Phantasm Series Explained
Eustacio Gadit
Okay, lets put this into perspective: I had not seen a Phantasm movie until 1998. What Phantasm film did I see? Oblivion. I was lost as fuck. However, in watching the 4th installment of a franchise, I got hooked, it seemed pretty awesome and I wanted to watch the previous movies in the franchise. So I started with the first movie and worked my way through. Here was my thing, each subsequent movies before Oblivion was bigger in scale. The budget was larger, the stakes were higher, and we were getting close to figuring out what the Tall Man's deal was. Oblivion was a nice primer for new fans, at the time, but for long time fans it was like a recap episode of an Anime. Then there was nothing for 18 years! The longest gap between Phantasm movies.
After so many years of disappointments, delays, setbacks, there was news in 2014 that a new Phantasm movie was shot in secret. The movie was due to come out the following year but didn't. Finally, it came out in 2016. After so much anticipation and since this was going to be the final Phantasm film, expectations were running high.
A lot of this movie has a fixation on the Barracuda and Reggie's four-barreled shotgun. They are featured more heavily than the rest of the cast. Mentions and excessive shots abound, it seems like they were more focused on the gimmick and nostalgia these objects bring to the franchise. Look, as awesome as that muscle car and the tipple barrel shotgun are, they are window dressing to the plot. The Tall man is wiping out middle America and turning all the cadavers into Jawas, can't we focus on that?
Nope, just scene after scene of Reggie running around and using different weapons to destroy the Silver Spheres, or driving around and shooting Silver Spheres. I'm sorry, but no matter how good of a marksman you are, I'm not buying the idea that you can shoot something reflective in the middle of the desert while you're also driving.
Then there is the completely useless scene where Reggie takes a bunch of weapons out of the trunk of the car and puts them in a huge sack. It's a stupid amount of weapons: guns, chainsaws, knives, and nunchucks of all things. Half of the arsenal isn't incredibly practical when you're fighting floating orbs. Also, he never uses those weapons and that sack of weapons is quickly forgotten.
Thanks to all the delays, Ravager was made while Angus Scrimm (who played the Tall Man) had one foot in the grave and the other hovering over the edge. Which is probably the main reason why he doesn't have a whole lot of screen time in this movie. In fact, when the Tall Man appears he doesn't do much but stand there while others do all the dirty work.
I think the biggest tragedy of the entire Phantasm franchise is the amount of time that was wasted getting to this final installment. Angus Scrimm was old, to begin with (he was 53 when the first film was made), he was pushing 90 before he died. Let's face it, regardless of how great Angus Scrimm was as an actor, there are limitations to what you can do in your late 80s. This is telling when you consider how little screen time Scrimm has and how very little he does during the course of the film.
The other drawback of this is that Scrimm doesn't really seem all that menacing or evil. He just looks old and worn out. Oh, he was able to utter his lines correctly, but the most strenuous thing he does in the whole film raises an eyebrow. In fact, I'm trying to think of the times you see Scrimm walking in the film, and it's a scene where he has a walker.
It's not just Angus Scrimm either, looking at Reggie Banister, A. Michael Baldwin, and Bill Thornbury, all look miserable in their roles. There's not a whole lot of action. Banister seems to be the only one with a little pep in him, but the inaction over the years is certainly visible.
The other thing I noticed about this movie is that it was made on the cheap, as such they had to rely on digital effects in a lot of places. I get that they didn't have a whole lot of money coming in for this project, but it seems so cheaply made. Unbefitting for the final installment in an epic of this scale. Unfortunately, all of the digital effects in this movie makes everything kind of flat. Sure, they were able to do more, but it just doesn't feel as real this way.
I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I was hoping this movie would be a battle to the finish. A final confrontation between the Tall Man and his enemies. There should have been some kind of resolution, the fact that the movie ends with a speech about fighting harder and an apocalyptic future seems kind of unfulfilling.
Also, it would have been great if they explained what the Tall Man's deal was. They started revealing his origins in Phantasm: Oblivion , the Tall Man was an inventor who created the portal to another dimension and came back at the Tall Man. It would have been great if they explained how and why he turned into the Tall Man. Also, what is the point of turning the dead into his mindless slaves and decimating the entire world. I get that Phantasm is supposed to a huge unraveling mystery, but leaving it up to interpretation is just lazy. It's a horror franchise, not Citizen Kane. There is a way to explain some of the mysteries while maintaining the mystique of the series.
