Phantom Fun-World (2023) User Reviews

The Stabbiest Place On Earth

[ladymidath · 5/10 · 29 November 2023]

This is a pretty good movie that would have been better with a bigger budget. The acting is a little hit and miss, but i was watchable and that is all I ask.

The cast was likable and the setting, an amusement centre, actually worked here.

The story is not original, a crazed slasher stalking young workers got a little cliched, but I got what I paid for, so to speak.

This is something that while isn't particularly memorable, was enjoyable enough.

My only complaint is that the killer is not really a frightening one. He is no Jason or Michael or Freddy but that is a small complaint.

Don't expect too much, just settle back and enjoy.

Annoyance theater

[jmbovan-47-160173 · 2/10 · 28 November 2023]

Wow. Bad bad production. I can overlook a low quality production film if the acting is good, the storyline compelling, etc. This has poor production, poor acting, poor plotting, rehashed storyline, atrocious pacing, cliches story points, and just about everything that makes a bad film.

Somehow the story resolves around a "phantom" slasher of an indoor funland sort of place, that years ago killed several people. They re-open the place and guess what? The phantom still exist. Killings begin. Plot twist slowly unfurl from their non-existent scariest and lack any real relevance to any point.

Sad, sad, sad little film that I considered giving a 1. But there were moments when some of the actors came together in slight realistic interaction. But overall this movie is problematic, boring, and poorly executed.

The Happiest Place on Earth

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 14 November 2023]

Andi (Celeste Blandon) is introduced first hence the final girl. She gets a job at an indoor arcade getting ready to open. It is the second of its kind. The first one was cursed with a killer, the proverbial abused child in a mask. Andi takes care of her teen brother Cole (Jace Carson). Their mom is an alcoholic not living at home. Andi works the night shift and we are introduced to a cast of coworkers. It isn't long before the killer shows up in a mask. He is not very good at stabbing but is more of a random slicer.

The film was not done well. The script was trite. The acting was poor. Special effects and choreography were poor outside of the ax in the shoulder. Freevee and Tubi.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

WTF. There was literally a 4 minute slow motion scene

[ry-01485 · 1/10 · 20 October 2023]

The highpoints of Phantom Fun World is the lighting and the quality.

Now let's talk about the low points, and there are a lot. The kills really disappointed me with how weak they were. It was one stab after another and each one just as fake, plain and boring as the next. When the girl with the glasses was being sliced, the camera zoomed in. It was like the director wanted to show you that she wasn't being cut.

Going on the that kill, the directing was also bad. I don't know the story of what went on while filming, maybe there was a lot of problems and they were pressed for time so the director had to accept subpar kills and acting. That does not excuse a 4 minute slow motion scene in which we are supposed to feel loss here because one girl is watching her IDK, best friend or something being killed. We get a glimpse that they know each another, but they only speak 20 words to each other in the whole movie.

And about the subpar acting. Subpar is being generous. There was literally no good acting here. Even actors who had been in big productions acted poorly. The worse two were the girl with glasses and the main girl. The girl in glasses seemed like she could have done better with some good directing or a better script.

The main actress just seemed bored. Seriously, she literally seemed bored. She spat out flat lines with a bored look on her face. If I had to guess, I'd guess she didn't want to be there. She probably got the role and was excited, then read he script and though, meh, not good but I can make it exciting. Then she saw the bad directing and wanted it over so she could be out of her misery.

I'm going to end this rant by saying that I follow indie horror. I know that there is a lot of subpar acting in these movies. But IO expected more from this director as he's been around awhile, has done several movies, and has a decent budget for an indie movie. I think he should stop writing and directing and focus on producing. He could let talented, or at least decent writers and directors create his vision.

