New Flix: Phantasm- Ravager (2016)

After 40 years and four other Films, can this Series wrap up properly?  It had better, since some of the Cast is indisposed...

Reggie is wandering in the Desert in his Ice Cream Man outfit.  Context?  Nah!

He gets his car back and battles some Orbs, which is where the Film first shows its Low-Budget nature.

Don't rely on CG if you can't do it that well, guys!

Reggie keeps getting pulled between different Realities or Visions...or something.

Rather than focus on that, here's an Orb killing someone.

Reggie continues to be confused as now he sees large Orbs and finds another pair of metal 'transport you places' rods.  Might as well walk through them!

Which reality is real?  Is Reggie really just crazy?  Is the crazy, red world the real one?

More importantly, will Reggie learn the truth of the Matrix?

To find out (the answers to almost no answers), watch the Film.

Considering the wait and build-up, this is...kind of disappointing.  Apparently after a long period of waiting, Coscarelli and company came up with the idea of making a Web Series.  They eventually turned it into this Movie (also the shortest).  So, in other words, this is the reverse of what gave us Ash vs Evil Dead.  Given the end result, it might have worked better as a Series of Web Shorts.  There isn't much narrative coherence here.  Yes, some of that is intentional.  Yes, the Film Series has often gone for a dream-like tone/feel.  The Film still didn't work so well for me.  Admittedly, I was never the biggest fan of this Series, so bear that in mind.  There are neat things here, but the Editing and Writing don't make it work in the end.  The Film tries to be big and dramatic in scope, but just can't afford to do it.  I really like Coscarelli (though he didn't Direct), but this one just disappointed.  Can we just get Bubba Ho-Tep 2 instead?  If you're a fan of the Franchise, this is your last chance to see anything from it (most likely).  Your happiness with the final results may vary.  On the plus side, we finally get a look at the least talked about War- the War on Pachinko!

A damn shame that this Series couldn't get the resources necessary to achieve what they were going for.  This is just a mostly-confusing Series of Scenes.

Existential Cover Art: Phantasm

I've had this one for a little while, but wasn't sure how to use it.

This Film's Poster in Japan is a little...vague.  It is pretty, but vague...

Here's the thing: I like it, but...what does it tell you about the Film?

Nothing, really.

It is a real neat piece of Art, but...yeah, it doesn't help the Film one bit really.

Tall Tales: Phantasm IV

In the wake of the 1994 debacle that was Phantasm III, this film had a lot to make up for.  Will it return to the art-deco mind-set of the original 1979 film?  Will it return to the over-the-top gore of the 1988 film instead?  More than likely, it will be another disappointment like the last one though, let's be honest.  What's new here?  All of the usual suspects are back and there's really not much else.  This film was a clear attempt to recall what worked so well for the first two films and ignore what didn't from Part III.  We get a couple of new characters, but most of the stuff you see is either the old cast in new footage or the old cast in unused footage from the first film.  You want to make it into Stock Footage Hell, don't you, Don?!?  This is also the final film in the series, so let's see just how much they actually wrap up.  Get out your undersized suit for my review of...

This film picks up right after Phantasm III, not that it's really necessary to say that by this point in the series.  The new Tall Man has Reggie caught by a bunch of the orbs- none of which use their blades, BTW- but decides to let him go.  Um, why?  Mike, meanwhile, is off in The Tall Man's stolen hearse and trying to get away.  He's partly-transformed due to having one of those orb things stuck in his head.  What do they do again?  You don't want to tell us, Don?  No?  Alright then.  Unfortunately, taking the guy's car turns out to be a bad idea as he takes over it and drives our hero out to the desert.  He also has the ability to appear and disappear through a casket in the back of the hearse.  There are creative effects and then there are logical effects, guys!  Since the kid is dead and the black girl just sort of left, Reggie is all alone.  He's visited by the vision/projection of Jody, who tells him that he has to help Mike.  Um, you told him to not follow Mike about ten minutes ago in movie time!  Reggie tells him to go screw himself and drives off, leaving the brain in an orb to do the work instead.  A short while later, Reggie is pulled over by a cop, but gets confused when the guy doesn't come right over.  Our hero wanders over, only to find the cop dead in his trunk and replaced with a mutant.  Huh?

