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In part 1 of my Phantasm super review, I covered the background of the franchise and reviewed the first two movies. In this article, I will discuss the final three movies, plus another that could have been.
Set against a backdrop of dwindling budgets, the lack of major studio interest and long gaps between releases, could Don Coscarelli craft a satisfying conclusion to Reggie and Mike’s epic conflict with interdimensional bad guy, the Tall Man?
Read on to find out…
Phantasm III – Lord of the Dead (1994)
The plot in a silver sphere: picking up immediately after the second movie, Reggie and Mike narrowly escape the Tall Man and his minions. Two years later, Mike awakens from a coma and is abducted by the Tall Man.
Reggie embarks on a cross-country trip to locate Mike and end The Tall Man’s reign of terror, guided by Mike’s brother Jody, whose brain is contained in one of the Tall Man’s sentinel spheres,
On the surface, Phantasm III’s plot is similar to Phantasm II, but that isn’t a major criticism. Familiarity can breed comfort as well as contempt. It is why we like music that repeats the beat, melody and chorus. The artist just needs to add progression here and there to keep the listener’s attention. A guitar solo. A bridge. A key change.
Repetition plus elaboration is the key to any sequel’s success, and Phantasm III delivers enough progression to make it a worthy instalment. It expands the mythos in interesting ways and introduces memorable new characters, before slightly souring proceedings with the usual ‘it’s not really over’ coda.
But the epilogue isn’t a total reset this time – more like two steps forward, one step back.
Phantasm III‘s first achievement is helping make sense of Phantasm II’s ending. We see the conclusion from a different perspective, and it rows back on a major character’s apparent death. It’s part elaboration and part retcon.
Phantasm III also brings back old favourites, like Jody. Bill Thornbury skipped Phantasm II on account of a slight case of death (his character, not him). But Don Coscarelli brought him back after fifteen years to play a hologram version of himself, projected from a sentinel sphere.
I mean…I think that’s what he is. I don’t know. Forget it, Jake. It’s Phantasm.
“We understood that reference.”
Putting The Band Back Together
I’m guessing that most movie producers would baulk at such crazy notions. How do you explain the fact that Jody has aged fifteen years despite being dead? The answer is quite simple: you don’t.
Coscarelli secured $2.5m of independent financing for Phantasm III and was free of the studio demands that reined him in on Phantasm II. That’s not always a good thing, but this is Phantasm. Weird is good.
Coscarelli’s newfound creative freedom also allowed him to bring back A. Michael Baldwin as Mike. He had no problem with James Le Gros, who played Mike in Part II. He was simply being loyal to his long-time friend and collaborator.
Reggie is elevated to main character status here – another decision I’m sure a studio would never abide. Universal had wanted to recast Reggie as well as Mike for Phantasm II.
Reggie Bannister is the least likely leading man you have ever seen: short, middle-aged, bald, but sporting a ponytail. But that’s precisely what makes him so cool.
Reggie (the character) is a relatable everyman who is way out of his depth but struggles on anyway. He has a great sense of humour, wields badass (if slightly impractical) weapons, and drives a cool car.
He hits on women half his age but doesn’t come across as a creep (well…no more than any other red-blooded male). His character evolves from ice cream salesman to road warrior, and it just works somehow.
Reggie (the actor) served in Vietnam and had a successful musical career alongside his acting career. At the time of writing this, his health is failing, and he may not be with us for much longer. This article is dedicated to you, Reggie.
Expanding The Mythos
In contrast to the core cast, the Phantasm movies tend to unceremoniously dispose of the supporting characters from the previous film. You can decide whether this retrospectively undermines the previous instalment.
For instance, does Alien3 make Aliens a worse movie, knowing what happened to Hicks and Newt? I don’t think so, but many people would disagree.
So Liz and Alchemy are gone from Phantasm III, replaced by Reggie’s new sidekicks, Rocky and Tim.
Tim is a psycho Kevin McCallister from Home Alone with a house full of booby traps. Instead of going to Paris, his family went to the morgue.
Rocky is an ex-military, Grace Jones type who wields nunchuks and serves up sassy one-liners and roundhouse kicks with equal venom. She was a girlboss before it was fashionable, but remarkably doesn’t come across as too annoying.
Your opinion may vary on the new sidekicks. In fact, your opinion may vary on a lot of Phantasm III. It isn’t scary anymore, and some scenes are as goofy as hell. Like the latter Evil Dead movies, it borders on camp but is still great fun to watch if you are in the right frame of mind.
Phantasm III is more action-oriented and adds some interesting developments to the mythology. Interdimensional portals appear in different places. Sentinel spheres have brains now, plus there are more of them. Entire towns have been harvested to create the dwarf creatures.
