Wow, it took 9 long years before we got the sequel. I didn’t see these films until my late teens or early 20s. I imagine had I been a fan at the time, waiting 9 years probably seemed like a sequel was never happening. Back in the pre-internet era, getting updates on films was significantly more difficult. But it happened.
Here are some fun “facts” from IMDB’s trivia page. This was not only the highest-budgeted film in the franchise at a grand $3 million, but simultaneously the lowest-budgeted film that Universal produced in the eighties. Ain’t that something? The house that explodes in the film was set to be demolished for a freeway in California. They bought the house for $500, built a second story, and then had to be supervised with the explosions. The safety guy on set was being very cautious until he inquired what film this was for. Upon learning that it was for Phantasm II, he really let them go to town. Apparently, he was a fan. The last fun fact is that Brad Pitt actually auditioned for the role of Mike. That would have changed so much. James Le Gros plays the role of Mike for just this one film. They bring back the original Mike in III, IV, and V.
Start Film
I am going to state this now. I can’t guarantee how insightful this blog will be as opposed to utterly confusing. I say that about this whole franchise. There are some weird layers. You’ve been warned.
We meet Liz Reynolds, a psychic of sorts, and she sees visions of Reggie and Mike. This is one of those cliche horror beginnings so we can get flashbacks from the previous entry. Friday the 13th was arguably the most famous franchise for using this technique. Liz also found the Tall Man. Liz in some ways reminds me of Kristen from Nightmare on Elm Street 3. We see the ending of the original, Reggie runs upstairs to see the Jawas dragging Mike. Reggie gets a shotty and looks for ammo. Instead, he finds a Jawa. Oh, that was like Evil Dead II level of silliness. The Jawa’s hand wasn’t moving during the fight. Reggie is now surrounded by 8-10 Jawas. Reggie turns off the flames on the stove but there is a fireplace. The gas will fill up the house, inevitably. He climbs upstairs, sees the Tall Man but Tall Man doesn’t see him….somehow? Also, I am assuming Liz sees all of this in her visions. There’s the huge house explosion. Wow, that was really nice, honestly. Tall Man looked like such a badass there.
Liz adds more plot by suggesting the Tall Man goes from town to town digging up the dead and enslaving them. Cheap labor, am I right? These hand-drawn images are really well done. She has visions that when her grandfather dies, the Tall Man will take him. She begs Mike to help, with her psychic powers.
I’m sorry, this guy doesn’t look like Mike. He’s not a bad actor, and the director was forced to recast. Also, Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman worked on the FX of this one. That’s what you get with a 3 million dollar budget. Also, no dream sequences were allowed. Boohoo.
Mike is getting released from a psychiatric institution. He immediately goes to dig up a grave. Reggie surprises him from behind. He’s dug up 3 caskets and the bodies are missing. Mike tells Reggie about finding Liz and killing Tall Man. On the way to Reggie’s house, Mike has a vision and suddenly knows that Reggie’s house is going to explode, and it does just as they approach it. And they had a turkey dinner waiting for them. I want a turkey dinner. Actually, I want the day after turkey sandwiches. At the funeral, Reggie was ready to hit the road. Shame that Metallica hadn’t recorded “Turn the Page” yet because that would have been a great song, and probably doubled the budget, haha.
Reggie and Mike end up in a hardware store and get tools, hammers, axes, guns, guns, guns, and a chainsaw. I know I mentioned Evil Dead II once already, but come on. And now Reggie is making a sawed-off, or his very own Boomstick. Reggie’s gun is absolutely badass. Mike has made a flamethrower that would make Childs jealous in The Thing. Did they break in or was the town desolate? Now play Turn the Page again. They come across these desolate and deserted areas, cars out in the middle of the road, everything abandoned. Reggie says that the Tall man sets traps for them. They naturally go to a cemetery. Reggie has a trucker hat that says Boogie Down. I don’t wear hats, but if I did, I’d want that one.
