User reviews

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.

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.

What makes this series so consistent is the fact that the same writer/director, Don Coscarelli, is responsible for all four entries. Some phans prefer the second film for its tendency to lean more toward being an action film, while others like the cartoonish, over-the-top aspects of the third entry. Personally, I think this one (IV) is the best sequel. I love the fact that it is more in the moody, psychological vein of the original, which is by far the best in the series in my opinion. IV uses some beautiful locations- a rocky beach, a desert with intricate rock formations, and a completely unpopulated downtown Los Angeles (I'm assuming that's what city it is). These serve as really interesting backdrops for Mike, Reggie, Jody and the Tall Man (all the original actors returned, too). All this is beautifully shot by D.P. Chris Chomyn, who did a great job. The plot is not completely clear, but also not complex. The Tall Man is after Mike with the intent to turn him into another "Tall Man" sort-of undertaker. Meanwhile there's a subplot where Reggie encounters a beautiful female on the road (as he does in both other sequels). The dialogue is sparse and much of the meaning is implied. One of the most impressive things about the film is the way they were able to incorporate so much unused footage from the original (19 years earlier) into the story. Despite the time difference, the new film and the old footage work together perfectly, and that is a really cool thing to behold. The film actually ends with a flashback- a poignant and subtle scene that is unlike the endings of the other three movies, leaving the series with what could be a perfect close. But if Coscarelli and Co. want to come back and do another one, what Phantasm phan is gonna dispute it?! Not me!

Just watched this series of movies for the first time, and was very disappointed at the ending of Oblivion, there was so much promise in the story and characters, even tho it was getting pretty silly. In the end they just "dropped the ball" on everything, so to speak..

I strongly recommend these movies to any horror/action movie fan, but its a huge shame the last movie was so.. just overall crappy. In lack of a better way of describing it. All the suspense and mystery was totally gone towards the end, and replaced with confusion and despair, as the movie suffered towards its inevitable credits text, leaving the viewer feeling sad and empty, almost betrayed.

I struggled to give this movie a 4 rating.

A horror movie that is fourth in a series should be terrible. This one actually stands on its own as a good movie, though perhaps not great as fourth in the series.

As other users have commented, this movie does not answer questions about the Phantasm series. It shows a little background on the tall man, and that's it.

On the other hand, looking at it as a stand-alone-movie, it works! It has very coherent and often beautiful art direction. There are very few characters (I assume to save money), but that works. It keeps the movie from bogging down in goofy dialogue and laughable characters like Phantasm III.

The movie actually gets rather artful at times. Just observe the desert scenes with the field of metal rods to see what I mean. The Tall Man doesn't seem too threatening in this one. He come across much more as a constant pressure instead of an acute danger.

The individual characters aren't really developed any more than the previous films. They are reaching archetypal roles of heros, seekers, fighters, etc.

This is not a slasher film. It almost is not a horror movie. Oddly enough, it is almost stepping out of its low-brow beginnings (except for the breast scene in the hotel) and nearly reaching art movie status. I would love to see Phantasm V taken further in this vein. Unfortunately, I think this is the last of the series. Enjoy it if you can find it!

Okay, I know there is some controversy as to whether part III or IV is the better sequel. After seeing this one, I have to say that I was disappointed in this installment. It didn't have the humor that we crave, the excitement or the ultra violence that the others had.

The best part of this one is the explanations of where The Tall Man came from. These scenes are very interesting. This whole movie ties in so well with the deleted scenes of the first one, though, it is obvious the director is making this up as he goes along. There are very few characters in this one b\c it focuses on The Tall Man's relationship with Mike (yet, of course, like the others not explaining all we need to know!). Reggie is severely downplayed, and I'm sorry but Reggie Bannister is the one of the main reasons these films are entertaining. I wanting to drown in my beer at the horrible one liners Reggie was given in this one (and I mean HORRIBLE). I thought the whole ice cream man uniform at the end was a little gay, though funny. Yet, the movie is okay on it's own. There isn't much action except at the end, there are a ton of plot hole (PLEASE! Someone tell me how Reggie escaped The Tall Man from being pinned up by the spheres at the beginning. This drove me crazy throughout the whole movie! Did he just LET HIM GO?!?).