Community theater slasher movie

[jt-63109 · 2/10 · 18 October 2023]

Another Tubi movie. What to even say about this? For starters, this whole movie feels cheap, in the worst way possible. Literally everything looks like it's duct taped on with the "set" (using that loosely). The camera work and directing are also bland and uninteresting. But I think the worst offenses here are the acting and writing. A lot of unknown actors here, which is to be expected with this type of movie, but there are some names that jumped out at me (namely the guy from Blair Witch and one of the killers from You're Next) which really surprised me and not in a good way. There is literally community theater level acting going on here. But they didn't have much in terms of story to go off of, either, so there's that. I did give it a couple stars because there's one kill which is awesome, but even the other kills are just uninspired and dull.

Iconically bad

[markhoulihan5-623-209915 · 2/10 · 28 December 2023]

Terrible acting- the main actress is particularly bad. She takes "quiet timid girl" to astonishing new lows. As a scream queen she was hilariously bad too- My favourite scene was when her brother gets abducted by the phantom on the worlds smallest merry go round and she just stands there wailing as it spins instead of trying to chase them.

The kills come out of absolutely nowhere (particularly the first one where the killer appears randomly from behind a wall). They're pretty awful kills too- the worst being when her friend gets killed in hilarious slomo. The phantom does these tiny little slices with his kitchen knife instead of stabbing. It's truly a sight to see.

The set pieces are wild- the theme park is made up almost entirely of wooden planks and plastic sheets. I have no idea why there were so many employees there so late at night when the park hadn't even opened. All the while the phantom fun world voiceover is playing randomly too. Why have it on when there are no customers??

The characters make some wild decisions too. After defeating the phantom they inexplicably decide the try and burn the entire building to the ground. Without even trying to see are there any survivors. There's also a fantastic scene where our leading lady finds her mother (stabbed with 6 knives sticking out of her abdomen!), she's completely coherent speaking full sentences, not bleeding out, and she decides to "PUT HER OUT OF MISERY?!" Not even a vague effort to try and save her. Nope. Time for mommy to die, there's no hope for her! Best part of the whole movie, I was honestly lolling.

Overall, I think I'd actually recommend this solely for laugh factor. It was so cheesy, really terrible plot choices, a script that they probably wrote in an hour, just so so funny.

Lead actress is good, everything else is embarrassingly bad

[spottylittlegit · 1/10 · 11 December 2023]

First off, one of the most sure fire ways of identifying that movie is probably going to be awful is if Ari Lehman is in it, and he pops up in the first 5 minutes. And as predicted, this film is another whiff. The premise itself sounded fun. Horror themed amusement park opens, then turns into a real life slasher when the titular "Phantom" begins knocking off the staff. Kind of sounds like a Scooby Doo episode taken to a psychotic level. I didn't expect it to be fine cinema, but I was just hoping for stupid fun. Weirdly enough it didn't even hit that low bar. For one thing, this movie has a real identity crisis. The theme sounds stupid, but possibly fun, the budget is low, the acting is atrocious, and Ari Lehman is there right off the bat, hamming it up in an ad for the park, in the most cringe inducing fashion, complete with the requisite blond bimbo in a tight dress oohing and aweing, and striking "sexy" poses beside him. So again, it' setting this stupid, cartoonish vibe immediately. Yet then, it introduces the main character, and suddenly cuts to this very serious, somber, drama vibe. She's showering, sadly, while very somber lifetime channel esque music is playing, then she's talking to her little brother about their mother, and how she abandoned them both, and tries to have this heartfelt moment. In fact, pretty much every time this character has a scene to herself it cuts to this very dramatic, sad, sober vibe as she attempts to relate to her brother, and connect with her estranged mother. And she's actually quite good. She's a talented actress. The problem is... she's acting in the wrong movie

Everything else, and every other character in this movie is cartoonish, and cringey. Every other character is a ridiculous stereotype. No one else can act at all, everyone is overacting horribly, every other character you encounter are all obnoxious, unlikable caricatures of people who don't speak, act, or behave like real human beings, and the rest of the movie feels like it was written by a child. Then back to the lifetime channel drama, then back to the cartoon. It makes no sense. It's like two different people wrote this film, and couldn't even agree on what kind of film they were making

Props to the main character, her brother, and to a lesser extent their mother. They are actually trying to act, far better than the awful script they were given. And major thumbs down to the park owner, the cheesy stereotypes that worked there, and Ari Lehman's ridiculously cringe...whatever it is he is trying to be (the dude played Jason as a child in Friday the 13th, long, LONG ago and has been riding that fame ever since. STOP CASTING THIS DUDE. HE CANNOT ACT, AT ALL, AND HAS A MASSIVELY OVERINFLATED EGO, EVEN LARGER THAN HIS STUPID HIPSTER MOUSTACHE).

