I’ve only seen this twice. I remember feeling depressed after seeing it the first time. This is the finale of the Phantasm franchise. It is possibly the weirdest of the bunch, in my opinion, which says a lot. Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man, got to see this shortly before he died. I don’t have much else to say. This is the shortest of the films under 85 minutes. It has a 4.9 IMDB rating. Let’s see how it goes. I’m trying to eat lunch while watching, so my notes could be a bit sparse. I have a ham and salami sandwich with a cup of spicy chicken ramen.
Start Film
Reggie is walking out of the desert in his ice cream man outfit, carrying the gun. He looks a bit older. We get a different take on the song, but it sounds great. He could use a rocket pop right about now. Hahaha. True story, since I last watched this film, I have had the words ROCKET POP written on my refrigerator’s whiteboard. Fun fact. Reggie gives us the voiceover with the full story up to this point. This is a really well-done opening.
Visually, this just looks so much better than any of the films since the first film. Reggie is walking the road, and some asshole comes up behind in the Barracuda and is a dick. This guy demands $50 for giving Reggie a ride. What a dick. Reggie compliments this guy’s jacket and car and then pulls out his gun from the glove compartment. He then kicks the guy out and strips him down to his banana hammock. And here comes two spheres. One gets the guy in the back of the head. The pavement must have been so hot to lay on. Ugh. Sphere Two is chasing Reg, and we get the orchestral version of the song. A different sphere flies in, and it’s like when a bee flies into your car. Very irksome. I have never shot a bee with a gun though. One of life’s many regrets. Reggie turns around and drives over the asshole in the road. He gets out and shoots the last sphere. Now he can drive peacefully.
Now, we have Mike looking good with some longer hair and glasses. Reggie is in a wheelchair in a robe. He appears to be at some facility. Reg says that this isn’t right, it’s complicated, like a relationship status on Facebook. Apparently, Reggie has been diagnosed with Dementia, early onset. The doctor told Mike to keep Reggie’s mind active so he asks for him to tell the story.
Reggie goes back to where he was after shooting the sphere. He comes across this girl named Dawn. She is very pretty, and Reggie gets to go out in style. He’s gonna give Dawn a ride. He is scoping her out from the mirror, looking for any peculiarities or if she has a sweet ass. She has a home nearby. Different architecture design this time. Dawn’s parents were Bulgarian and she has a farmhand that lives there named Demeter.
Reg is playing the guitar by the fire, as is tradition. He has told her the Tall Man story. She thinks it’s a hell of a story. Reggie is gonna write her a song tonight instead of trying to nail her. And she does have a nice butt. While singing the song, he can’t remember her name. Poor dude. She comes down, possibly to allow him to sleep in her bed, but he has passed out. He gets a sweet afghan to cover up, at least. Tell Man and Sentinal are outside. The sentinel looks on.
Back at the home where Reggie is, present time, and the man in the other bed is the Tall Man. He looks rough. Angus is amazing. It’s Jebediah, he’s been there since the dawn of time. He asks what brings Reggie to this God-forsaken place. Reg says that he’s searching for friends. Jeb says that his body is close to death. Then Jeb kinda goes evil, he tells Reg he’ll never be safe, and he’s always watching him, Lavender girl from the original is under Jeb’s bed.
Now back to Dawn’s. Reg remembers her name. Reg wants to stay there for a few days. He hears some noise upstairs where her bedroom is. We hear metal whirring, and there’s a sentinel in her head. Now it goes after Reg. Time to get the hell outta there. He’s got new weapons. A machete, nunchucks, newer guns, so they are still manufacturing new guns in this story. The most interesting aspect is that Reg has a vest on, presumably a bulletproof vest. He hides in the barn and there’s Demeter the farmhand. He wants Reg out of there. The sentinel takes out a horse. That was a bit graphic. The sentinel wants in. Demeter opens the door and goes after him. Reg picks up his handgun. Demeter swats the sphere at Reggie, it bounces off of his gun and right into Demeter’s throat. Reg, give him a mercy shot.