Anyways, a below average movie...waaayyyy too slow, and not paced nearly as well as the other movies (the fast pacing makes them more exciting). Only for true Phantasm lovers, I did enjoy what this movie was, but unlike the others, I will never watch this one again. 5/10 stars.

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!!!!

If you are a fan of the first movie do NOT see this one. There was only one special effects scene and no story at all. This was the worst moment I have ever experienced with the horror genre. A real let-down. A waste of film.

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.

Phantasm IV is the worst of the Phantasm series.The movie only has 6 characters Reggie, Mike, Jody, TallMan, Jen, and a Demon Cop.That's it.The movie has no plot, action and doesn't fit in well with the Phantasm series.Some people say Phantasm 3 is the worst in the series, it's not.Phantasm 3 is a good movie.Way better than Phantasm 4 will ever be.Not worth the money.

Fleeing through the countryside, the group of friends battling the Tall Man finds the spirit of his trapped brother is leading them closer to the secret of who The Tall Man really is and forcing him to unleash the full force of his demons in an effort to stop them fry ruining his plans.

This here was one of the more impressive entries in the series. One of the best things it has going for it is the really big and grandiose action scenes that are largely familiar scenes of the series. Following on the majority of the series' efforts of continuing with the previous one left off, the opening escape from the mausoleum into the desert which is rather nicely handled in starting the action as there are a spectacular car flip and rescue, two exploding vehicles, some aggressive jumping dwarfs and a silver- sphere attack which occurs after the equally inevitable girl picked up en-route as well as the initial encounter with the phantom patrolman which proves to be genuinely creepy or the silver sphere attack in the abandoned motel. Equally effective is the flashbacks and alternate reality visions and memories, presenting absolutely unique scenes that are quite imaginative and really intriguing. The longest one, a night-time chase through a forest will get plenty of atmospheric scenes in, including the sequence where the hanging Tall Man ushers a big remark offering peace in exchange for his freedom or the sight of The Tall Man appearing as a regular human sitting on his porch offering a glass of homemade lemonade is pretty impressive as well. Another cool thing about this one is the atmosphere and suspense here, not only from the regular antics featured within but also the flashbacks that tie in all the events from the past into one rather cohesive whole. The other big plus here is the fine finale as there are some big moments in the initial battle with the dwarfs in the desert, the autopsy scene that reveals a big surprise for one of the victims and an attack from the spheres late in the film, leading to many of its true gore set- pieces as they cling to major body parts is something to behold. All in all, this is a very worthy sequel as although there weren't many flaws in here they were somewhat important. The main point in this one is the fact that it follows the conventions of the series closely. This one has so many of the clichés and plot-points that the other ones have, and it can lead to correctly predicting what will come next which can lead to many problems throughout the film. That is mainly because none of them are changed around or inverted this time around, which is where the problem lies. Nothing is changed from the expectations of the series as a whole, and that is something which can be used against it. There's also the fact that the film doesn't really move as fast as the others out there, which can be somewhat irritating. A lot of time is spent wandering around in the desert, which offers good scenery but nothing else, and by utilizing the clichés at hand, a long time is spent on other scenes that have nothing to offer in terms of action, and at times this can be somewhat dull. However, the main problem with this one is that there's no explanations for anything in the film, much less the series. This one probably should've done something to answer the questions the others have to offer, and it would've been a great time to do it. That is the biggest flaw, and it keeps it down the most.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity.

First off, let me say that Angus Scrimm is a National Treasure and any Phantasm movie is worth watching just for his performance.

The first two Phantasms were excellent, pure works of imagination that are unlike any other horror series. As for part 3, I've only seen part of it on Sci-Fi and as its not available yet on DVD, I don't remember it too well but presumably OblIVion takes over where that one left off...Mike is heading off into the wastelands and Reggie is pinned to the ceiling by a bunch of silver spheres.

The story has Mike once again trying to stop the Tall Man and Reggie trying to catch up with him. This time we jump through space, time and dimension to find the Tall Man's origins and get a glimpse of the future he has in store for the earth.

