Phantasm IV: Oblivion

The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) has been spreading his devastations. The neighboring towns have been abandoned to the monsters. Mike is driving towards Death Valley to escape his pending transformation. Reggie is also on the road and rescues beautiful Jennifer from a car wreck.

This is generally messy. Mike's journey is a series of random dimensional turns. It's a mistake to separate Mike and Reggie. When the movie opens with a flashback of the trio walking through the door, I hoped for the three of them going on a quest together. It is nice to have the three of them return for this movie but splitting them up loses any hope of chemistry. The logic and the world of this franchise is simply getting too messy. This movie needs a good story. In an aside, I don't like the CGI spheres, no matter how many spheres. There is something solid, something creepy about a real physical floating sphere.

As Reggie (Reggie Bannister) searches for the missing Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), Mike himself travels through various dimensions and across time itself to learn the origins of the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) in hopes of discovering a way to stop him once and for all.

The series attempts to return to its roots a bit, dropping most of the humor from the last two entries, and trying for the off-kilter dream-state of the first film. The film is helped a great deal by use of a lot of footage that was filmed for the original back in '79 but that was edited out, so we get several scenes of the characters as they were back then. The origin of the Tall Man is finally established (somewhat), and that will either be a good thing or a frustrating thing for fans of the series. The sections focusing on Reggie tread much of the usual territory, and there are a couple of over the top gags that will delight or disgust. The ending this time is even more ambiguous than usual. The next (and final?) sequel arrived 18 years later.

This video-only release is for true fans of the series. This gem includes close to 20 minutes of footage that was cut from the final release of the original Phantasm. This movie continues the thread and story of The Tall Man and his duties. I feel the ending left a lot to be desired as it left it open for yet another sequel. If you saw the original, check this one out.

I am one of the world's biggest fans of the original Phantasm. But I have to admit, that the sequels really do nothing for me.

Number four is the closest thing to the original. It lives the same world, but isn't distracted by pop culture phenomena of the time the way 2 & 3 seemed to be influenced/commentating on 'Evil Dead' and 'Home Alone'.

As much as I like seeing the Tall Man, Reggie and Mike back in action, Jody still seems forced into the series. I really wish that Coscarelli had just left him dead and moved on. The whole 'living ball' thing is plain silly.

This is one of my favorite series of movies. The other day, my wife, and I found ourselves watching all four 'Phantasms'. Unlike the 'Friday, the 13th' series, they all tried to be different, but at the same time be true to the concept. Even in the first movie, you walked away (in my case drove away since I saw it at a drive-in) saying to a point, what happened here? Didn't Reggie get killed, and Jody survive? That I think is part of the mystique of these movies. You find yourself discussing with your family, and friends what happened here. Hey, it came many times at at Christmas, and Thanksgiving at my house for quite a few years, NO KIDDING!

This one, I liked, but I'm a little disappointed with it. As I'm typing this up, I have the first one playing, and I still don't quite get IV. For one thing, the idea of explaining why the tall man doesn't die because he comes from different dimensions. Like 'Dr. Who', he travels through time, and space can appear at any time, or place. Okay, I'll buy that. But, why is he so hell-bent on capturing Mike? Does he have some kind of vendetta against Mike, and Jody's family? As Jody said in III,"seeing is easy, understanding takes a little more time." I'm getting a headache trying to understand. There must have been a ton of stuff on the cutting room floor, or someone found a great actor to play Mike from 1979, because a lot of this one bounces back to the first one as they try to tie all of this together.

I understand, unlike 'Star Wars', the complete story was not written out ahead of time, it was made up as it went as it went along. Don Coscarelli is good on keeping us guessing, and I see there one more coming, and judging by the title, this will be the last one, so PLEASE Mr. Coscarelli, If this is the last one, finish it up with style, don't keep me guessing!!!!