Phantasm: Ravager

Dir: David Hartman

2016

****

People have been asking Don Coscarelli whether he’d make another Phantasm film ever since Phantasm IV: Oblivion came out in 1998. Phantasm IV: Oblivion was a patchwork quilt of various bits of unused footage and was meant to be a bridge between the third film and a new film that producer Roger Avary had written that he and Coscarelli hoped would be the big one with the studio spending mega-bucks on. It was over-ambicous and never happened, although Coscarelli remained hopeful. In 2004, six years after the release of Phantasm IV: Oblivion, series director Don Coscarelli said in an interview "I’d also still like to do another Phantasm film. Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm are still in great shape and raring to go." Then, in March 2005, it was announced that Coscarelli was in the final stages of talks with New Line Cinema to produce a new entry. He said the new film was "being developed as a relaunch and as a possible trilogy about Mike's coming of age.” Once again, it didn’t happen. Rumors about a sequel were reignited again two years later by footage contained in Don Coscarelli's Farewell to the Alamo Drafthouse, featuring Angus Scrimm and A. Michael Baldwin in their Phantasm roles. However, when Reggie Bannister was later interviewed and asked about the possibility of a fifth film, he stated there was no activity or development but said that anything was possible in the future. I don’t think anyone truly believed that there would be another Phantasm film. However, in 2012, rumors surfaced that Coscarelli would begin a new Phantasm sequel. According to a reliable source, the script was completed and filming would begin later in the year. Coscarelli disputed this claim, publicly stating, "I have no solid news to report on a new project now.” For me that was confirmation that there would never be another Phantasm film ever and if there were, it would be an awful re-boot that wouldn’t have anything to do with Coscarelli or any of the original actors. The thing is, Coscarelli was lying. He and co-writer-director David Hartman had already shot the film secretly. What a sneaky genius. It was confirmed in 2014 and was finally released in 2016 with fans of the series in a frenzy of excitement. The film begins with Reggie, running about in the desert, still on the trail of his nemesis - the Tall Man. He then pays a man to offer him a ride, but realizes it's actually his car they're in, and the man stole it when he recalls putting a gun in the middle compartment. He chucks the man out, but two spheres suddenly fly by, and one sphere kills the man on the road while the other chases after Reggie. He manages to defeat them however, but then wakes up in a hospital sitting with Mike talking to him as he sits in a wheelchair, who apparently looks after him due to him having an early stage of dementia. He then tells Mike his story. In an apparent dream setting, Reggie meets a woman who mistakes him for a friend. Her car isn't working, so Reggie offers her a lift. They go to a cabin on a farm, and Reggie learns that a Bulgarian man named Demeter helps out. Reggie explains to her about his dealings with The Tall Man over the years, and she is amazed by his tale. He tries his usual lady wooing, but is turned down. As he plays a song, he cannot remember her name, and goes to sleep. Later, The Tall Man shows up with more of his deadly spheres. A flashback scene then shows Reggie in the hospital, but it is the hospital from the 1860s. The Tall Man (or his original identity, Jebediah) is lying in the bed next to him. They then talk. Jebediah explains he's nearly finished, and has lost many friends. He says they are both there basically to die. Reggie wakes up the next morning, remembering the lady's name is Dawn. He gets no answer when he asks her a question, and finds that she's been killed by spheres, that then give chase. Reggie equips himself with a shotgun. The spheres force him into a nearby barn. A man armed with an axe confronts him, and it's revealed he is Demeter. A sphere kills a horse. Another sphere then manages to get inside the barn, killing Demeter, before Reggie fights it off. Reggie speaks to Mike again in the hospital. Mike tells him about a new threat looming. Back in his dream, Reggie goes through the woods. Along a path, he encounters a gigantic sphere hovering in the sky, and Reggie is back at the hospital again. Reggie alternates between the other world in both his dream, and the present time. The Tall Man appears, and says their paths cross again. It's 1979; a younger self will attend a funeral in Morningside, and that all his efforts got him nowhere. The