The Age of Commercialism

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Good friends & rival race car drivers J. J. Sawyer & Cutter have their friendship ended when Cutter's mechanic's sabotage of Sawyer's race car during a race backfires, resulting in Cutter's death. Years later, Sawyer, now a support truck driver & race car transport arrives in his old town to have his truck repaired. He meets up with his old girlfriend Tammy & her daughter Jesse (who is actually Sawyer's daughter but he doesn't know this or she). At the same time, Cutter's race car has been restored by the mechanic who committed the sabotage, but Cutter's ghost returns to possess the car, the now-possessed vehicle driving off & killing anyone it crosses. Fuelled by revenge, the car heads off to kill Sawyer & his family, prompting them to try to escape.I've always been a sucker for killer car films. The 1977 classic THE CAR was the very best of this subgenre, with a mean & awesome-looking black Lincoln terrorising the population of a small town. Of course this type of film works better as a supernatural action thriller than a straight horror film, since the premise is a little on the hokey side. You can also count in John Carpenter's adaptation of Stephen King's novel CHRISTINE as another classic killer car film, although not quite up to The Car's standard.Phantom Racer is an attempt at making a killer car film for the 21st Century, although as a DTV feature. Sure enough, it works on a basic level & has some decent visuals, although for a film that's supposed to be rated PG-13 in the USA (& rated MA15+ in Australia, which is more realistic) it is quite gory in the kills department. In the regard of a horror film, Phantom Racer is lacking due to a premise that is lacking in the scares department.However as a supernatural thriller, the film is passable enough. Greg Evigan & Nicole Eggert both share an affinity for this type of film & they play it well enough. The scenes of them bonding are reasonable for this type of film & do have add an interesting side to the proceedings. The scenes with the possessed race car taking out a sheriff & his deputy, crushing the deputy's head under its wheel are the closest the film gets to disquieting the viewer. On the other end of the scale, the film's premise (as demonstrated superbly in The Car) tends to rely more on action – the splatter effects in Phantom Racer are cheap & don't really fit the film that well.

I have seen far worse movies than Phantom Racer, even though I do think the movie could've been much better. It does have redeeming values certainly. A couple of the attacks are actually gory and quite fun. But it was the three leads that really elevated. Greg Egvian still has a lot of charisma, Nicole Eggbert shows good chemistry with him and I do think she is better than she was in Baywatch and Brenna O'Brien despite her rather clichéd role has a couple of amusing wise-cracks. The film looks decent too, nothing extraordinary to see but much more than the usual hackneyed editing and fake effects I've seen in too many movies of late. However, the characters are never developed sufficiently enough, they are stereotypical(the sheriff, the teen) and some like the sheriff are so annoying it is difficult to identify with them. Even after someone dies they don't act in ways you'd associate someone to react in those circumstances. The script is very formulaic as well, there are a lot of car chases, action scenes and attempts to destroy the thing but it all amounts to little and none of it is particularly exciting. The dialogue is trite, especially in the "finding out who your dad is" subplot, which never did ring true to me due to how forced everything was. The story, not helped by the lame climax and the evil presence being far too obvious from the get go, never really grabbed me and came across as silly in places such as the people cruising down the road and somehow the car can kill people in really wild ways yet can come away unscathed with no explanation as to how. Apart from a couple of good ones, a lot of the action and killings while inventive on paper look very average on screen. In conclusion, could have been far worse mainly because I liked the leads but it was too silly and formulaic with characters I didn't care for for me to really sink my teeth into it. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I thought the film was okay. I did like it because a man who died in a fatal car crash on the racetrack came back from the dead to kill people until he got to the man who he saw last while being in his car now restored back to normal. I was scared out of my wits when I had seen him trying to get to the man responsible for killing him. But i was also scared for his teenage daughter who had learned that the man who died in the car crash was her dad. I thought that the film was a bit like Christine(killer car film). Except that the car was a race car and didn't live enough to see his daughter as a baby instead of a teenager. I thought the scene where the girl is walking around the woods and comes upon the car is crazy. She had no idea what was about to happen to her in a split second. She leans in and sees the locket that belonged to her mom, and thought of her when all of a sudden the car sucks her into the driver's seat and buckles her in and then drives off. I was so scared for that girl because she finally learned that her father died in the car and had come back to seek his vengeance upon everyone that caused him to die.

This movie reminds me of the novel Christine by Stephen King, where a haunted car goes on a killing spree. That book gave me the chills from start to end, but this movie pales so, so much in comparison. The story showed lot of promise at least in terms of thrilling car chases and blood-curdling violence between man & metal but the execution was disappointing. Very average action and a lame climax. Maybe the budget of the movie was an issue? Can't say much about the performances too, decent though. At least one good aspect are the initial murders committed by the car, which's quite wild & gory. Verdict: Naaah. Dump this ghost ride!