1. 100 Days of Snark - Day 3: Phantasm 2

    Originally today’s entry was going to be a re-watch of 1986’s Fright Night but apparently it is no longer available for streaming. I guess Universal wants you to bend over and pay up (or wait for the damn disc) since there is, you know, a remake coming out later this year. Dammit, I really wanted to watch it for this project too, but I’m bound by my own parameters. So, today’s entry is a different Universal picture, one that’s relatively new to Watch Instantly, 1988’s Phantasm 2. This is officially the first of what will be many re-watches in this project.

    The original Phantasm has an ending that is positively Lynchian in nature. It first wants you to believe Mike dreamed the whole movie up, but The Tall Man’s attack in the final shot says he’s real and the movie is real. So if Jody died in a car crash, just what in the hell did we watch? The sequel picks right up from the ending of the first movie and tells how Reggie rescued Mike from The Tall Man by blowing up his house. A new character, Liz (Paula Irvine), is introduced, and we learn the character of Mike is played by James LeGros as A. Michael Baldwin was off doing…non-acting stuff. It’s strange Baldwin didn’t appear in the bigger-budgeted Phantasm 2 but came back to reprise his role in the lower budgeted Phantasm 3 and Phantasm 4. 

    Reggie and Mike take an a more offensive role in this movie, as Mike is now older, out of a mental hospital, and ready to exact revenge on The Tall Man. Liz is a telepath and has had visions of The Tall Man and Mike since she was a little girl. In a convenient plot twist, Mike has the same ability and knows about Liz as well. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and come up short about telepathy in a film with flying silver spheres of death and portals to other dimensions. Still, as used in this film, the thought sharing between Liz and Mike is kind of dumb and I’m glad it was dropped for the third movie. Sort of. There is that whole “Jody As A Sphere” bit from I believe the 4th movie but that was just bizarre enough to fit within the Phantasm universe. 

    I first saw this movie when it came out and I was 12 and all I wanted to see was more damn sphere action. I had seen the first movie a few weeks before this one was released and thought the spheres were awesome but underused. Excessive pandering was not part of my vernacular in those days nor was the phrase “less is more.” Director Don Coscarelli understood and so the first appearance of the spheres doesn’t occur until nearly an hour into the film. This time an Alpha-sphere, colored gold, is introduced and is fairly bad-ass. I was, however, kind of disappointed that the only sphere kill in this movie was set up and executed in a similar way to the first Phantasm. The scene with Gold Sphere plowing through all the closed doors worked really well.

    When I talked about the original on The Rotcast, I mentioned how it was a very high concept horror film done on a low budget. Coscarelli had a major studio funding Phantasm II but didn’t really expand on the concept of the original, apart from the Gravers and the Golden Sphere. It really feels like the middle chapter of a larger story, and I wish Coscarelli had been given the money to complete his vision. I think the original idea was to have Mike and Reggie chase after The Tall Man as he harvested first all of North America, and then the world. The series could have ended on this epic, dystopian landscape where Earth mirrored The Tall Man’s own reality. Sadly, parts 3 and 4 are small films that, while remaining high in concept, fail to meet the scope of the franchise’s potential. 

    In spite of what could have been, Phantasm 2 is fairly entertaining to watch. It doesn’t add much to the series that wasn’t already explored in the first film, but it’s fairly well paced and the visuals aren’t nearly as dated or cheap as in the first movie. The biggest flaw of the film is the acting, really something that plagued the entire series. What is especially egregious about Phantasm 2 is none of the main characters seem to portray any sense of dread or deeply rooted anxiety. It could almost be set in a Lovecraft-like reality if only the characters acted like they were well and truly in mortal danger. James LeGros is way too built to be Mike and I was glad to see Baldwin return to the role in parts 3 and 4. Plus, LeGros has a smile like one of those horrific monkeys that claps the cymbals. 

    Wow, I just opened a paragraph saying the films is still pretty decent and then just ripped apart the acting. I need to be consistent if I’m going to be nice about something. Angus Scrimm does have a commanding presence when he’s on screen, and the finale with him getting melted down is pretty cool. I grew up in a small town so seeing all the shots of deserted Main Streets really creeped me out when I was a kid. I kind of wish the series turned into a graphic novel; then Coscarelli might have been able to tell the story he really wanted to tell in that medium. 

    Phantasm 2 still holds up for the most part. You should check out the whole series if you’re into high-concept horror as these are some of the few movies to actually explore that niche. 

    - Dave

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