Tall Man proclaims he can resurrect Reggie's dead family in exchange for him ceasing his meddling. Reggie is next seen in a mortuary, contending with the dwarf "Lurker" followers of The Tall Man, and the Lady in Lavender appears. She is shot by Reggie and seemingly killed. Continuing on, Reggie goes into a large cave, shooting a dwarf and the place shakes. The Tall Man asks him if he's considered his offer, but when Reggie retaliates, The Tall Man again reminds him his chances are depleting. Reggie wants his friends Jodie and Mike back, but The Tall Man recognizes his "loyalty" for his friends as foolishness. In yet another dream sequence which he alternates with the nightmare world, Reggie is strapped to a gurney as armed masked people appear. One is called Chunk and the other is revealed to be the person Reggie knew as Dawn despite her death, but she says her name is actually Jane and she thinks Reggie is delusional. She radios in some people. Reggie fails to convince her they know each other, but she gets him medical attention instead. More evil dwarf things show up to attack Reggie, but Chunk saves him and gives him a weapon. Dawn & Chunk take Reggie to other members of their group who are fighting the Tall Man. Mike reunites with Reggie, and then escape the nightmare hospital. Mike tells Reggie he's been out of action for a decade in a coma, and the Earth has changed. He says it's no longer their home, it's The Tall Man's now. In the dream world, Reggie wanders around the hospital hallways, but a nurse orders him back to his room. In the nightmare world, an enemy has grabbed him. A spiked sphere then kills one of the people helping Reggie. Mike visits Reggie at the hospital, and says his dream orientates him. Mike reveals he had a dream too where he was in the desert, looking for Reggie. It turns out Mike still has his connection to The Tall Man. Mike reveals The Tall Man unleashed an alien virus that caused an apocalypse on society worldwide. Jane is caught by The Tall Man, so Chunk, Mike and Reggie go after The Tall Man. In his own red planet world, they face and battle The Tall Man, Jane is killed. Chunk, who posed as a dwarf next to the Tall Man, then turns the tables. Chunk blows himself up to try to kill The Tall Man. Back at the hospital, Reggie fights some Gravers alongside Mike. Jodie shows up in a car spewing bullets to save them. After driving awhile, they decide to drive north as The Tall Man hates the cold. In a flashback to the hospital, however, Reggie seemingly passes away in bed while Mike & Jody are holding his hands, and the film ends. During the end-credits, Chunk appears through a portal along a desert road, missing a hand, and meets up with Rocky. Chunk flirts with her, asking Rocky if he has a chance. Rocky teases back saying that there are no other guys around, but Rocky then sees Reggie and the others pulling up in the Barricuda heading north, and they get in. Lots of giant spheres are then shown in the sky in the distance, indicating the war with The Tall Man is far from finished. Much like the forth film, Phantasm V is made up of old and new footage but it is used brilliantly. Having Reggie jump from the past to the future as an older man is in keeping with the surreal fantasy element of the series. The idea that the whole saga has been in his head the whole time due to dementia adds an extra depth to the story with Reggie switching from inter-dimensional time travel, to trying to work out what is real and what isn’t in a care home. Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm and Bill Thornbury are all back and seeing them together again after all these years is genuinely lovely. Sadly Angus Scrimm, who played The Tall Man, died in 2016 age 89. He was shown the finished film just before he passed away. The film is incoherent and at times rather amateurish looking. The CGI effects are fairly dreadful and the new characters added nothing to the story. However, it works. The giant floating spheres were cool as hell and the return of the Lady in Lavender was a real treat. The old school effects are still brilliant and Reggie has become quite the leading man. The budget was clearly as low as it could possibly be but there is a real maturity to the film that the hardcore fans had been waiting a long time to see. This is a film for the fans. Anyone new to the series will see it as garbage and I totally understand why they would. However, to those of us who have lived the Phantasm films one at a time, Phantasm: Ravager comes as an unexpected treat and a faithful farewell. Never has such a low-budget below average horror film brought so much joy and warmth, the perfect way to end the series.