After a long fight, some bullets being fired and a bit of orange goo getting poured into his mouth, Reggie defeats the creature with, you guessed it, an explosion.  This apparently convinces him to go back and help Mike defeat The Tall Man because...it just does.  How does this thing relate to The Tall Man exactly?  Yeah, they don't really say.  After that nonsense, Mike ends up in the desert by himself.  Don't ask me- I didn't write this shit.  He starts writing to Reggie in a journal, apparently working under the pretense that he will one day be rescued and/or get a book deal.  During his journey, by the way, we are treated to some un-restored footage from the first film.  Why?  Well, Mike reminisces about 'the good old days,' thus setting up this pointless filler.  Back in the present...of 1998, Mike decides to commit suicide rather than be a pawn of the evil villain.  We are treated to another un-used scene from Phantasm in which Jody hangs The Tall Man up in a tree, but he doesn't die.  That night, young Mike comes by and agrees to cut him down, based on the idea that The Tall Man would leave them alone after that.  How did that work out for you?  Cut back to the present day and The Tall Man shows up and saves Mike.  No suicide for you, mister!

Rather than really explain anything, Phantasm IV decides to just throw more weirdness out there instead!  Mike wanders around the desert for a bit, while Reggie decides to try and bring back what fans liked about the original films.  Rather than a return of tone or writing style, he simply puts on his ice cream man uniform again and grabs his four-barreled shotgun.  Wow, that totally makes up for that shitty movie you made before this!  I should also mention a weird vision that Mike has of himself back in a Civil War army camp being treated by The Tall Man.  Fun fact: Oscar-winning writer Roger Avary has a cameo here.  After wandering around for a while, Mike runs into an old man that looks like The Tall Man & that person appears to be living in a house from 100 years ago.  Yeah, it's too late to make me care about this new revelation, movie.  To make a long story short, Reggie and Mike reunite, leading to a battle between the pair and The Tall Man.  Reggie gets beat up and disarmed, so Mike uses his...um, Tall Man powers to blow up the Man's hearse.  After a brief reunion, another Tall Man comes through the portal and kidnaps Mike.  The final scene has Reggie reminisce via stock footage one more time and go into the void to save his friend!

This movie...did nothing to make me change my mind.  The same principles that worked in the first two films are here, but there are just so many problems too.  The Tall Man is still menacing and all- he just doesn't have anything new to do.  His whole gimmick of a mysterious man only has so much longevity before you have to make sense of it- they don't.  Never mind that his whole immortality thing is both inconsistent (Scrimm is visibly older between films) and lazy (he just regenerates every time).  At a certain point, these guys should have learned that they just can't win.  What drives them to constantly get their hopes up, only to have them destroyed every time?!?  There are some good things here though.  For one, it's nice to see Reggie, his old outfit and the shotgun, but it's not enough.  It just reeks of Don trying to pull fans back in- that's low, man.  Ultimately, this movie exists due to Don failing to get his dream project- Phantasm 1999 A.D.- off of the ground.  When in doubt, make a confusing film and pad it with deleted scenes from a 20-year old film!  If you like the first two films, think of it is a two-film series and ignore these films.

Next up, we begin a new month with a look at a pair of forgotten '80s slasher sequels.  Do you like gore with your satire?  Stay tuned...

