Dean Koontz's blend of horror and science fiction
The thing I notice about Dean Koontz's literary work is that he often likes to seamlessly blend apparent supernatural horror into science fiction terror. When you read his books or watch the film adaptations, you first think you're watching a horror-type movie but then the movie seamlessly morphs into a scientific or technological cause for the terror in the story. PHANTOMS was a classic example of this. I actually enjoyed the first one-fourth of the movie where the two, pretty, squabbling sisters drive home through the picturesque, northern central Colorado mountains to a Norman Rockwell painting-like, homey, comfortable large town nestled in a scenic valley amidst the scenic mountain scapes. It was splendid cinematography. I was riveted by the seeming supernatural horror of the deserted town and the people that suddenly disappeared in a split second. But for myself, I felt the movie was ruined when Dean Koontz introduced his customary science fiction redirection as the U.S. military moved in to contain some kind of unearthly monster. Had PHANTOMS stayed a supernatural thriller movie, I would have been delighted.
For those who read his books and watch the movies, you'll notice a faint connection between WATCHERS and the book, TWILIGHT EYES.
In the book and movie, WATCHERS, modern-day humanity is about to make the same mistake as the vanished, far more advanced human civilization from one-hundred thousand years earlier discussed in the book TWILIGHT EYES. It's of course the government and military up to their old shenanigans of distorting Nature grotesquely in the pursuit of a bio-genetically engineered perfect killing machine to kill other humans. Luckily for late 20th century humanity, its research and results, the OXCON killer monster (which was explained in the book as a bio-genetically engineered orangutan fetus with fangs, claws, and greater intelligence) was a clumsy, primitive version of the successful version of the earlier human civilization, which ended up destroying their society, civilization, and planet surface in a thermonuclear war long, long ago. In the book and movie, there's only one escaped monster to deal with and even so it is killed only with great difficulty and courage after it has torn apart some eight victims.