Phantasm IV: Oblivion

Dir: Don Coscarelli

1998

**

During the filming of 1994’s Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, writer/director Don Coscarelli admitted that he had run out of ideas after finishing the script for this sequel and had no clue which direction would the story take in case there was a fourth Phantasm movie. He jokingly added that if a Phantasm IV was ever filmed, it would actually be "just to make money out of it". Four years later Phantasm IV: Oblivion was born. Coscarelli also admitted during filming that it was for the money but again, this was a joke, as by this point the story was something of a passion and an obsession, for everyone involved. Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead didn’t do very well and was openly criticized by critics and fans like, but there was still a hard-core following who wanted more – and wanted better. To everyone’s surprise, Roger Avary – who co-wrote Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance and The Rules of Attraction (some of the most iconic films of the 90s) – came forward as a huge fan of the series and presented an amazing script for Phantasm IV. Avary’s script, initially titled ‘Phantasm 1999 AD’ but later changed to ‘Phantasm’s End’ would revisit the story in 1999 (later pushed back to 2012) where  there are only three U.S. states left. Between New York and California is the wasteland known as the Plague Zone. Unfortunately, the evil Tall Man controls that area. Since many people are dead, the Tall Man is able to make thousands of dwarf slaves for his planet daily in the Mormon Mausoleum. Besides him, the other residents are "baggers," human-like creatures that are infected by the Tall Man's blood, the dwarves, and, of course, the silver spheres, all trying to break out of the barrier that contains them and into the real world. A group of hi-tech troops are sent in to destroy the red dimension where the Tall Man gets his power. Reggie follows so he can find Mike after a series of nightmares he had. The aim is to destroy the Tall Man for good at all costs. It sounded good but even better, it was to feature Bruce Campbell in one of the main roles. However, as the time passed they just couldn't get the budget needed (around $10 million), so Coscarelli wrote and directed this fourth installment as a pre-cursor to the project, that was re-titled ‘Phantasm IV: Oblivion’ (wisely changed from his initial title ‘Phantasm Phorever’). So essentially Coscarelli wasn’t joking when he said Phantasm IV was done only for the money – it was to raise money for Avery’s idea and to keep the momentum going. Once again, the film opens where the previous film left off. Mike flees from Boulton mortuary in the hearse, while Reggie is trapped inside by The Tall Man's spheres. Rather than kill Reggie, The Tall Man lets him go, saying he is doing so "to play one last game", then The Tall Man leaves Boulton. Mike's brother Jody, now a steel sphere who can occasionally resume his human form, contacts and persuades Reggie to search for Mike. On the way, Reggie survives a demon attack and rescues a woman, "Jennifer", from a car accident. They stay the night at an abandoned motel where Reggie tells her the story of The Tall Man. Jennifer is not who she seems to be. She attacks Reggie with two spheres, hidden in her breasts (in the only scene from Avery’s unused script). Reggie vanquishes Jennifer with the use of his sledgehammer and tuning fork. Mike tries to uncover the mysteries of The Tall Man in order to escape his transformation. He drives, in his getaway hearse, through abandoned areas, recalling the last days of his youth before The Tall Man's arrival and somehow ends up in Death Valley. As the Tall Man interrupts his attempted suicide, Mike passes through a gateway. He meets a kind man, named Jebediah Morningside. Mike is frightened away, because Jebediah appears to be the Tall Man. Back in Death Valley, Mike realizes that he can move rocks with the power of his mind. Jody appears, but a distrustful Mike accuses his brother of having abandoned him. Mike begins working on the hearse's engine, seemingly using parts to build a makeshift sphere. Mike goes through a gate, but finds himself in a deserted city and escapes The Tall Man only with Jody's help. Meanwhile, Reggie arrives at Death Valley and fights off a group of zombie