Tall Tales: Phantasm III

We're halfway through the 21-year journey that is the Phantasm series.  What have we learned so far?  We've learned that The Tall Man is a freaky dude, that Mike has a case of face-changing disorder and that Reggie is, well Reggie.  After two films, the villainous Mr. Scrimm has killed a bunch of people and is after Mike for some unknown reason.  Maybe it's his weird DNA, I don't know!  Oh and despite constantly regenerating and/or being immortal, The Tall Man is visibly getting older.  Have you heard of Just For Men, Don?  The journey only gets darker, gooier and more violent from hereon out.  If you want answers, you're really not picking up how this series works, are you?  For me, this is the film that lost me on the whole series, but your experience might be different.  Get out your brain-sucking orbs for my review of...

Right after the twist ending of Phantasm II, the clone/hybrid of Alchemy is dead and a new Tall Man emerges from that weird phantom dimension.  A couple things come up right away that piss me off.  For starters, we have a new adult Mike in the form of A. Michael Baldwin, who was the old kid Mike.  Secondly, the four-barreled shotgun shows up again- as does the ammo belt-, despite Reggie leaving both things in the mortuary...before blowing it up!  Third, the blond love interest character is dead, since that actress didn't sign up for this film.  Anyhow, Reggie grabs a grenade...which he has for some reason and threatens to blow himself and Mike up, forcing The Tall Man to leave.  At the hospital, Mike has a dream and nearly dies, but is stopped from entering 'the light' by the series' villain.  He is also visited by the ghost/vision of his brother, who has apparently aged.  I didn't realize that people aged in Heaven, movie!  Back in the hospital, Reggie goes to visit, but learns that the nurse in Mike's room is a demon.  He kills her, causing her to spew green fluid and have one of the orbs fly out of her head.  Explain, movie.

After returning to Reggie's new house, Mike is kidnapped by The Tall Man.  The vision/spirit of Mike's brother Jody shows up again and tries to stop the abduction, only to get turned into a charred orb.  Um, okay.  In the wake of this, Reggie goes off in search of both Mike and The Tall Man, traveling in his wake and finding deserted city after deserted city.  He finds a hot skank in one of them, only to find out that she's part of a gang of robbers.  They toss him in the trunk and try to rob a big house, only to find a Home Alone-wannabe in there.  His traps, however, are deadly and take out all three of them.  If you ever wanted to see a man killed by a bladed frisbee, this is your movie!  The street-wise kid joins forces with Reggie, even after the man tries to leave the kid with a foster home mere hours after they meet.  Reggie ends up in the next town and gets captured by another woman, only this time she's black and has a friend with her.  Unfortunately, they run into the film's trademark orbs and the lead woman is killed by it, leading to a nice bit of projectile blood spray.  The partner tries to fend off the thing with a single nunchaku, but that fails.  Fortunately, the kid is there to shoot it, setting up an awkward three-way partnership.

You may notice that I barely mentioned Mike in the last several sentences.  Well, that's because he's not been in any of the last dozen scenes.  We finally get some bits with him being captured by The Tall Man and placed in his most-current mortuary home.  Reggie, the black woman and the kid make it to the lair of the villain, only to find that there is some fierce resistance.  The trio of robbers are back as zombies...since apparently the orbs can be put into people's heads, allowing The Tall Man to control them.  I yearn for the days when those things just shot lasers!  Anyways, we get a bunch of different fight scenes awkwardly-edited together as the zombies battle our heroes.  All of the zombies finally go down as our heroes try to stop The Tall Man from doing some sort of experiment on Mike.  They stop him for a little while, but it's too late to save Mike from getting one of those orbs stuck in his head.  In a bit of a ret-con, they set up a weakness to ice for The Tall Man, despite him surrounding himself with frozen material.  They kill him, only to find Mike and Jody leave together, the black woman leaves (how anti-climactic) and Reggie is caught by the re-rejuvenated Tall Man.  How uplifting.