All this suggests that the Tall Man’s army is expanding in preparation for some sort of invasion.
Third Movie Problems
But three films in, you begin to question certain things. How has the Tall Man been able to decimate multiple towns across America without the authorities getting wind of it?
Why don’t Reggie and Mike call the cops? Why is the Tall Man so obsessed with Mike? Why doesn’t he kill Reggie when he’s had plenty of opportunities? Who the fuck is he anyway, and what is his endgame?
Few of these questions are answered directly, but some can be inferred if you care enough to give it some thought. Part of the charm of this series is that, despite its apparent randomness, you get the feeling that answers exist.
I said in the previous article that the less you explain, the more you intrigue, but that only works up to a point. Viewers will eventually want something. Patience is finite, and after three movies with the same ending, it may be close to running out.
Perhaps the core issue with this franchise is that the future wasn’t guaranteed. Coscarelli didn’t have the luxury of planning out a five-movie arc for the story and characters.
Each Phantasm movie was a one-and-done, with an open-ended epilogue that held out the possibility for another instalment down the line if enough interest and funding could be secured. It must be difficult to significantly advance the story under such conditions.
Furthermore, while the smaller budget for Phantasm III doesn’t harm its production values, it naturally limits its scope. Coscarelli can do little more than hint at the bigger story he wants to tell. Realising his vision would take an ambitious screenplay and a much larger budget.
Reception
Phantasm III was the first in the series to be released straight to video. A limited test theatrical release performed well, but Universal Studios declined to release it widely amidst rumours of bad blood between the studio and Coscarelli.
This has to go down as the key moment that consigned the series to low budget purgatory. But one huge Phantasm fan wasn’t willing to give up on the franchise just yet. His name was Roger Avary, and he’d just won an Oscar.
Phantasm 1999, AKA Phantasm 2013 A.D, AKA Phantasm’s End
You may not have heard of Phantasm 1999 or its aliases. That’s because it doesn’t exist. But my oh my, what could have been…
Roger Avary was a friend of Don Coscarelli and the writing partner of Quentin Tarantino. Avary and Tarantino won an Oscar for best original screenplay for Pulp Fiction at the 1995 academy awards.
Less than a week later, and with Hollywood at his feet, Avary called Coscarelli with a plan to cash in his Hollywood clout to make the most ambitious Phantasm movie yet: Phantasm 1999. This is back when using 1999 in anything was code for ‘it’s the future!’
Phantasm 1999 was set in a post-apocalyptic USA where the Tall Man had unleashed a plague and conquered large swathes of the United States with his army. Avary’s story would follow Reggie into the plague-ridden wasteland to find Mike and end the Tall Man’s reign of terror (you know, the usual).
Reggie had a pet monkey and an armoured Plymouth ‘Cuda. It also featured a special forces team, sent to defeat the Tall Man with a Quantum Phase Device that can dissolve dimensions (forget it Jake, it’s Phantasm).
Bruce Campbell was set to co-star. Campbell would eventually link up with Coscarelli in Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).
The project was ambitious but expensive. Even with Avary’s screenwriting talent and Hollywood pedigree, they couldn’t overcome the simple economic reality of their situation: no business model existed that could make a return on a $10-$20m fourth Phantasm movie when the previous instalment was released straight to video.
The screenplay is easy to find online if you are interested, or you can read about it here. The project came close to fruition several times. While waiting for the deal to land, Coscarelli secured a small amount of funding for a fourth Phantasm movie, intended as a lead-in to Phantasm 1999.
Phantasm IV – Oblivion (1998)
The plot in a silver sphere: picking up immediately after the third movie, Reggie and Mike narrowly escape the Tall Man and his minions.
Mike flees alone to the desert, scared of what he might become with a golden sphere implanted in his head. He discovers that he can conjure portals to the past and uncovers the origins of the Tall Man.
Reggie embarks on a cross-country trip to locate Mike and end the Tall Man’s reign of terror, guided by Mike’s brother Jody, whose brain and spirit is contained in one of the Tall Man’s sentinel spheres.
Yes, I’m deliberately repeating large parts of the synopses for Phantasm II and Phantasm III. They still apply!
Phantasm IV (I like how the ‘iv’ in ‘Oblivion’ is the Roman numeral for four) was filmed on a budget of $650k. It shows, especially when compared to II and III. The plots are similar, but this is stripped back.
Few characters appear outside of the core four of Mike, Reggie, Jody and the Tall Man. Sentinel screentime is greatly reduced and the gore is minimal.