dwarves shortly before Mike and Jody reappear through a gate. Mike embraces Reggie and tells him not to trust Jody. Mike and Jody pass through the gate and appear in Jebediah's house. Invisible to the old man, they witness how he perfects his craft and approaches the inter-dimensional gate. Mike unsuccessfully tries to stab Jebediah, who vanishes and moments later is replaced by the evil Tall Man who emerges in his place. The Tall Man can see Jody and Mike, forcing Mike to escape through the gate. Jody finds Mike in a cemetery and attacks him. Awakening on a mortuary slab, Mike uses the tuning fork to immobilize Jody and the Tall Man as they attempt to saw his head open. He kills Jody with the sphere he built. The Tall Man quickly revives and telekinetically takes the fork from Mike. Again, Mike escapes through the gate back to Death Valley, this time pursued by his nemesis. Reggie tries to shoot but is overpowered by The Tall Man. Mike then summons the sphere he built and uses it to impale The Tall Man in the neck. At this moment, Mike activates the hearse's motor, which turns out to be the true weapon, a strange inter-dimensional bomb, against the Tall Man. The Tall Man is once again supposedly vanquished. However, a new Tall Man immediately comes through the gate, revealing that The Tall Man is but one of many. The Tall Man removes the golden sphere from Mike's head and then passes through the gate. Reggie arms himself and chases after The Tall Man through the gate. Mike recalls a childhood memory of him climbing into Reggie's ice cream truck as they both drive off into the dark night. Oddly enough, both of them hear each other's last exchange of dialogue from the present before Reggie went through the gate. Reggie asks Mike if he hears the voice, but Mike brushes it off declaring, "it's just the wind". Don Coscarelli decided that he had already gone too far in the action/comedy direction. So before going out in the over the top Roger Avery film, he wanted to bring the saga "back to its roots" crafting a low budget sequel more focused in the horror and surrealist aspects of the story, in the vein of the 1979 original. At the same time, plenty of unused footage from the original film was located after having being lost for years. Oblivion's budget was considerably lower than the previous two Phantasm films. While Phantasm II had a budget of $3,000,000 and Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead had a budget of $2,500,000, the filmmakers were only able to secure $650,000 to make the fourth installment. The filmmakers had to be inventive with the budget. For the Civil War dream sequence a Civil War reenactment group was hired in exchange for a $200 donation. Because the production could afford to build only a few sets, several key scenes were filmed in the desert, making this the only Phantasm movie without significant scenes inside a mausoleum setting, except the very beginning and toward the end. The swarm of spheres were actually produced by several hard-core fans of Phantasm who send their footage to their hero Reggie Bannister, who in turn sent to Coscarelli who jumped at the chance to use for free. The KNB EFX group who worked with Coscarelli before also helped out a bit on the film as a favor to him, while Bannister and his band provided some of the films music. To be honest, Coscarelli was lucky to have Angus Scrimm, A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister and Bill Thornbury on his side and prepared to return. He is also lucky for his hard-core following because otherwise this fourth installment would never have happened. I really wanted to like it as I see all of the Phantasm films as something of an independent success story but the truth of the matter is that Phantasm IV: Oblivion is very hard to watch and not particularly enjoyable. The story has now become a parody of itself and it makes absolutely no sense. A part of me will always have a soft spot for Phantasm but the forth film made my brain hurt and I wasn’t at all entertained. I would have loved to have seen Avery’s idea be realised but alas it is now a forgotten pipe dream. This film looks like the film that it is – a film born out of half an idea, made on the cheap. A series treading water as it were, but unfortunately drowning like a bag of unwanted kittens. A sad ending to a unique series…..or was it?