This is a fairly good installment but it seems like there's more story then fits into the ninety-minute format. It sort of reminded me of Stephen King's Dark Tower series and I think would have been more fun if there was more time to explore some of the story lines hinted at. But if you're a fan of the other films, there's no reason not to check this one out.

The Phantasm series had been worst with each sequel. The last one is unbearable, and the end of the film is totally baffle. I like the first Phantasm and stand the other two sequels, but that is... It has no sense and is boring... Please, I don't want more Phantasm films...

It's rare that the same creative team are still around 4 films into a series, and even rarer that a 4th film has anything new to add, so this makes a refreshing change.

The tone is a little uneven, with Coscarelli seeming torn between delivering the slapstick gore and laughs of the previous 2 sequels and going for the darker more surreal approach of the first movie, so a lot of Reggie's scenes seem like they could have been pasted in from a different movie. Speaking of which large chunks are made up of deleted scenes from "Phantasm", which, while suggesting money problems during development, actually works very well in bookending the events so far.

It also goes some way to filling in the gaps, giving the Tall Man a proper origin story and answering a few questions while still leaving enough up in the air to justify the 5th film which is apparently in production currently.

That said, even if a 5th film never materialises, this makes a nicely apocalyptic ending to a series that has actually come to life in it's sequels. There's still plenty of laughs, but there's a very downbeat tone and some nicely creepy touches, making this a very enjoyable, if slightly schizophrenic addition to a fun series.

I've seen all of the Phantasm movies -- well, I saw Phantasm 3 in pieces, the ending first. All of the movies had style, good creepy moments and storylines that were possible to follow. And Angus Scrimm was a really nice guy when I met him (briefly), so it's always fun to see him being an evil guy on-screen.

Phantasm OblIVion has none of these things. Despite the return of the entire original cast (much much older than in the original movie) (oh, and the movie only has five or six people in it altogether), there's something missing, and that's a movie. Most of the effects in this movie -- Phantasm's infamous silver balls -- were clipped from other movies altogether. None of the dialogue makes any sense. You see The Tall Man before he became evil, and there's talk of attempting to keep him from becoming evil, but the idea is just dropped. None of the movie makes SENSE, which is the worst thing; none of the plot threads started go anywhere. The ending isn't. About 30 minutes of the 90 minute running time is flashbacks to earlier movies.

I guess I'm having a problem writing about the flaws of this movie, because it has so many, and no real virtues to speak of. Hopefully, if another movie is ever made, a story will be written first, and what was good about the first two movies will be remembered.

Maybe I like this one more than II or III ... it's hard to say. On the plus side, it tries to have an atmosphere more like the original film and less like a horror action comedy. On the minus side, it literally makes no sense. Unused footage from the original film was found and dropped into this film as ... well as what? It depicts events that could not have happened given how the original film ultimately came together, so what is this meant to represent? This is really symptomatic of the entire film. Reggie encounters some chick on the road, and stuff happens, but none of her interactions with him really make sense or ultimately amount to anything. It's a bit like all the elements of your typical Phantasm film were dropped in a cup, shook up, and dumped out onto a table and then that was filmed.

I'm sorry if I may offend some loyal fans of this series, but this film was a worthless piece of garbage. I've seen the other sequels and the first one was the better of them all. I could neither follow nor understand "Phantasm VI". The movie was such a cluster of unimaginative ideas. I thought this movie was a waste of time and effort. The dialogue was completely wack! Who say's 'blow me' in movies, anymore ?? I would rather have pepper or salt dashed in my eyes then to set and watch this film twice. God have mercy on our souls if there is another sequel to this mediocre sci-fi adventure. I do hope the writer and director of this dust-collector-of-a-movie go to Oblivion and never return!

A quote from IMDb trivia for "Phantasm III": "Don Coscarelli reportedly admitted during filming that he had run out of ideas after finishing the script for this sequel and had no clue which direction would the story take in case there was a fourth Phantasm movie. He jokingly added that if a Phantasm IV was ever filmed, it would actually be "just to make money out of it"."

Another quote from IMDb trivia but for "Phantasm IV": "In a 1998 interview, writer director Don Coscarelli stated Phantasm IV was being filmed "just to make money out of the series"."