But occasionally we get a bit of both
Locations are sparse, with most of the movie taking place in the desert. When the hooded dwarves show up, it feels like a homage to the Jawas on Tatooine in Star Wars.
As a quick aside, the original Phantasm was partway through filming when Star Wars hit theatres. Coscarelli was initially concerned that his dwarves might be seen as a rip-off of Jawas, but in the end felt they were sufficiently different. Here, he seems to tip a knowing wink to the similarity.
One more quick aside: chrome-plated Captain Phasma from the Star Wars sequels was named after the Phantasm movies. That would be a cool fact if the character wasn’t so lame.
Flashbacks
Despite these issues, Phantasm IV is far from being a total loss. A subplot with Reggie’s hot new sidekick, Jennifer, is a highlight, as is an encounter with an undead policeman that reminded me of Maniac Cop. The Tall Man’s origin story is interesting and sees Angus Scrimm playing dual roles.
Phantasm IV cleverly makes use of unused footage from Phantasm in flashbacks. The motivation was partly budgetary, but they mostly serve a purpose.
One flashback appears to be an alternate ending to the original movie, featuring Mike and Jody hanging the Tall Man from a tree.
It doesn’t make sense (when was this supposed to have happened?), but it makes me want to watch that three-hour cut, particularly if they could fix the ending by swapping it out for one of the alternates.
Further flashbacks to the US Civil War and the Tall Man’s origins try to create some sense of scope. At one point, Mike travels to the future to tease the world of Phantasm 1999.
I was reminded of Highlander, where a few strategically placed flashbacks to different time periods create the impression of an epic, centuries-spanning tale, even though the main storyline is quite narrow and simple.
They don’t quite pull it off in Phantasm IV, but I appreciate the effort.
Who knew that Angus Scrimm could portray a kindly old man so well?
But even with these digressions and lots of ideas floating around, the movie struggles to fill its already lean hour-and-a-half runtime. Scenes feel dragged out and boring at times. It could have done with a tighter edit and more content.
Phantasm IV ends on another cliffhanger, and for many years, it looked like it would represent the final, inconclusive, and unsatisfactory end to the series.
But as we should all know by now, in Phantasm, there is always a last-minute twist.
Phantasm V – Ravager (2016)
The plot in a silver sphere: Reggie wanders out of the desert, where we last saw him in Phantasm IV, and is attacked by sentinels. Another Reggie awakens in a hospital in the 1860s next to Jebediah Morningside, the Tall Man’s alias.
Another Reggie wakes up in a nursing home in the modern day, suffering from dementia. Mike visits and has no knowledge of their decades-long battle with the Tall Man. Did it ever happen?
The Reggies journey between alternate realities, culminating in a showdown with the Tall Man and his minions on the Tall Man’s planet and the nightmare world of Phantasm 1999.
Um…yeah. Imagine The Matrix, Inception, and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once teaming up for a joint sequel, except not as accessible.
Phantasm’s End
Phantasm V: Ravager (the ‘v’ in Ravager is the five!) was the first instalment not directed by Don Coscarelli, although he did write it alongside new director, David Hartman.
The final Phantasm is nothing if not bold, throwing a multiverse element into an already confused mix of ideas.
Following years of rumours surrounding a fifth movie, Phantasm V was finally unveiled in 2014 and released in 2016, having been shot in secret in 2012 and 2013.
In a true ‘full circle’ moment for the franchise, the budget was $300k, the same as the original movie. But that’s before you factor in 35 years of inflation. Phantasm V’s budget was the equivalent of $110k in 1979.
It’s cheap, and it creaks in parts. The micro budget will be a turn-off for casual fans, and if that doesn’t do it, the inaccessible plot will.
But for the fans, Phantasm V is a fine end to the series. If you can look beyond its obvious limitations, Coscarelli and Hartman deliver a clever script that frustrates, intrigues, and provides just enough answers to satisfy some of the lingering questions. Yes, we finally find out why the Tall man hasn’t killed Reggie.
We also get a budget version of Phantasm 1999, with one or two great effects shots.
Old favourites return for one last rodeo, and when they drive off into the sunset in their armoured Plymouth Barracuda, with the battle against the Tall Man still raging, it just feels right.
The sight of an ageing Reggie suffering dementia in a nursing home is even more poignant when you realise he was diagnosed with dementia in 2016. Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man, died that year, and with it the Phantasm series.
Except the battle with the Tall man ever ends…
Coda
I think I’ll leave the last word on the series to Reggie Bannister. In an interview with The Austin Chronicle in 2001, he had this to say:
I think that after I croak, you’ll be watching it on TV and it’ll be right up there with Frankenstein, Dracula, and all the others. The character of Tall Man will be part of that whole crowd.
Amen to that.
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