Phantasm II

Dir: Don Coscarelli

1988

***

1979’s Phantasm was a horror classic – quirky and often surreal, it was the existential oddity that horror fans had been waiting for (but may not have realised it). It did surprisingly well considering its small budget. Writer/director Don Coscarelli had been under pressure from Universal Studios to make a follow up but it is safe to say Coscarelli felt a little over his head. He couldn’t come up with a story and he considered the first film's ending to be conclusive. However, he had what he described as a breakthrough when he realized he could start the film immediately after the previous film's final scene. He decided to add a road movie element in how Reggie and Mike combat the Tall Man, after which he described the process as straightforward. Universal Studios, who took an interest in the film because they wanted a horror series, allocated three million dollars; this was the lowest budget of any of their films in the 1980s, but it would end up being the highest budget of any Phantasm film. It’s safe to say fans of the original weren’t too happy and for good reason. The most unpopular decision of all came from head office. Universal executives wanted to recast both A. Michael Baldwin and Reggie Bannister because they were unknown and had been out of the movie business since the release of the first movie. Don Coscarelli resisted their efforts and was forced to audition A. Michael Baldwin and Reggie Bannister for the opportunity to reprise their roles. In the end, his efforts won him a concession: he was allowed to keep one of the two, but had to replace the other; Coscarelli chose to keep Bannister and cast James Le Gros in Baldwin's place. A ridiculous ultimatum, especially as Baldwin returned to the franchise while Reggie became a cult figure. Not only did Universal meddle with the casting but they also ordered Coscarelli to ditch the The illusory style of the first movie. A more linear plot line with voice over narrations of various characters was ordered. A female lead had to be added as a love interest for the character of Mike also, and while the story needed more girls in it, it is unfortunate that it was only for the purpose of ‘love interest’. Actress Paula Irvine was cast in the part. The only other rules was something I have to admit I agree with, and that was no dreams by characters were allowed in the final cut of the film. The whole ‘I woke up and it was all a dream’ scenario had to go. I wonder how close Coscarelli got to telling Universal to shove it, but in the end it produced an unexpectedly adequate sequel. The film introduces Liz Reynolds, a young woman whose psychic bond to Mike and the Tall Man manifests in the form of prophetic nightmares. Liz pleads for Mike to find her, as she fears that when her grandfather dies, the Tall Man will take him. The scene then transitions where the first film left off, the Tall Man and his minions attempt to kidnap Mike, but Reggie manages to save him by blowing up the house. Seven years later, Mike, who has been institutionalized after the events of the first film, fakes his recovery to make contact with Liz. When Mike returns to Morningside Cemetery to exhume the bodies of his parents, Reggie interrupts him and explains that the earlier attack never took place. However, Mike reveals the coffins are empty and urges Reggie to help him hunt down the Tall Man. En route to Reggie's house, Mike has a premonition and frantically tries to warn Reggie seconds before an explosion kills Reggie's entire family. Convinced by Mike's futile warning, Reggie agrees to accompany Mike. They break into a hardware store and stock up on supplies and weapons. Traveling country roads, they encounter abandoned towns, pillaged graveyards, and a few of the Tall Man's traps, one of them being an apparition of a nude, deceased young woman (which I’m sure Universal loved). The clues lead them to Périgord, Oregon. Meanwhile, Liz's grandfather dies, and her sister Jeri disappears during the funeral; while searching for Jeri, Liz finds the Tall Man and flees. The presiding priest, Father Meyers, maddened with fear and alcohol withdrawal, desecrates the grandfather's body with a knife in a desperate attempt to thwart its reanimation, but the corpse rises and kidnaps Liz's grandmother. In the morning, Liz finds a funeral pin in her grandmother's empty bed, and the Tall Man psychically tells Liz to return at night if she wants to rescue her grandmother. Prior to their arrival in Périgord, Mike awakens to find that Reggie has picked up a hitchhiker named Alchemy who eerily resembles the nude apparition. They find Périgord deserted and decrepit. When Liz arrives at the mortuary, she is confronted by Father Meyers, who tries to convince her to escape with him, but he is killed by a flying sphere. She encounters the Tall Man and discovers that her grandmother is now one of his Lurkers; she flees and runs into Mike in the cemetery. Later that night, the Tall Man captures Liz and drives away in his hearse; Mike and Reggie chase after him. After the Tall Man runs them off the road, their car explodes. At the crematorium, Liz is taken to the furnace room by the Tall Man's mortician assistants, but she escapes and sends one into the furnace. Mike and Reggie break into the mortuary and find the embalming room. While Reggie pours acid into the embalming fluid, Mike discovers a dimensional portal that requires a sphere to open. They then split up to find Liz. Reggie searches the basement, where he fights off a Graver and several Lurkers with a chainsaw and quadruple shotgun. After a vicious fight Reggie castrates the Graver to death and guns down the Lurkers. Mike saves Liz from a silver sphere, and, when it becomes embedded in the wall, they use it to access the portal. Before they can destroy the building, the Tall Man surprises them, but they fight him off and pump him full of the acid-contaminated embalming fluid, which causes him to melt. They set the building on fire, escape, and are greeted by Alchemy, who has procured an abandoned hearse. As they ride off, Alchemy reveals herself to not be human, and the hearse swerves wildly, then stops. Reggie, bloody and battered, falls to the ground; Mike and Liz, trapped in the hearse, try to convince themselves that this is all just a dream, but the slot to the driver's cabin opens and reveals the Tall Man, who tells them, "No, it's not." Hands break the rear window and pull Mike and Liz through it, mirroring the ending of the first film. It is safe to say that the film is no masterpiece but it does have its moments. I think the big problem people had – apart from the re-casting of Mike – was the move from surrealist nightmare, to the gun-lead gore-fest horror. Universal wanted bigger and better in the sense that they wanted more guns and a more mainstream feel. A franchise is always bankable once you establish a name and I think they thought they had this before they actually did. It’s a shame really as the first film had a poignant message about childhood grief and was profoundly abstract and the follow up is cheap and churlish in comparison. The new look and destructive weapons of the silver spheres seems to be heavily inspired by a short story entitled "Second Variety" written by Philip K. Dick, who Don Coscarelli is a devoted fan. Said story features a lethal type of small robots known as "claws" and literally described as "a churning sphere of blades and metal" that attack from ambush "spinning, creeping, shaking themselves up suddenly from the gray ash and darting towards any warm body". This is the only tweak from the original I can get behind – being a Philip K. Dick myself, after that I don’t know why I like/don’t hate Phantasm II, I think it’s just that I like the naivety of it all, the slap-dash approach that has a decent enough story in there somewhere. It’s a different film but its as fascinatingly quirky as ever.