Anyway, dull movie, weird bi polar vibe to it, with a few standouts that deserve to be in much better films.

A really enjoyable indie throwback slasher effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 8/10 · 7 January 2024]

Trying to make ends meet, a teenager gets a job at a local theme park set to reopen years after a tragic accident, but after hearing about the park's tragic history and writing it off learn that the staff is being stalked by a savage killer looking for retribution against the park forcing her to get away alive.

Overall, this was a really likable indie slasher. One of the better features here is the strong setup required to bring about the various interconnecting storylines at play here. The main setup of the family relationship that sets her out on the trip to the attraction works well enough to get an idea of the need to get involved as she needs to look after him with the need to make sure he's taken care of while their mother's at work is good enough to offer up the starting point for the introduction into the staff at the park where most of this takes place. This allows for another fun setup with the group coming off immensely well and likable as they put her through her paces while also setting up the fantastic backstory of the park's history involving the former owner's bullied teenage son snapping and going off on his killing spree that left the stained legacy the new reopening is supposed to fix that overall leaves this section incredibly fun. With this setup established, the turn into being a fun slasher comes off incredibly well. This mainly comes from the great layout of the park that we're taken through as the simple setup and fun series of interactions that take place here offer the kind of grand layout where the stalkings that take place are far more of the old-school variety where more elaborate stalking and chasing take place. While still featuring some of the shock ambush style sequences such as the first appearances against the workers, the more involved and lengthy ones including against the couple fooling around backstage, the fun sequence against the friend through various corridors and hallways, or the final chase against the killers turns out far more suspenseful and enjoyable. As these are usually punctuated by a brutal and somewhat bloody death at the end of the scene, these all come off rather nicely to give this a lot to like. There are some minor flaws featured here that bring it down. The main drawback here is the cliched and immensely predictable means through which this adds a second killer into the mix as a way to provide suspense and shock to overcome. This never needed the secondary figure to be in league with the masked figure as a sibling to help it be accomplished which follows the rules and formula of the genre which is why it's so predictable as it causes so many problems as for how that would get accomplished the way it does. Barely mentioning it and glossing over the situation only brings more attention to this factor so it does become a distraction, much like the behavior of the final girl once things start to get dangerous as she tends to stand by on the sidelines screaming and crying, refusing help until the last minute possible and dropping weapons constantly while having the upper hand. These factors all bring this one down somewhat,

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Phantom Fun World is definitely Fun

[jtungsten-59501 · 10/10 · 18 October 2023]

I had the pleasure of viewing this movie today and I have to say, for a low budget film they did a great job. Is all the acting great? No, but there are some actors in this movie who gave it their all. The cinematography is also great in Phantom Fun World as well as the story, I really enjoyed the relationship between Cole and his mother and and Cole and his sister and how she took care of him. I really enjoyed the slashing in Phantom too! LC as the phantom is amazing as always in the film and I really think Phantom Fun World is a great movie for Halloween season and I really had a great time watching this great film.

Loved it!

[Eviecanary · 10/10 · 30 October 2023]

What a fun movie! The cinematography is excellent, the story line is compelling, and the plot twist is shocking. This indie film even pokes some fun at itself and other films like it with jokes that are actually funny. It's amazing they managed to all this on such a small budget. Also the soundtrack is phenomenal! Combine all that with a cool retro vibe and a great cast and we've got a new favorite! We will surely add this to our roster of horror movies that we watch every year near Halloween. We can't wait to see what happens with the Phantom next. Maybe a prequel where we learn how he survived all those years before he resurfaced?! We definitely want more Phantom!