Mike wakes up Reg, he starts drifting off mid-story. Mike talks to Reg about theories about being in 2 places at once, parallel dimensions, and membrane theory. Mike seems to have not experienced this stuff. Reg is getting pissed that nobody remembers.
Back to Reg who is now out in the woods in his story. I’m not sure why we’re getting the story if Reg isn’t telling the story. They need a Forrest Gump or Big Fish angle here. In the sky, Reg sees a giant sphere, and behind him is a portal.
He wakes up in the present with Mike. Reg really misses his 4 barrel. He was talking to Mike, but Mike isn’t there now. Oh boy. Reg gets up and walks around. He is still the most comfortably dressed character. He finds a portal in the yard. He is unsure about touching the cylinders, just as he didn’t in the flashback.
In flashback, he is in a very white area, all white, and there is the Tall man, just standing there staring into nothing. He turns and sees Reg. He has a familiar look and says that their paths cross again. Reg asks where this is, but it’s when, not where. They are back in 1979, right before the funeral that started everything. Tall Man explains that Reggie’s family didn’t die, they just came to him. He can return Reggie’s family if Reggie will agree to a deal. He just asks Reggie to stay out of his way. Reggie wants Mike to be safe, but Tall Man says that Mike is his always.
Reggie goes through a portal to a mausoleum. There is a creature or Jawa somewhere inside. The girl in lavender walks behind Reg but does nothing. Reg is very jumpy. He finally sees her. She looks great for her age, especially. Good for her!! They do remind us that she did stab Reggie in the belly, and then she shrieks and Reg shoots her. She has both honey mustard and red blood coming out. I wonder why. There is an opening to a cavern in front of him, it’s a special feature of the mausoleum, I guess. Jebediah paid extra for that feature. The Jawas are in this cavern. One gets shots. The room caves in, kinda, and disintegrates, and now he is on a floating rock with Tall Man. Tall Man asks if Reg will accept his offer. Reg tries shooting him, but it doesn’t work. Reg insists on walking away with Jody and Mike. The Tall Man really is irritated, so now he talks down to Reg, with an eye-opening speech. The Tall Man says that Reg isn’t even real, he’s the Tall Man’s bad dream.
Reg wakes up in a medical room strapped down, I see spheres, electricity, and a dead body next to him, and it looks like he is in shock therapy. A Jawa enters. A small person enters, not a Jawa, and cuts Reggie free. There’s an adult with the short person. Okay, it really is a little person, and the adult is Dawn. Nope, her name is Jane. She radios that Reg is clearly delusional. Reg sings the song, hahahaha. He’s so f’n entertaining. She has no recollection of any dealings with him. Reg has been here for some time. They are gonna bring him to a shelter to get food and medical attention. The metal things were 2 tiny metal cylinders. The little guy is named Chunk, so that’s what we’re going with. Chunk talks about how the device was used to extract info and memories. Chunk also dealt with it. It was a tactic that Tall Man used. Jane is down one way at a hallway intersection. Chunk goes another, Reg is supposed to stay put, so he goes down the last option.
Mike finds a charred corpse, and then is assaulted by a Jawa. Chunk shoots the Jawa dead. “I hate these little mother fuckers” says the 3-foot-tall man. I appreciate the line. Reg asks for a gun, and now Reg is spouting off lines like he’s Arnold. Some other people show up in the hallway, and the leader is Mike. According to Mike, Reg has been on ice for a decade since they blew up the Tall Man in the desert. Now it’s time to get the hell outta there. There’s like a group of maybe 8 people all armed and with flashlights. Reggie says it feels nice to be back home, but Mike says it isn’t really their home anymore, it’s the Tall Man’s. They open the door and it’s red, fiery, spheres in the guy, men on the ground with guns and we return to the hospital room with Reg in a bathrobe.
He walks out into the hallway and it is empty, but the lights are on. There’s an old dude walking. He looks at Reg. A nurse tells Reg that they need to get him back in his room.
Reg then flashbacks to being grabbed by a masked guy who is reanimated. Mike shoots him. Reg goes with Mike and Chunk. That’s a good group. Reg gets brought into a room. Here comes a red spiky sphere. It blows up a guy’s head.