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

Dir: Don Coscarelli

1994

***

After Phantasm II received little success with a mainstream audience, Universal Studios relaxed their pressure on Don Coscarelli to make any more and it looked as if the series was done. However, Universal did tell Coscarelli that, while they where unwilling to theatrically distribute any further, should he and his associates decide to make another (paying for it themselves) they would be prepared to distribute it straight to VHS. After a few years, and realising he’d have full creative output again, Coscarelli wrote a third installment, and offered the role of Mike to his original performer, A. Michael Baldwin, who returned to the role after almost 16 years. Phantasm III was one of the top 100 highest selling direct-to-video titles of 1994 and the hard-core fans, of which there were many, were very happy indeed. From this point on, the Phantasm films were for fans of the original only, there was no compromise, you either followed Coscarelli down the rabbit hole or you watched something entirely different. While I did follow Coscarelli down the rabbit hole (and will continue to do so), I can’t help but think his talents could be put to better use elsewhere, as Bubba Ho-Tep and John Dies At The End have since proven. However, I’m locked in, Reggie isn’t and never will be the next Ash (Evil Dead) but the Phantasm films are so unique and so odd, that I can’t help but get into them. The film starts exactly where the last film ends (even though it was finished six years before). Immediately after his apparent demise at the end of Phantasm II, a new Tall Man (still played by Angus Scrimm) emerges from a dimensional portal. At the same time, the hearse that carries Liz and Mike explodes. Reggie finds Liz dead but saves Mike from the Tall Man by threatening to kill them all with a grenade. The Tall Man retreats with Liz's head and threatens to return for Mike when he's well again. After Mike spends two years comatose in the hospital, he has a near death experience in which his dead brother Jody and the Tall Man appear. As he wakes from his coma, he is attacked by a demonic nurse but quickly subdues her. Reggie arrives as she dies, her scalp bursting open to reveal a sphere which takes off through the window after it approaches Mike. Back at home, the Tall Man arrives via dimensional fork, fights off Reggie, transforms Jody into a charred sphere, and draws Mike through the gate with him. The next morning, Reggie (with the Jody-sphere) travels to a deserted town and is captured by three looters, who lock him in the trunk of the Hemi-'Cuda. Reggie is rescued by a young boy named Tim, who kills the looters when they break into his house. After they have buried the looters in the yard, Tim tells Reggie how the Tall Man took his parents and destroyed the town. In the morning, Reggie and Tim find the three graves empty and their hearse gone. Reggie tries to leave Tim with an orphanage, but the boy hides in Reggie's car. Reggie enters a mausoleum and is confronted by a sphere, but he is subdued by two young women, Tanesha and Rocky, before he can destroy it. Reggie tries to warn them, but Tanesha is killed by the sphere. Tim appears and destroys it with his pistol. The three join forces, come upon a convoy of hearses driven by Gravers, and decide to follow them. At night, Jody appears to Reggie in a dream and takes him to the Tall Man's lair, where they rescue Mike. As Reggie wakes, Jody opens a portal and Mike emerges. The Tall Man tries to follow, but Reggie closes the portal, leaving the Tall Man's hands behind. After fighting off the Tall Man's minions, including the undead looters, they enter a large mortuary. Inside, they find a cryonics facility, and Mike remembers that the Tall Man dislikes cold. While Reggie, Rocky, and Tim are separated and attacked by the looters, Mike consults with the Jody-sphere, who explains that the Tall Man is amassing an army to conquer dimensions: brains are harvested to turn into the killer spheres, and the bodies are shrunken and turned into drones. The Tall Man senses their presence, captures Mike, and straps him onto a table. Two of the looters wheel in Tim. Mike tries to give a message to Tim, warning him that "there are thousands of them", but Mike is paralyzed by the Tall Man. Meanwhile, Rocky defeats her attacker and helps Reggie. Cut free by the Jody-sphere, Tim runs into the remaining looters, who are killed by the Jody-sphere and Reggie's 4-barrel shotgun. The trio crash into the embalming room, where the Tall Man is operating on Mike. Rocky impales the Tall Man with a spear dipped in liquid nitrogen, and they lock him in the refrigerator room. However, a golden sphere breaks out of his head and attacks them; Reggie catches it in a plunger and, with some help, manages to dump it into the nitrogen tank. Mike finds a golden sphere in his own head, and his eyes turn silver. Complaining of the cold, he leaves with Jody and warns Reggie to stay away. Reggie suggests exploring the mortuary, but Rocky declines and leaves too. Tim reports that Mike tried to warn him, but they find out too late that there are dozens of spheres left, and Reggie is pinned to the wall by them. As Tim is about to destroy the spheres by his pistol, a new Tall Man reappears, says "It's never over" and watches as Tim is pulled through a window by a creature. Dream Sequences, surrealism, abstract fantasy and A. Michael Baldwin. The franchise is back where it belongs. I don’t think its as strong as the previous films but it was nice revisiting old friends and seeing, A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, Bill Thornbury and Angus Scrimm reunited once again in the same scene after fifteen years. Coscarelli has always been his own uniquely creative force but you can tell he started reading the works of Joe R. Lansdale when writing this particular script. The money the saved by re-using the same score from the previous film allowed them to use digital effects for the first time in a Phantasm – an exciting move I’m sure in 1994 but my goodness does it age the film now. Thankfully they still used some old-school special effects for some of the bloodier scenes. Ridiculous and so convoluted it’ll give even Star Trek nerds a headache but you either love it, hate it or have become so transfixed and numbed by its strangeness that you haven’t made up your mind yet but will keep watching anyway.

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.

