OH MY FUCK YES!!!!!!!
I'm so tempted to insta-buy on this one, despite me running on a huge deficit.

Yes, yes, yes... that's what I was exactly waiting for - GREAT RELEASE!
This is one of this games that you'll never forget :)

And yet there were still quite a few good games inside the genre. A lot more bad than good, but still:
Gabriel Knight Beast Within
Text Murphy Under A Killing Moon, Pandora Directive, Overseer
7th Guest & 11th Hour (not pure examples but still)
Ripper
Congo
Black Dahlia
Frankenstein
Harvester
Spycraft
Toonstruck (well, not really an interactive movie since only one character was real but still)
Zork Grand Inquisitor
Realms of the Haunting
Riddle of Master Lu
etc.
It's only those that made it a "game" as excuse to peddle a sub-par movie that ended up being terrible. Phantasmagoria really is among the worst of the games because it holds very little gameplay elements. It's a case of just going from A to B to see the next bit of clip. That's not what a game is about. Even if its atmosphere is great, the game is very short, was quite costly at the time, and didn't have any good game elements to back it up. If atmosphere and setting is worth it to you, you may enjoy it anyway but then again, it's still a game so we need to treat it as once.

I am really suprised.Very positively suprised.Phantasmagoria is a must buy for me.

By all means, give it a go :). $10 is still more than I would like to have seen because this game already conned a lot of people out of their money by doing exactly like you describe: looking fancy and different but if you want to experience it for yourself, go ahead.
I paid £12 for it a year after release because it did a lot worse in Europe compared to US (in the US, reviews were quite positive while it got a right kicking in Europe and rightly so) so it ended up in the bargain bin in quite a few stores. Despite paying £12, I knew it was a crap game and just wanted to experience how bad it was. It managed to be worse than I expected which is quite a feat *laughs*.

This is the GREATEST NEWS SINCE ...
... well, last week when Gabriel Knight was released, but still.
GREAT ADDITION.

I liked a lot of interactive movies but I agree entirely about this one. I remember the hype before it was released and then finishing it within 2 or 3 hours thinking I'd wasted my money. Some of the gore was fun at the end but even at a few hours it drags getting that far walking round looking for the next thing to click on. Some of the acting was bad enough to be funny which was a plus point though. If you ever wondered why a lot of people have won oscars for playing deranged killers then you can find out by watching the end of this game.
With GK1 and Vampire both at $5.99, I can't figure out why this is a $9.99 game. Maybe because of the big download? Gabriel Knight 2 is worth $10 of anyones money when we get it but this game would have been a bit much at $6 if you ask me.

Phantasmagoria? Well, it may be cheesy but it's also a fairly ambitious game for its time. The FMV genre spawned a lot of downright evil crap games, but there's something to be said for having real people in a game; it does adds that human touch which computer graphics can never emulate without getting stuck in Uncanny Valley (just look at Heavy Rain, which is powered by an amazing 3D engine which still is just barely capable of producing really stiff and unnatural humans).
Saw some gameplay footage of Phantasmagoria on YouTube recently and actually got really interested in checking it out (never played it when it was originally released), so I'm definitely getting the GOG version at some point.

Hmm, to be honest I've never (even at that time) liked games that used digitized filmed actors (or pre-rendered 3D) as sprites.
I always found that pretty ugly, I much rather like drawn graphics.

I think it's because the game originally sold so well. Gabriel Knight didn't sell anywhere near as much. I'm glad they also released Space Quest 4-5-6 though to offset the awfulness of this game :-P.
I personally like over-the-top acting. It was part of the charm in Under A Killing Moon - the game didn't take itself too seriously. Phantasmagoria DOES take itself rather serious though and the acting annoys me more as a consequence - well, that and there being no other redeeming features :P

Who here has bought it since they posted:
"Great release" or "great addition" or "Awesome" in this thread?

Great Release. Sold!

The fact that it sold so well should mean that enough people on here know better than to pay $9.99 for it but I bet this still sells loads. I never thought much of most of Roberta Williams games in general except for KQ6. That was co-designed with Jane Jensen so it probably shouldn't count either. All the other quest series were far more fun.
$20 for 3 space quest games + Phantasmagoria doesn't sound so bad, but $10 for the 3 SQ games sounds better.

this is actually one of my least favorite games ever but I barely remember the reasons anymore.
logic fails definitely were part of it... like how you would find these rooms that were left undisturbed since the 19th century with personal items like combs and jewelry boxes and none of them had even one speck of dust on them. So all the other tenants that lived in that house since the 19th century didn't bother moving or stealing this stuff and a helpful ghostly maid kept cleaning everything? ok.
preach!

Funny thing: my review got 19 users who agreed. All the other reviews COMBINED (all 10 of them) only have 19 users who agreed with those (so double voters are possible) yet my review got pushed down from the main page to 5th slot. Tssk tssk GOG, not something I appreciate.