The Phantasm Series

Surrealistic or just nonsensical, the low-budget to low-low-budget Phantasm films (four with a fifth past-due for release) have a reputation for being original fright-fests. That’s unfortunate as that raises the wrong expectations. Far from attempting for originality, the series is a conglomeration of what came before. Scenes and even lines are taken from previous films. They are painfully self-aware, name-dropping horror icons and putting Alex Murphy (RoboCop) in the cemetery. Phantasm wasn’t something new, but an ode to drive-in schlock horror of the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

As for scares, again, that’s not the tone. We are walking the line between horror and comedy, gleefully and randomly leaping back and forth. Phantasm comes from the pool of The Evil Dead movies, though in the shallow end with nothing like Ash to distract from myriad plot holes. There’s plenty of blood and related fluids, supplied between jokes and “cool” one-liners, chainsaw fights, and the occasional bare breast.

Writer/Director Don Coscarelli has worked the better part of thirty years on the Phantasm world. Outside of it, he’s known only for the sword & sorcery The Beastmaster and the horror-comedy Bubba Ho-Tep. With such single-minded devotion, I’d have expected the series to make more sense, but if one word can sum up the films, it is incoherent.

 

Phantasm (1979) 

Things are just not right at the cemetery. Jody and Mike attend the funeral of their friend, only for Jody’s compulsively spying little brother, Mike, to spot the undertaker lifting the 500 lb coffin with ease. Soon, hooded dwarves are coming after Mike and a living amputated finger persuades Jody that there is evil that they will have to face, evil in the form of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

Phantasm is some strange hybrid of horror, old-school science fiction, and afternoon special, wrapped up in a stoner’s dream. How entertaining you find it will have more to do with how many friends you watch it with and your state of mind. I suggest high.

It starts as a horror film, but then the low budget or low talent kicks in and we drop into drama mode with the most unlikely brothers you are likely to encounter. Jody apparently learned to speak by watching a combination of ‘50s biker pictures and ‘60s hippy flicks. He likes to enunciate and over-emote. He also likes to drink beers, talk about leaving town, and instantly pick up girls at bars. He stops to play guitar on his porch with his pony-tailed, ice cream delivery truck-driving friend because… I have no idea why. They found they had extra film perhaps? Mike spends his time following Jody—really following. He runs after him down the street, which is a bit odd for a teenager. He is also friends with a psychic who has the fear/pain box from Dune, and after telling Mike that fear is the mind killer, she ceases being relevant to the film and is never seen again.

When Phantasm settles on a protagonist, it is Mike, who breaks into the cemetery ushering in the second horror section of the movie. But it is horror movie weird, not horror movie scary. Stuff happens. Some of it is amusing. Some of it would be gory if it looked anything close to real—instead it is more like a Monty Python sketch. None of it makes a great deal of sense. Yes, we get answers to the big horror/sci-fi questions, but that doesn’t help to decipher why people do what they do.

Even die hard fans admit it all falls apart at the end. Mike and Jody’s plan, and how it comes to fruition, is unlikely to put it politely. The “twist” that follows makes most of the movie irrelevant.

If I sound harsh, well, we’re in so bad it is good territory, so many of the flaws are also virtues. The iconic flying killer orbs are pretty cool if you’ve had enough beer, and The Tall Man is an enjoyable villain if looked at either through the haze of time or a haze of pot smoke. Even sober, the Goblin-inspired music is excellent, setting a tone the film can’t live up to.

Some have tried to claim the film is either a parody or an homage to ‘60s and ‘70s drive-in horror. Seeing it as a parody is reading in far too much, but it certainly borrowed liberally from earlier films.

Looking for scares or art or good filmmaking? Look elsewhere. Looking for a good party film? You’ve found it.

 

Phantasm II (1988)

Mike is released from the insane asylum he’s been in since the first film and immediately Reggie’s family is killed. That means it’s time for revenge. The two set off on a road trip, from cemetery to cemetery, with Mike’s dreams of a girl in need of their help as their guide, searching for The Tall Man.

Since the first movie ended with one of those not-so-clever twists that imply much of what we saw didn’t happen, there were several ways this film could have started. Coscarelli went with the worst option—to the extent that he decided anything. Apparently, most of Phanstasm was a dream and The Tall Man won. Since Mike’s version of events and Reggie’s don’t match, there’s no way to know what was supposed to have happened specifically. All we know is The Tall Man exists and Mike and Reggie want to kill him, even if Reggie doesn’t agree that The Tall Man did most of the things he did. This isn’t weird, “question-reality” filmmaking. Just lazy scripting.