This film....really lost me.  There are some good ideas, but so much of it is just weird and unexplained.  Why do the orbs work differently?  These things are confusing enough without you changing the rules every film, you know!  Why did they return to using the old Mike actor when the other one was actually much better?  Were you just really 'in-love' with Baldwin and wanted him back, even if he's kind of a creepy-looking adult- no offense.  Why is the character of Mike such a small part of the story?  When I saw the movie, I didn't know about the whole James LeGros/Michael Baldwin thing, so I just figured that they cast a new guy, since LeGros was smart enough to avoid this nothing role.  Evidently, that's not the case, so I don't get it.  The new characters are alright, but it's hard to get connected with them when you know that they're going to die/leave at the end and play no further part.  The return of Jody is interesting, but is not really explained enough.  I get that you used the same actor, but why did Jody age in the story, since he is just a brain in an orb.  When I have time to ask all these questions, your movie is not doing a good job.  I'm sorry, Don, but this is just not that good.

Up next, we wrap up the month and the Phantasm series with the 1998 film.  Can it save the series or will it seal the coffin for good?  Stay tuned...

Tall Tales: Phantasm II

A mere nine years after the original film was released- 11 years after it was filmed though-, a sequel was finally made.  Why do some movies take so long to get a sequel out?!?  It's a shame that there isn't a giant nerd who makes lists about stuff like that!  The first problem that comes from this is that the film begins with a scene that takes place right after the first film ends.  Don Coscarelli- master of the macabre and lacker of foresight.  Another thing that came up was that A. Michael Baldwin went through a 'change' between the making of the two films and retired from acting to pursue religion.  Don't worry- he comes back for Phantasm III.  In his place is James LeGros, an actor who's much more interesting and- no pun intended- engrossing.  So what's new here?  Well, The Tall Man is not dead and is after our not-so-young-anymore hero.  Why?  Well, we'll get to that over the next couple of films, but don't look for a super-clear answer.  What this movie does have, however, is new characters, new locations and a more cohesive plot.  Will it be The Godfather II of the series or The Howling II instead?  Find out in my four-barreled review of...

The film begins with a flashback to the first one, which is mostly there to summarize it for people who weren't legally-allowed to see the original when it came out.  At the real beginning, The Tall Man's midget henchmen are attacking Reggie and trying to run off with Mike, the young boy.  Remember the 'time gap' I spoke of earlier?  Well, that becomes apparent when the midgets attempt to steal the child I like to refer to as Stunt Mike.  Desperate and concerned, Reggie sets his house (which was apparently not his when the first film ended- oops) to blow up by turning on the gas and his oven.  He beats up a midget and runs out with Stunt Mike, escaping through a second floor window unharmed as his house blows up.  Yeah, that's not how bones work, buddy.  Cut to ten years later and Mike is now being released from an Asylum, but only because he 'admits' that the whole story was made up.  That was a clever plot point when it showed up in Fright Night, Part 2!  Anyhow, Mike and Reggie reunite and head towards a family reunion, only to have the house blow up Lethal Weapon-style before they get there.  Apparently, Don Coscarelli is a pseudonym for Michael Bay!

In the wake of this tragedy, our heroes choose one stage of grief to focus on: anger.  They purloin a bunch of gear from a hardware store, including a chainsaw, a welding torch and some assorted tools.  The big thing to come out of this, however, is Reggie's soon-to-be-trademark four-barrel shotgun (two of them welded together).  Of course, he never fires the damn thing until the last ten minutes of the movie, but it's still cool.  They go out driving for a bit, giving Don a pretense to write in some narration to fill the time.  See, it's not filler if you talk over it!  We get a scene of the pair breaking into a morgue and trying to find The Tall Man.  Unfortunately, all they find is a man who grows a face out of his back before Mike puts him out of his misery with the torch.  Later on, Mike has a dream about a female hitchhiker, only to see her (Alchemy- really!) in the car with them when he wakes up.  While the pair are taking a piss, they discuss Mike's vision of her, which matches up to a vision he had of her in a morgue earlier.  Taken in context to him picturing the house blowing up earlier and you have one worried lead.  Reggie, however, just wants a woman around to possibly sleep with.  They get to Alchemy's town, only to find it deserted.  After using a chainsaw to break into her uncle's deserted B&B, they settle in.