Reg wakes up in his hospital bed. The nurse checks in on him, and Mike is here to visit. Reg tells Mike that he keeps slipping in and out of time. Mike says that he dreamed of blowing up the Tall Man with a hearse. Mike describes his dream and how he went looking through the desert searching for Reg. Mike says that in the dream, he can still feel the connection to him. He sews up the hole in his head. Mike searched for Reg but there was a full-blown invasion attack. Heads were expanding and exploding. Oh, this is Mike telling the story in the War Zone timeline. Reg says that he is done and wants out of there. He steps out into the hall where we see a red spiky ball. The Tall Man and a Jawa approach. He also has 5 reanimated fucks with him. Mike fires an RPG at Tall Man, and back to the hospital room. Fucking A, this isn’t a fun blog to write.
Mike is there to visit. He tells Reg that they have to leave.
Now Reg is leaving with Mike in War Time, Chunk went after Jane. Reg says that he knows this is a trap, but they go through the portal to the red world again. There are giant sentinels in the sky. Tall Man has Jane hostage. Tall Man tells Mike that business isn’t finished. The Tall Man reveals that there are tens of thousands of him in other dimensions. Every Tall Man deserves amusement. Chunk is dressed as a Jawa, but I don’t think he is one. The golden sphere crosses the canyon, and Mike’s eyes go metallic. Jane gets her neck twisted. Chunk starts massacring Jawas. Jane has had a bad run. Chunk refers to the Tall Man as “Tiny”. He then pulls a bunch of grenade pins and explodes into the Tall Man as Mike and Reg escape through a portal.
And now Reg is lying in the yard at the hospital. Reg goes wandering off looking for Mike. There he sees Wartime Mike and this is just weird to describe. Mike tosses Reg the 4 barrels. Is this in Reg’s mind? He turns and is in his ice cream man attire and starts shooting at the reanimated. Did he just shoot the hospital staff? Mike has one shot remaining. Suddenly the Barracuda comes pulling up with twin-mounted chain guns. Jody is driving and looks dapper. The Barracuda looks incredible They drive off. They are gonna drive north to where it’s really cold. Smart. Reg is so happy to see them both. Reg looks happy. He leans back.
Now in the hospital bed, Mike and Jody are at his bedside. Reg wakes up and sees his friends. His heart rate monitor flatlines while his buddies hold his hands. In his mind, Reg is still in the backseat of the Barracuda. He has his flashbacks. This reminds me of the Tyrese death episode of The Walking Dead in some ways. The car drives off.
End Film
Well, there is a shot of the desert and a portal. Chunk crawls out, and looks rough. There’s a gun to his head, but it’s Rocky from III. Chunk wants her to give him a piggyback ride, so he grabs her chest. She wasn’t happy about that. She bandages him up. Chunk still flirting with Rocky. She says he will do, for now. Their ride shows up, and you know it’s the Barracuda. They get in. They are in the War Time dimension.
True End Film
Oh man, where does one start with this one? Once you take into consideration the ages of the cast and Angus’ health, you can see a reason to rush it a bit. This did come out 18 years after the fourth. The clock was ticking.
This movie makes me sad mainly because dementia absolutely terrifies me. It only occurred to me during this recent viewing that I correlated something. The first movie is truly about loss but presented in a fever dream. This feels very strange, with multiple dreams, but this time dealing with dementia. In a way, it’s important that they even tried tackling the subject, and yet Phantasm is one of the few franchises where it can be done.
That being said, it doesn’t excuse certain aspects. This looked great in some scenes, especially the opening on the road. But the war-torn area looked like a made-for-TV movie. It didn’t look good. I know that budget was a problem. I’m trying not to rip on them, but it needs to be acknowledged. This is such a weird mixed bag that it is difficult to offer much insight.
Final Rating: 5.3 – There is some really good stuff here and some really bad. This movie isn’t for everyone, but if you watched the first four films, you may as well see how this ends. Kudos for touching on dementia. Good on the cast for making it through this. I’m all for a reboot, but this series did end with a bit of a whimper. The post-credit scene was quite good, at the very least.
This is arguably the most underrated horror franchise. Thank you for all of the amazing memories.
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