THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (1988)

THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (1988)

Tagline: Nope

(Adventure, Comedy, Random Dinosaurs) [R]

Oh, they don’t seem so scary. They're just like big puppies with poker chips on their back. 

In this one, a family on a picnic is brutally murdered by a cave creature. Dr. Chamber’s (a famous explorer) daughter Denae believes the uncut diamonds around the creature's neck are worth a fortune. She decides to hire a pair of adventures to help her find the underground cave where the diamonds came from. A few more specialists are added to the search party and they quickly discover the cave leads to THE PHANTOM EMPIRE! 

First off, aside from the bit of nudity, this movie would have been an amazing 1950s sci-fi flick. It also would have been a bit better in black and white because the special effects are pretty rough overall. This movie also briefly features Robby The Robot. The robot creation is best known for FORBIDDEN PLANET and THE INVISIBLE BOY but has shown up in 30 different movies and TV series over the years including STAR WARS: EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE. 

Acting wise no one is all that great in this and they were not asked to be. It’s a comedic sci-fi romp with a bit of skin. It was never meant to be a masterpiece. That doesn’t mean we don’t get several likable characters. Probably my favorite character in this is Cort Eastman played by Ross Hagen. Hagen was active in Hollywood from 1966 to 2010 doing mostly low-budget b-movies like this. His sidekick Eddy is played by Dawn Wildsmith. Eddy is a bit edgy but has some heart and I liked that about the character. Wildsmith hasn’t been acting for a while now, but like Ross Hagen, was mostly known for shaky b-movies like EMPIRE OF THE DARK and STAR SLAMMER. Suzy Stokey plays another likable character named Denae. Cort comedically can’t seem to remember how to pronounce her name. Stokey surprisingly stopped acting in 1988 after this movie came out and didn’t return to acting till 27 years later when she started appearing in short films. Like several other members of the cast, she also appeared in STAR SLAMMER. The rest of the cast is final also, I really didn’t hate anyone. I should also mention that Sybil Danning is also in this for fans of hers. She plays a really rude “Alien Queen” but isn’t in this one as much as the posters might indicate (she doesn’t show up until 54 minutes into the movie). Danning is still acting as of the writing of this review and is probably still most famous for 1985’s nutty HOWLING II…YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF. The movie also features Jeffrey Combs as Andrew Paris. He is fine in this role, but this dude is involved in everything from voicing Transformer characters to starring in some of the ’80’s most intense horror flicks. 

Cinematically this thing is a dumpster fire with a lot of used props. They also seem to have cast Michelle Bauer solely just to have her wander around scantily clad and say nothing. Bauer is also a pretty well-known scream queen (SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA). The film does take place on earth but we do get some alien stuff and what is basically an underground empire with a “sky”. No one seems to really care. It also seems odd that the cave mutants they run into in this movie are so easily pushed around. In the opening scene, they show one ripping a guy’s head off. You would think they would all be super powerful? So yeah, even though this is a comedy it’s still got some annoying plot holes that I am kind of surprised no one cared to point out.

THE PHANTOM EMPIRE isn’t terrible when you put this thing up against a lot of the other b-movies of the ’80s, but it’s also not great. For a 6-day shooting time and what the movie was trying to accomplish I have to give this one a 4 out of 7. It could have done a lot of things worse than it did and at least they gave us a likable cast and a few stop motion scenes with dinosaurs. Nothing feels overly crass or gratuitous outside of maybe not letting Michelle Bauer talk and having her get her top randomly ripped off and no one offering her their jacket or anything till 10 minutes later.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENT PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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