They cram so much plot into this thing that I have completely ignored the other half of this movie!  A blond sees visions of Mike, while he dreams about her.  When her grandpa dies, he ends up buried by The Tall Man, who has a priest under his sway...somehow.  Tall Man turns her grandma into a midget and tries to capture her- just because.  Thankfully, Mike and Reggie show up to save the day, since Alchemy lives in the same town as the woman.  We get a showdown between the duo of Mike and Reggie and The Tall Man, his army of midgets, the flying orbs and his pair of evil morticians.  Hmm, I'd say that they are boned.  To make matters worse, the orbs have a shit-ton of new add-ons, including side-blades, a targeting laser, a heat ray and a blood pump.  Ease up on the Apps, Tall Man!  Reggie has a chainsaw duel with one of them before giving him a saw-blade to the nuts.  Ease up on ripping off other horror sequels, Don!  The other one gets killed by one of the orbs, even getting it stuck in his chest.  The defeat of Tall Man is very intense, including having one of the orbs plop his 'brain' out, having acid injected into his blood stream and getting melted.  In spite of this, he still finds time to take over Alchemy and give us a second bleak, twist ending.

This movie is good, but there are some noticeable issues lingering about.  First off, the focus on more horror, including bloody deaths and brain drills, is welcome.  Considering the weird, dream-like atmosphere of the first film, it's unique.  On the flip-side, this is a 180-degree shift from the first movie, which probably scared off all of the 'art house' fans of the first one.  The movie introduces a ton of new characters, but most of them don't last long enough to really do anything.  The evil morticians are neat, but get no back-story or explanation for their actions.  Are they possessed or just evil freaks?  In addition, the orbs become a more important part of the story and get a ton of upgrades, as mentioned above.  With that, however, we get the questions of how this happened, who did all of this outside work and why he needs them?  No answers here.  James Le Gros does a good job as 'Mike' and Reggie Bannister is, well, Reggie.  The sudden addition of James is a change for the better, but is a bit distracting.  Ironically, restoring status quo will have the same result!  As a whole, this movie is the big, angry brother to the thoughtful, dreamy Phantasm.  If you hate the original, that's good for you.  If you love the original, you may just want to enjoy your favorite parts of that 1979 film- they're not coming back.

Up next, the Phantasm series becomes a trilogy and officially jumps the shark.  Ironically, they do this while also bringing the cast back together!  Stay tuned...

Tall Tales: Phantasm

Don Coscarelli has always been considered one of the most underrated horror directors of the last thirty years.  His works have been unique and varied, ranging from Survival Quest to Bubba Ho-Tep or The Beastmaster.  Of course, what got his name on the map- and kept it there for a while- was the Phantasm series.  Filmed in 1977, the movie didn't see a release until 1979, something that would be par for the course in his career.  Today's film is the first part in that series, which is also notable for making Angus Scrimm a big star.  Never mind that he was about 50 at the time.  It tells the tale of a trio of men in a town that is besieged by a mysterious Tall Man.  What are his evil goals?  They will seek to find out just that, even if it kills them.  Out of the series, this one is the most respected, so I may have to restrain myself, lest I be bogged down with attacks.  Then again, when has that bothered?  Get out your ben wa balls for my review of...