And it is lazy instead of threadbare as Universal pictures was now paying the bills. Money does make a difference, even if it is only three million. Low-budget is a big step up from the first film’s no-budget and it shows in set design, locations, editing, and camera work. This is a far more competent film than Phantasm. The acting is better as well, including from a recast Mike, and though dialog is still painful, it is less painful. So everything that was bad in Phantasm is less bad.

As for the good, that’s a harder call. This is less of a party film and more straight horror with a heaping helping of road picture. It is pretty silly horror, with blood just for the sake of blood and boobs because all horror films of the period had boobs, but at least it is clear what kind of film you are watching. Even more than the first, it tries to be cool rather than make sense while nodding to every type of horror film (and sometimes just other films and directors—yes Sam Raimi’s name is on a cremains bag). And like the first, the twist ending makes it all pointless.

Still, if you want nothing more than some weird midgets, an evil mortician, a lot of running around, and some flying bladed orbs, Phantasm II has you covered. This is lowest common denominator horror, but it isn’t boring.

 

Phantasm III: Lord of Death (1994)

The Tall Man captures Mike, who he wants for his cryptic psychic powers. Reggie follows, finding himself in a ghost town when he is attacked by crazy looters because in the Phantasm universe things just happen. He picks up a gun-toting kid and a martial arts woman who both want revenge and the three, along with a friendly silver sphere, attempt to rescue Mike and stop The Tall Man for good.

Here we are again, with The Tall Man and Reggie and Mike, played by the original actor since Universal, who insisted on the change for Phantasm II, is no longer paying the bills. The female character that was supposed to be of such great importance in the last film is killed off in the first minute, which is odd since The Tall Man wanted her alive, but sense has never been part of the Phantasm series.

Mike’s brother, Jody, from the first film, is back from the dead, and he’s aged while dead, as well as gotten a hair cut. He’s also become a silver killing ball…because… Oh, really best not to think about it.

Like its two predecessors, Phantasm III is more about scenes than a story. It answers some questions but only by asking many more and leaving as many gaping plot holes as before. There’s more action this time around, and The Evil Dead factor is ramped up, with comedy zombies making an appearance. The powers of The Tall Man are left undefined, allowing him to do whatever is desired at the moment, and making it clear (if it wasn’t already), that no action taken by anyone matters.

With Mike sidelined for most of the movie, Reggie becomes the protagonist. He fits the sidekick role better and mainly continues in that vein, getting into awkward sexual situations and having monsters run up his pants leg. The new additions, including the kid who is supposed to remind us of Mike in the first film, if Mike was an unnaturally good shot, get to be the bad asses, killing zombies over and over, only for them to get up again.

Once again, the ending is a statement that nothing in these films matter and leaves things open for yet another sequel.

 

Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

Mike, having found out that he is going to become an alien, or is already an alien, or is carrying an alien in his head (it’s not clear, and is never made clear) goes off on his own, chased, often in his dreams, by The Tall Man. Reggie tries to either rescue Mike or kill The Tall Man—again, it’s not clear.

The fourth outing in the Phantasm series is cobbled together from outtakes from the first film combined with new footage. The effect is what you’d expect. Things happen because they had old shots of those things. The new stuff is just as incoherent as ever, leaving a film that’s nonsense even by Phantasm standards. Some of that nonsense is fun, but it is still nonsense.

For much of the film, Reggie is on his own, running into the occasional zombie or monster. He journeys through empty towns and picks up a girl with peculiar breasts but for the most part does nothing related to the story for the first hour..

Mike spends this time in surrealist landscapes that sometimes are dreams and sometimes aren’t. He also develops telekinesis, which is later ignored, attempts suicide, and travels in time. The last is the strangest as it is a new power that comes out of nowhere, is then suggested to be the answer to everything, and then comes to nothing.

The plot, such that it is, doesn’t move much till the end. It is just “stuff happening.” With that stuff, the mythology of Phantasm gets switched around and any answers we’ve gotten the past are thrown out. The Tall Man is no longer an alien, a good guy is now a bad guy, Jody died in a car crash while his parents were still alive, and Mike’s alien side isn’t at all what it was implied to be in the last film. And Tim, one of the lead characters in that last film, is absent without comment. There could be multiple well considered reasons for all that, but I tend to think it is related to two of Coscarelli’s statements: First, that he’d run out of ideas after Lord of Death, and second, that he was only making another Phantasm film for the money.

Does all that make Phantasm IV weaker than its prequels? Not really. It is the same meaningless, flightless, surreal drug trip that any Phantasm fan should expect.

The ending is annoying, being even more open ended than in previous installments, but these films never left anyone with a sense of completion.