Phantasm RaVager - Das Böse V

With so much time between movies, I hardly remember anything from Phantasm, but I do recall I liked some of the films enough to watch this fifth and probably final part of the series. But it was completely disappointing.

The movie is more like a collection of shorts that blend into each other as Reggie is either in a mental asylum, or a on his death bed or in a house trying to score with a redhead or in a hellish world taken over by Tall Man. Since it retains that dream quality of the previous movies, you never know what is real, especially since some of the scenes seem to be previously recorded but unreleased footage. Some extras are brought for no good reason and Angus has just a few scenes. The actor died this year, so RIP for him and probably for the series.

The problem laid with the lack of emotional impact for any of these scenes with disjointed action and characters that never develop and one barely remembers from previous films. Frankly, a waste of time for everyone involved.

The people who watch this film are the hard core fans who were entranced by the disorientating chilling imaginative world of the First Phantasm Movie. Most likely viewed multiple times at late night triple features in actual cinemas, like me. So when the franchise lays this confusing mess in your lap it is with sadness we view the results rather than dismissively as consumers of media. This was the last chance Angus Scrimm got to play his iconic Tall Man roll, and he totally delivered on his lines yet again, creepy, with a plan we can't understand, everything we could ever want from him. But how those nuggets fitted into an overlaying story, well, really they don't. There was nothing there for them to slot into, for them to make sense in. Granted, part of the original movies charm was how sense was tossed out the window; but everything in the original movie fitted within the universe of Phantasm; everything had a point, and a result to that point.

In this 5th installment most things that happened went nowhere; were smoke and mirrors; a collection of disconnected setups; some with style; many executed with cringe-worthy cheesiness; naff effects, and an edge of unintended sadness, as they chipped away at the legacy of the original.

What was it all about? I don't really know and it gives the feeling that no one, particularly the director did. It didn't make any sense, and not in a good way, just looping round some vague concept of "is Reggie dreaming, or is it real"?, but it's done so poorly the end result is a wasted opportunity to do something solid with an all-original-cast back together to pay tribute to a legendary movie franchise.

Reggie was OK as a disposable side man, but it was the 2 brothers that were the interest factor in the original. To be honest, it was kind of boring,....

.... of note, the music was a reasonably decent reworking of the original catchy score orchestrated excellently, although the original did use non classic orchestra sounds and rock instruments well, so it deviated from that innovation. The only jarring thorn in an otherwise stellar soundtrack was the cringe-worthy Ravenger rap over the score as the credits rolled. Utterly awful.

Either the director has no understanding of what was good about the original , or Coscarelli totally 'George Lucas'd' his own series, and also didn't understand what he got right in the original.

Farewell Phantasm. I wish you could have had a better send off than this. Thanks for the original though. A true iconic milestone in disorientating creepy cinema.

It's hard to believe that the Phantasm series started back in 1979 and sporadically released it's 5 movies across the decades.

What's even harder to believe is that every major player from the franchise has stuck through it and is right here in 2016 for the final chapter.

Reggie returns one last time to reunite with his friends, fight the forces of evil and go toe to toe with the Tall Man for the ultimate confrontation.

Now I don't think that the Phantasm franchise is that great, I think they are original titles and I applaud them for lasting as long as they have but they've tended to be confusing disconnected movies.

Alas this is no different, in fact I have to say it's the most confusing of them all. Regardless it's a nostalgia trip, everyones along for the ride including the films original creators.

Though the sfx are ropey and the plot makes very little sense Ravager isn't that bad, it's just not a fitting finale for a series that has lasted this long! What makes it worse is that the highly ambiguous finale does it no favours.

I'd say this is essential viewing for fans of the series but all things considered it should have been considerably better.

RIP Angus Scrimm

The Good:

Nostalgia filled

Some new and interesting ideas

The Bad:

Plot isn't great

Pacing is a bit of a mess

Finale is terrible

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Reggie Bannister is immortal

When a franchises sfx haven't improved since the 1970's you need to have serious words with your sfx guys

Having seen all the others films in this series, I felt this one was a big disappointment. The acting and effects are good but definitely not the script. Though it was a novelty having an entire cast stay together long enough to make this many movies, and seeing a montage in which they age, this, as the final film in the franchise, went out not with a band nor a whimper, but simply...went. With all the switches from one dimension to another, soon the audience is apt to soon be as confused as Reggie.

No explanation was ever given in any of the movies for why all this was happening and it isn't given here, the little speeches of "loyalty" which should really read "friendship" notwithstanding. Although the actors do a credible job, and the special effects are well-done, along with brief glimpses of black humor, the plot is a confusing mess leaving nothing but disappointment in its wake. This movie doesn't tie up any loose threads or offer any explanations. Technically, it's not even a final entry since the story merely stops...with an open ending which could conceivably herald another episode, if the "Tall Man" himself, Angus Scrimm, were going to be around. Once wonder if perhaps since this film was dedicated to his memory, everyone thought it would be too difficult to replace someone fitting that role so aptly.

Whatever the reasons, I felt it was time wasted and was left with the feeling the spirit as well as the fright of the original film had long since fled.

I'm happy to admit that I find the story lines to the Phantasm films a bit of a challenge to follow, their freewheeling, anything goes, dream-logic approach not being the easiest thing to grasp. But then that's all part of the series' charm, creator Don Coscarelli having forged an intriguing franchise that writes (and rewrites) its own rules and which constantly surprises.

Ravager, the first Phantasm film not to be directed by Coscarelli (David Hartman takes the reins), fits the mould perfectly with a bizarre narrative that sees its unlikely hero Reggie (Reggie Bannister) flip-flopping between several distinctly different realities, the film never letting on which of these, if any, is his genuine existence. In one reality, Reggie is wandering the desert searching for long lost friend Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) when he encounters a woman called Dawn (Dawn Cody); in another, he is in hospital suffering from early onset dementia, suggesting that the Tall Man and his minions are a figment of his deteriorating mental state; Reggie also finds himself in a version of Earth where the Tall Man and his spheres are in control and where Mike is leading a desperate band of freedom fighters.

Not a lot of this makes much sense, and little is really resolved by the end of the movie, but the fun is in seeing much-loved characters returning for one last adventure, in watching the silver spheres causing more bloody mayhem (in this chapter, a horse gets drilled, and an exploding spiky sphere blows someone's head apart!), and in seeing just how bonkers it all gets. Ravager has a gun-toting dwarf, sees Reggie out-driving some spheres while blasting at them with a hand cannon, and features spheres the height of skyscrapers, but it could have done with a bit more gore in the second half for my liking. Still, it's not a bad way to spend some time and should keep most avid Phans reasonably happy for the duration.