Our story begins with a man having sex with a mysterious woman in a graveyard.  Man, after surviving Night of the Living Dead, that lady got a strange fetish!  Seriously though, the guy gets stabbed to death by the woman, whose face subsequently turns into a freaky old man's!  If I had a quarter for every time that happened....never mind.  After a wipe, we see a man arrive in town in his muscle car, so he's definitely not compensating for anything.  He's in town for the funeral of the man from the beginning, who was the third part in his trio of friends.  The remaining person is Reggie, a balding ice-cream man.  Fun fact: the actor playing 'Reggie' is also named Reggie.  Don Coscarelli- master of the macabre and lazy at making character names!  The man also sees his younger brother, who would go on to be the main focus of the series.  While the older pair are at the funeral, the brother follows them to the cemetery.  For no clear reason, he crashes his bike on nothing and stops to look around the place.  He must have run over the invisible monster from Doctor Who!  He sees Reggie and his brother drop the friend's body off in front of the grave and leave.  A moment later, the weird old man from the beginning shows up and one-hand palms the coffin, taking it for himself.  Note to self: make sure my body is buried on time!

After this, the young man tries to tell his brother, but he doesn't buy it.  There's a bit of family strife, you see, because the older brother wants to drive around and not be tied down...but he's the kid's guardian.  There's a limit to how cool that mindset makes you, buddy.  As we see, the kid follows him around all the time because he's afraid that the brother will leave him again.  During this part, we get some stuff that seems like filler, including Reggie and the brother playing the guitar together and using a tuning fork.  To the film's credit, this does actually come up.  There's also an odd sub-plot where the younger brother sees a psychic, puts his hand in a box and is told to confront his fears.  I'd feel ashamed if I made a Seven joke here, so I won't.  The old man- who will go on to be known as The Tall Man- begins showing up in our hero's dreams.  Afterward, the kid follows his brother to a bar and, subsequently, his attempt to hook up with  blond in the cemetery.  Luckily for the guy, his brother is chased by a mysterious dwarf and interrupts their make-out session.  Man, how often do I get to write a sentence like that?  The brother chases off the kid, but finds his date gone.  When he checks up on her the next day at the bar, nobody remembers her.  Hm.

Eventually, all three of our characters get on the same page after the psychic and the girl with her earlier are kidnapped by The Tall Man.  Our heroes have a run-in with The Tall Man in his hearse, promptly shooting at it to no real effect.  The thing seems to have no driver, but they'll learn a bit later that it's actually a dwarf that drives it!  Again- how often do I get to write sentences like that?  They go to the mausoleum- don't do it, there's an evil spirit there- and find out a bit about The Tall Man's plans.  He kidnaps the recently-dead and takes them to some weird pocket-dimension, which you access via to metal rods in the ground.  This is realized when Reggie has a flashback to the tuning fork scene and figures it out.  Mind you, I could have figured that out without the flashback, but whatever.  To make the creatures fit, he shrinks them down into midgets and puts them in a bunch of boxes.  Mind you, the sequels attempt to explains this stuff more, but it really works better here.  The trio work together in light of this now-explained threat and kill him...only for the kid to wake up.  Apparently, most of what happened was a dream and the brother (Jodie) had been dead the whole time.  Before I cry 'bullshit,' The Tall Man bursts through a window and grabs the kid.

Well, after all of the hype, the movie is pretty good.  There are a lot of interesting ideas put to use here, including the whole thing with the evil mortician and the dwarfs.  A lot of this stuff is never really explained, even after three subsequent films.  Now, with that said, The Tall Man does make a great, menacing character and his stuff feels very iconic.  Even with the older film-stock (I watched it streaming on Netflix, so there may be a better version), a lot of it managed to feel pretty fresh.  I wish the ending could have been a little bit more logical, but I get what he was going for.  The whole thing feels a bit like one of Fulci's films which tries to make you think that you're in some sort of waking dream.  In that regard, the ending is very satisfying.  I certainly understand why many people find it to be pointlessly-confusing though.  The acting, for the most part, is not that great, but it gets the job done.  The actor who plays the kid- A. Michael Baldwin- doesn't really sell me here.  I have certainly seen far worse actors his age or older.  As a whole Phantasm lived up to my expectations, but didn't quite exceed them.  Considering all the hype this film has, that's still a pretty damn good compliment.

Up next, Don follows up this film with a more action-packed and straight-forward sequel.  Of course, it only took him about ten years to do so. Stay tuned...