I think their biggest mistake was making this movie in secret. In a day where filmmakers can start a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter page to raise money for their filmmaking, it seems incredibly asinine. Look at Mystery Science Theater 3000 which has just the same kind of cult following as Phantasm. It wasn't a very profitable series either yet, over a decade later, was able to revive itself through Kickstarter. It was the most successful Kickstarter campaign to date.
I think if Don Coscarelli went this route fans would have been a better source of funding than doing it in secret. I think that really hurt the production and the level of quality everyone was expecting.
Then there was the story, oh the story, was a cop out in more ways than one. Tossing in unnecessary characters, making Reggie question reality and something about parallel universes (sorta) just added further complications. Instead of tying up loose ends, solving the mystery of the Tall Man, they decided to go bigger than what was needed for this final film and no budget.
It also suffers from the same problem Stephen King's Dark Tower series suffered. All of a sudden there was a huge impetus to complete the series and it was a rush job. Just like King's heroic Gunslinger, the heroes of Phantasm are discharged into a nebulous ending with no finality. With the death of Angus Scrimm, the idea of making further Phantasm films is pointless, so getting some kind of resolution would be hollow anyway.
During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, gangster Chuckie Sol is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure, known as the Phantasm. Shortly after, Batman bursts in on the meeting and is blamed for the murder. City Councilman Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is an irresponsible menace, then attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter-ego. Reeves jokingly taunts Bruce for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont, to get away.
In a flashback to fifteen years ago during Bruce's college days, Bruce is seen meeting Andrea in a cemetery while visiting his parents' grave. At this point, Bruce has vowed to avenge his parents' murder by dedicating his life to fighting crime. Later, wearing a ski mask, Bruce thwarts an armored car robbery. However, when Alfred asks how the fight went, Bruce is discouraged that the robbers considered him a clownish vigilante at first, and realizes he needs to adopt a persona that will strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers. While he is laying the groundwork for crime-fighting, Bruce is also dating Andrea, and doing things with her such as visiting a future exposition, which contains a car prototype that catches Bruce's eye. He also meets Andrea's father Carl Beaumont, who is a businessman and Arthur Reeves, who worked as Beaumont's legal adviser at the time. In his study, while talking to portraits of his parents, Bruce wonders what his parents really want for him; to avenge their deaths as a crimefighter or to continue the Wayne bloodline by marriage and fathering children? Later, Bruce tells Alfred he has made his choice: he will abandon his crime-fighting career and focus solely on his work at Wayne Enterprises, and has also bought an engagement ring for Andrea. However, Andrea mysteriously leaves Gotham with her father, ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John-style letter. Believing that he has lost his only chance of having a normal life, Bruce proceeds with his other choice, to avenge his parents' murder and spare other families his pain. After seeing a bat fly in the night sky, Bruce realizes he has the perfect image of terror for wrongdoers, and finally dons the mask of Batman.
In the present, the killer finds and kills another gangster, Buzz Bronski, who is killed at the graveyard shortly after mourning Chuckie Sol. Batman discovers evidence linking the two murdered gangsters; they were both lieutenants of retired mob boss Salvatore "Sal" Valestra. Valestra himself, despite already close to dying from old age and lung cancer, fears that the killer has a pattern, and that he is next on the list. He seeks the Joker, with whom he had a prior working relationship, and offers him a large sum of money to assassinate Batman for him. Unfortunately, he foolishly trades one assassin for another; rather than going after the killer, the Joker kills Valestra with Joker Venom instead. The Joker then sets up a trap for Batman, planting Valestra's boobytrapped corpse in a chair in Valestra's living room while monitoring via a camera. He then suddenly realizes Batman is not the killer when he sees a hooded figure with a skull mask triggering the bomb, but the Phantasm survives by jumping out the window. Batman, who is nearby and is attracted to the scene by the explosion, tries to catch the Phantasm, but is hindered by the Gotham Police who still believe that he is the killer and attempt to apprehend him for the string of assassinations while the Phantasm escapes. Rescuing Batman in her car, Andrea explains that she and her father had been hiding in Europe, from the Valestra mob, to whom he owed a lot of money. Carl Beaumont eventually repaid them, but that did not satisfy them; they were angered by the fact he skipped town on them and wanted "payment in blood". Batman believes that Andrea's father may be the killer.
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