Phantasm II & III (1988-1994)

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Phantasm II (1988)

Director: Don Coscarelli

Screenplay: Don Coscarelli

Cast: Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man; James LeGros as Mike Pearson; Reggie Bannister as Reggie; Paula Irvine as Liz Reynolds; Samantha Phillips as Alchemy; Kenneth Tigar as Father Meyers; Rubin Kushner as Grandpa Alex Murphy; Ruth C. Engel as Grandma Murphy; Stacey Travis as Jeri Reynolds

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #143

Phantasm (1979) is a horror film as its meant to be, a campfire tale of human emotion that also happens to be an oddball crowd pleaser. With its exceptional success because of this, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the sequel in the height of the eighties horror film boom for their own use. It's the big budget sequel but between part II and III is where the most contentious aspects of the series for me will stand out. The first, upon reflection, is an immensely rewarding rediscovery. One whose ending manages to take a cliché and deliberately turn it into both a metaphorical emotional impact for the viewer and emphasising how odd the first Phantasm was, neither in reality or dreams and entirely in a confounding nether realm. Obviously for Phantasm II to exist you need to re-do this ending, beginning a series of film serial-like cliff-hangers, where the end footage is played again but with new scenes interwoven. The problem with this is that, with no true ending to these sequels, they need either to contribute something of interest or become time killing and ultimately worthless, the goal originally to close out on Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) and now Phantasm: Ravager (2016). To get to the ending, it would help to have sequels that bring something of worth to them.

I will also remark, just from Phantasm II having the biggest budget, how really marked in the theme of death this series is even over other horror franchises. It's a film which plays on the fear of death even when being more entertaining and bombastic. These films more than any other franchise meant to be as entertaining tackle this subject with a lot more inante power to them due to their tone, more affecting than any other whether you are spiritually inclined, agnostic or atheist. It's a theme Don Coscarelli has gone over in his career, his obsession, which he does tackle even just in the tone and look of his films. I admit, going through a depression because of unemployment, one which has become existential, has made viewing these films regardless of my critical opinion of them all immensely affecting, a tone I have been unable to shake off. Probably the worse films to have watched in this low mood but at the same time a testament to the material's qualities This fear paints the entire aesthetic, from the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) having suited morgue attendants as minions to the production design. The sequel also presents an interesting new arch for the series, where the scale of the first film's portrait of the Tall Man as an adolescent's fears now grows to be a menace that inflicts entire towns. Scenes of Mike (now played by James LeGros) and Reggie (played by Reggie Bannister) entering a town entirely desolate is effective and creepy. A scale for a film which yet is set around only a few characters and an existential fear disguised as sci-fi weird horror.

It's the most violent certainly of this series, paradoxically to the modern day the Universal Pictures backed sequel film increasing the gore to make it a more populist sequel. An emphasis on comedy where Reggie is now Bruce Campbell, his character lovable but by way of a wannabe middle aged lothario, doing his damndest to be a hero, but also flawed, out of his depth and really obsessed with lusting after women. The later could come off as creepy considering he's considerably older than any of the women he's with throughout parts II to IV, only succeeding because Reggie Bannister is a charming, charismatic actor whose able to make dialogue that would sound so wrong from other actors work.

However with this there's also the cost of mainstreaming the original film, an independent movie whose awkward, rough edges were its charm, a prom queen or king with acne who were prettier than the ones with too much makeup and gel in their hair. Why recasting A. Michael Baldwin with James LeGros as Mike doesn't work. Considering how good he was as a child, replacing Baldwin was absurd in the first place, for a tangent with an actor in LeGros who is okay but ultimately a bland figure now here. The less said about Liz (Paula Irvine) and an un-used telekinesis subplot the better, a psychic link to Mike and a potential romance which never goes anywhere and is ultimately made worthless with what happens to her in Phantasm III. The issue of films having write out plot points from previous sequels is the biggest flaw of the middle of Phantasm's franchise, this sense these films are in a cycle of the protagonists continually chasing the Tall Man and neither being a symbolic repetition or leading to an actual end of interest. I admit to liking Phantasm II as a spectacle - the morbid aesthetic, the chainsaw battle etc., a killer title theme by Fred Myrow and Christopher Stone the series wisely returned to - but I also admit that it's pretty empty compared to the first film. That sense of losing the quieter, more creepy personality of the first film which spent an entire scene of Mike doing a MacGyver to escape his locked bedroom. Which dealt with the bond between brothers and friends for large passages of its length. Idiosyncratic personality being scrubbed off here.

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Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

Director: Don Coscarelli

Screenplay: Don Coscarelli

Cast: Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man; A. Michael Baldwin as Mike Pearson; Reggie Bannister as Reggie; Bill Thornbury as Jody Pearson; Kevin Connors as Tim; Gloria Lynne Henry as Rocky; Cindy Ambuehl as Edna; Brooks Gardner as Rufus; John Davis Chandler as Henry

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #144

Idiosyncratic personality fully scrubbed off here. Sadly here it feels like there's little to appreciate for me only until you get to the final scenes, the most rewarding aspect of the entirety of Phantasm III as it allows Phantasm IV: Oblivion to exist, a far more rewarding sequel. For most of Phantasm III however it feels like a rehash of Phantasm II with less to offer. It repeats almost the exact same plot as before. Thankfully A. Michael Baldwin is playing Mike again, and his entire plot line for this film is the most rewarding aspect of the film, leading to a progression where the Tall Man has greater intentions for him than to be turned into a hooded dwarf. That Bill Thornbury returns as his older brother Jody, dead and now a sphere with its sense of consciousness still there, should bring an entire new weight to the film's main plotline.

Baldwin though is not in a lot of the movie at all.  Instead most of the film has Reggie (Reggie Bannister) with Tim (Kevin Connors), effectively Macaulay Culkin from the Home Alone films if the traps killed people, and Roxy (Gloria Lynne Henry), an African-American woman who attempts to use nunchaku on the silver spheres and is tough. They present an interesting duo to have but unfortunately they don't possess any really interesting aspects about them. Their dialogue between them is very clichéd. Tim is just depicted as a precocious kid in spite of the back-story of losing his family having the potential to bring a greater emphasis on familial bonding, with Reggie and Tim easily developing a symbolic father-son/uncle-nephew interaction if the script developed it more. Roxy is more disappointing, a strong black female character who completely goes against stereotypes of female characters in a lot of horror regardless of race, more androgynous and tough, someone with short hair and wears combats like Sarah Connor, the perfect foil to contrast the danger of Reggie's obsession with women becoming creepy by making her someone who finds it ridiculous. Unfortunately she never gets any real drama of interest and disappears at the end of the film with no conclusion to her story. Thankfully Phantasm: Ravager has Gloria Lynne Henry return to the role, but I wish that her initial introduction meant more than it did.

Where Phantasm III is of interest is just the ending. When Mike is "infected" by an operation by the Tall Man, leading to the plot of Phantasm IV which becomes more introspective, an odder film like the original. Phantasm II and III for me don't really interest as much as they should, which do possess a lot to admire between them in terms of style and mood, but sadly in the case of Phantasm III feels pointless.

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