In some respects it looks like the characters,
here, are prevalently serving the purpose of making such an imaginative,
fast-moving plot play out. Could this be linked to the fact that this is a
relatively early work?
Another point
I'd like to highlight is the ending. I don't want to state it was a letdown,
but on the other hand I can't say it satisfied me as much as the first and
central part. It was less unpredictable than the events leading to it and I had
some difficulty in believing what I was reading, that's the point. Anyway, this
is certainly a disputable opinion and other readers might easily find it a
great, plausible conclusion, considering also the final notes Koontz attached
to give a possible explanation to many historical mass-disappearances.
In a nutshell,
such a spine-tingling, compulsive reading is no less than warmly recommended,
with a sound……. 8+/10