Phantasm

Dir: Don Coscarelli

1979

****

Phantasm has a huge fan following but I’ve always thought it strange that it is a cult classic and not a mainstream horror film. Evil Dead managed it and I’ve always seen Phantasm as its sci-fi horror cousin – although Evil Dead got better as it produced more sequels, Phantasm did not. You can’t beat old school independent horror films such as this though, filmed over two years and finally released in 1979, Phantasm was Don Coscarelli’s dream and the cast and crew were mostly amateurs and aspiring professionals. It was locally financed, with Coscarelli renting most of the equipment personally but only on a Friday, so he could use it all weekend and return it on Mondays, all the while only actually having to pay one day's rental on the equipment. Phantasm remains one of horrors most original stories and is responsible for some of the genres greatest horror scenes, as well as introducing us to the Tall Man – who is still responsible of many of my nightmares. The Tall Man (played by Angus Scrimm) is a supernatural and malevolent undertaker who turns the dead of earth into dwarf zombies to be sent to his planet and used as slaves. He uses small silver spheres that fly through the air to kill people and drill into their heads, a movie prop that is now as iconic as Freddy Krueger’s glove or Jason Voorhees’ hockey mask. Only a young boy called Mike seems to know what the Tall Man is up to and only he and the local ice-cream man can stop him. The film begins with Tommy (Bill Cone) and the Lady In Lavender (Kathy Lester) as they have sex in Morningside Cemetery. When the deed is done, the woman stabs Tommy to death. Later, Tommy's friends, including 24-year-old musician Jody Pearson and family man Reggie, attend Tommy's funeral at Morningside, believing he committed suicide. Jody explains that he didn't bring his 13-year-old brother, Mike, because their parents died recently and he felt Mike would be traumatized by another funeral. However, Mike has been secretly observing the funeral from the bushes; after the mourners leave, Mike witnesses a tall man in a suit who seems to be the Morningside mortician lift Tommy's 500-pound casket with superhuman strength and load it into his hearse instead of completing the burial. He also seems to telekinetically knock Mike off his motorbike as he flees the cemetery. Mike relays this story to a fortune teller (Mary Ellen Shaw) and her granddaughter (Terrie Kalbus), as well as his fears about the possibility of Jody departing and leaving him in the care of his aunt. Through her granddaughter, the fortune teller tells Mike not to worry about Jody, assuring him that Jody would take Mike along if he chose to leave town. Then, she seems to magically produce a small black box and instructs Mike to put his hand into it. After the box grips his hand, Mike is told not to be afraid, and as the panic subsides, the box relaxes its grip. After Mike leaves, the fortune teller's granddaughter investigates the Morningside mausoleum, where she finds a strange room filled with white light. She screams at what she sees, and is presumably killed. Later, the Lady in Lavender seduces Jody in a bar and takes him to Morningside Cemetery to have sex. Mike, who has taken to secretly following Jody in the wake of their parents' deaths, has an aggressive encounter with a short, hooded figure while spying on his brother. He runs screaming from the bushes, interrupting Jody mid-coitus. When Jody catches up to him, Mike frantically tries to tell him about the hooded figure, but Jody dismisses the story. After another violent encounter with more hooded figures and seeing the Tall Man walk down the street and react strangely to cold air coming out of Reggie's ice cream truck, Mike resolves to investigate Morningside and obtain proof of his suspicions to show to Jody. While exploring the mausoleum, a silver sphere flies through the air, narrowly missing Mike as he dives under it. He is accosted by a Morningside caretaker, but Mike escapes just as the sphere is making another pass; it impales itself in the caretaker's skull and drills into his brain, killing him. The Tall Man approaches Mike, but he escapes by exercising control over his fear, surprising the Tall Man and trapping his hand in a heavy door. Mike cuts the fingers off of the hand, causing the Tall Man to bellow an alien roar while yellow blood gushes from the wound. Mike takes one of the Tall Man's still-moving fingers and escapes the mausoleum, narrowly avoiding capture by the hooded figures. The finger is enough for Jody to believe Mike's stories about Morningside. Meanwhile, the finger transforms into a vicious, oversized fly-like insect that attacks Mike. Reggie coincidentally witnesses this, and joins the brothers in their suspicions about Morningside. Jody decides to go on his own investigation alone. He is chased away from