When "Phantasm IV" came out, nearly 20 years had passed since the first film in the series. And, oddly, in the second and third films, the star was not Mike (who was clearly the star in the first one) but Reggie. This one, in contrast to the last two, features more Mike, as he battles through time and space to battle The Tall Man. And, the film cuts back and forth between Mike and Reggie in their quest. So in one scene, Reggie might be fighting zombie cops and in the next, Mike's back in the US Civil War days! It is a bit confusing...but different to say the least.

Compared to the previous installments, this Phantasm is more visceral--with several 'EWWWW, Yuck!' scenes. So, if you like gory effects that make your skin crawl, this one should please you. On the other hand, this installment felt like a HUGE step backwards for me. First, the wonderful new characters introduced in the last film (Tim and Rocky) were never seen nor talked about...a big mistake as they made the third film every bit as good as the first. Second, the final portion of the story is simply a confusing mess. I agree with the filmmaker...this one was just done for the money and is a rather poor film in most every way.

If you remember the first movie at all, and you approach this movie with an open mind, you will find OblIVion quite satisfying. Though not as atmospheric as the first movie, there are several creepy scenes scattered throughout, including the opening scene and a dream sequence involving Reggie. In addition, there are several scenes from Phantasm (I) cleverly woven into the storyline creating continuity between the two films. Some, but not all questions are cryptically answered, which steadfastly adheres to the "nothing is as it seems",non linear flow to the movies. It definitely leaves room for one last movie. Maybe the last movie can spell it out (or at least somewhat) for "phans" needing closure.

In conclusion, if your not a fan of the Phantasm movies, or are just randomly renting movies out of boredom, I strongly suggest you don't bother and keep your cynicism to yourself. But if your willing to at least watch the first film, or if your addicted to Phantasm I, Phantasm IV will clearly keep you wanting more.

The 'Phantasm' franchises reaches its fourth installment and it does feel like it's starting to run out of steam. The first one was dark, creepy and original - when a group of friends start to realise a tall, old man has a sinister plot involving dead bodies and alternate dimensions. It was great - well shot, excellent use of special effects, sets and cinematography. Then came parts two and three, where the emphasis was taken off the 'fear factor' and centred more on bloodthirsty laughs - think 'Evil Dead.'

Now, for part four, the creator admitted that he wanted to get back to the franchise's roots and water down the humour in favour of scares again. What we're left with is a bit of a mish mash of both that feels like a cross between 'Evil Dead, Twin Peaks' and the original source material.

I always enjoyed the exploits/performance of 'Reggie' - a balding, overweight ex ice cream salesman who now hunts demons with a souped-up (cool!) shotgun (again, think of him like the long lost uncle of 'Ash' from the 'Evil Dead' films). He's back (thankfully!) and gives as good a performance as ever. In fact - for me - his sections of the story were definitely the highlights. They're gory, daft, cheesy and generally over the top.

However, then you have a - sort of - second story which runs in tandem with Reggie's as his former student, Mike, is captured by the tall man and taken to another dimension. These scenes are nice. That's about all I can say about them. They're surreal, but don't seem to have the budget to be really memorable. They're also a bit confusing, with Mike and the tall man bouncing through time periods and alternate dimensions. Then, by the time we get back to Reggie, it feels like a totally different film.

'Phantasm IV: Oblivion' isn't a bad film, it's just definitely the weakest of the four so far. I enjoyed the first three and could definitely binge watch them, but I doubt I'd bother with this entry.

Picking up where the previous film ended, story has Reggie pursuing the Tall Man(Angus Scrimm), who has taken Mike for his own purposes, but is once again accompanied by Jody, still trying to tell the secrets of the Tall man's origins(he was a kindly inventor named Jebediah Morningside who enters a space/time tunnel and returns from the trip transformed into the evil Tall Man), before it is too late...

Much better than III, though can't approach the first film, from which it uses much unused footage to further explain and enhance its present plot that has the gang going back and forth in time to avert the enslavement of humanity. Sequel is largely absent of the gruesome violence that hurt the past two films, but is slow-paced and jumbled nonetheless.