I’m a big fan of the Phantasm series. I found them in college when I started tracking down movies I saw in video stores as a kid but was too scared to rent. The first Phantasm movie came out in 1979 and impressed me with a creative story that mixed sci-fi, horror, and fantasy and an equally-creative way of putting that story on the screen. The three sequels to that first one were up and down, but overall they were good and are still unlike most horror movies.
The fifth movie of the series was just released yesterday and I was lucky enough to see it on the big(ish) screen at Digital Gym Cinema. For reference, there’s been an 18-year gap between the last movie and this one. This is also the last on-screen appearance of Angus Scrimm, who played the villain in the series: The Tall Man. It was clearly a passion project that brought back all of the regular players and continued the story that fans had wanted for a while. This is also the first movie in the series that is not directed by series creator Don Coscarelli, though he is credited as a writer and stayed on as Executive Producer. Unfortunately, it feels more like a sentimental goodbye to those characters and fans than it does a horror movie.
The backstory on this movie is that it was originally conceived as a series of web shorts back in 2008 and segments were filmed when money and timing aligned. Somewhere down the line, a narrative was put in tying them together and it was decided to make it a feature-length film. It clearly looks it as the production values range from “decent” to “college thesis”, the plot is more disjointed than any of the other stories, and there are some lackluster scenes that feel more like post-credits bonuses than part of the main film. Part of this can be chalked-up to the director, who has previously only done animated television shows and movies. The direction isn’t bad, but there are parts where the tone is off. Some things look too slick, some music doesn’t match the mood, and a few deliveries are wooden.
It’s not all bad, though. There’s a great scene in the mausoleum with really killer effects. There are a few jump scares that are effective. The giant silver spheres hovering over cities are a great progression for the devices, even if they aren’t explained. Reggie Bannister manages to capture his character perfectly even after all these years. I met Reggie once at a horror convention and he was a really nice guy, but I have a feeling that the character he plays isn’t too far from his normal self.
The movie isn’t going to make sense to anyone that hasn’t watched the first four movies, and it’s not going to make complete sense to anyone who has either. But that’s the point of the movies, to question what is real and what isn’t and to realize that maybe in this world there’s no difference. It was great to see the group back together one more time, to see them take on the Tall Man and his evil ewok minions, to see the silver spheres drill out people’s brains, and to see the four-barreled shotgun in action- even if it is only fired once. There’s no concrete resolution here, but maybe there never could be. I don’t know if, after 18 years, any movie could have pleased me the way the first one did but I still wish some of it was done better. It also doesn’t end with the Tall Man yelling some short line directly to the camera, which might be the best example that the series really is over. Maybe it was all a dream.
Dead & Dying Crap Media 