Morningside by a seemingly driverless hearse, but is rescued by Mike in Jody's car. The two run the hearse off the road and discover it was driven by one of the hooded figures, whom they discover to be a re-animated Tommy. Tommy's body has been unnaturally shortened, although he weighs significantly more than average. Reggie and Jody resolve to defeat the Tall Man. Mike is taken to an antique store owned by Jody's friend Sally (Lynn Eastman). There, Mike discovers an antique photograph of the Tall Man. Mike begs Sally to take him home; on the way they see Reggie's ice cream truck overturned. Mike finds a handprint melted into a block of ice with the same yellow blood that came out of the Tall Man. Mike tries to get Sally and her friend to leave the scene quickly, but all three are attacked by a mob of hooded dwarves. Mike survives by being thrown out of the back window, while the girls drive off into the night, screaming. Mike assumes they and Reggie are all dead. Jody locks Mike in his room to keep him safe, then goes to Morningside to execute his plan to kill the Tall Man. Mike escapes his bedroom and tries to leave to help Jody, but the Tall Man is waiting for him outside his front door. He kidnaps Mike in a hearse, but Mike thwarts him by shooting out the back window and a rear tire, causing the hearse to strike a pole and explode. While looking for Jody in Morningside, Mike opens his father's casket and sees that it is empty, prompting him to scream and attract the attention of the silver sphere. Jody destroys it with a shotgun. Suddenly, Reggie appears and explains that he rescued Sally and several other girls. The three then open the mysterious door the fortune teller's daughter opened earlier. Inside, they find oil drum-like canisters with more dwarfed re-animated corpses inside them. Mike accidentally falls through a portal and catches a brief glimpse of a red, hot planet where the dwarves are toiling as slaves. He is quickly snatched back to Earth by Jody, after which he deduces that the Tall Man must come from the red planet and that the corpses are shortened so they can withstand the increased gravity and temperatures. The trio is suddenly split up by a power outage. Reggie remains in the dwarf storage room alone, and places his hands on the portal, mirroring an earlier scene when he stopped a tuning fork from vibrating. This causes the portal to become a powerful vacuum that Reggie narrowly escapes. It also stuns the Lady in Lavender, revealed to be a shape-shifted Tall Man, and saves Jody from being stabbed. However, in the chaos, Reggie stumbles upon the Lady in Lavender's body, and she kills him. Jody and Mike flee, and the mausoleum vanishes. The brothers devise a plan to lure the Tall Man into a local deserted mine shaft and trap him inside. Mike once again controls his fear and succeeds in the plan, after which he suddenly wakes up in his bed. Reggie, still alive, tells Mike that much of what he experienced was a nightmare, which has been happening frequently since Jody died in a car crash. Mike appears to remember this and believe it. Reggie tells Mike that he will take care of him like Jody did, and that they should go on a road trip together. When Mike enters his bedroom to pack, he is shocked to see the Tall Man is waiting for him. Hands crash through the glass of his bedroom mirror, pulling Mike into a dark void. It’s a confusing ending indeed but it won people over with its originality and quirkiness. It’s got some great old school special effect also, which was enjoyed by horror aficionados and lovers of gore. Coscarelli came up with the idea of making a horror after noticing the audience’s reaction to jump scares in his previous film Kenny and Company. He hadn’t had much success and thought horror would be the way to go. The original idea was inspired by Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Coscarelli had initially sought to adapt the story to film, but the license had already been sold. The theme of a young boy's difficulty convincing adults of his fears was influenced by the 1950s classic Invaders from Mars and Dario Argento's Suspiria and its lack of explanations was another influence. Much like his friend Sam Raimi did with Evil Dead, Coscarelli collected money from local businesses, doctors and lawyers. The film did not have an accountant, the production was hand to mouth. The theme of the film seems to be mourning and the effects of death on youth but it is also a very existentialist horror, a surreal mix of outlandish humour, old school gore and psychological mind-games. Coscarelli seems to have influenced by a whole host of classic film makers, from Alejandro Jodorowsky to Luis Buñuel. However, he and the Phantasm series have become even more of an influence, opening many possibilities to younger film makers and proving that you can mix genres, providing you have a strong imagination.