All the plots are dug up. These guys look like 2 nerds trying to pretend to be badasses. The thing is, this is way more realistic. Think about how badass characters look in movies when they’re everyday schmoes. You would look like these 2 guys cosplaying. They break into this church, I think it’s meant to be a church. They’re trying to build up tension and suspense. It’s hit-and-miss. There’s a nude woman’s corpse. The 80’s bush is not as big as the early 80s bush, like in The Burning. These are things you need to know. Oh, the corpse has vanished.
Can we focus more on Reggie’s gun? My goodness. Reggie discovered one survivor. I don’t think they rose up to the challenge. It’s a girl. It’s Liz with tape over her mouth. Now, this may be my favorite part of the whole film. So you finally found someone, and it turned out to be the hot chick that you’ve been looking for. Her mouth is taped shut. What does a normal person do? You quickly remove the tape to make sure that she’s okay and you communicate with her. In Phantasm II, Mike turns around to Reggie and tells him that this is the girl he’s been looking for, and never takes off the tape. A true gentleman. Anyway, she has some growth in her back that reminds me of a talking Freddy worm, just like in Nightmare 3. Oh boy. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Nightmare 3 and Evil Dead II both came out in 1987, a year prior to this. Reggie sets her and the monster on fire. That was a Tall Trap.
Time to travel to Perigord, Oregon. We see Liv and her grandma, this is the funeral procession for her grandaddy. Looks like we got a brand new setting. Wow, so Liz, Grandma, and Liz’s sister, I think, named Jeri. I wish she had curly hair. Jeri needs to take the train back right now. She’s very supportive. And Jeri is outta there. But there’s a Jawa walking around. Liz has squeezed her hand so tight that she has dug her nails into her palm. Serious question: have you ever tried doing that? I can’t make my palm bleed. And let’s be really real here, as a lonely man for many years, I think we can all agree that my grip strength is pretty on point. It’s times like these that you wonder why you read my nonsense.
Liz calls for Mike with her power. I’m so jealous of Mike. He can wear jeans without a belt. By the way, Mike is still rocking the denim jacket. The priest clearly likes his booze. I am not a big flask guy. I feel like if you have a flask, you’re putting something potent in there. I don’t really like the potent drinks. Now the priest just stabbed the dead body. Grandma fainted. Upon closer inspection, Liz looks nothing like Kristen. I apologize. That was a terrible take. Speaking of Liz, she wanders the hall and is startled by the Tall Man who is drinking his honey mustard blood. I’m just saying, if our blood was honey mustard, would we really think vampires are that bad?
Drunk ass is drinking more. He’s got the meat sweats on his forehead. I could do without all the religious stuff. I am fascinated by religion, but too often, these characters and themes are cookie-cutter cliches. If you’re gonna do it, try something new or just leave it be. Grandpa has come back alive to taunt the priest.
Grandma wakes up, looks around, and lays back down and Grandpa is lying next to her. She screams. End scene. I wish I had some Starbursts or Sour Patch Kids. I want something sweet and fruity, but not fruit because I just had fruit.
Mike and Reggie drive past Tits McGee, the corpse that Mike saw earlier. Was it real? Was it a dream? Oh, she’s in the car, and her name is Alchemy, or Al for short. So they did have a dream sequence, of sorts. You clever bastards. This is the beginning of Reggie the Ladies Man. I can’t decide if she’s hot or not. It’s a situation of lighting and from what angle. Way too hot for Reggie, although he’s rocking the green flannel with long johns underneath
Liz is looking for Grandma. Where could she be? I don’t know, it’s a mystery. Nope, Liz found the pin covered in honey mustard and is told to get her tonight from the Tall Man. Al reminds me of Ali Larter in Final Destination 2. I keep making bad comparisons, but I think that one is on point. Did I mention that they’re driving the Barracuda?
Now, what are we to discern from all of this? Mike was in psychiatric care for 7 years, I think. So in 7 years, Tall Man just traveled town to town, relatively quickly, at least through the northwest of the US? We know this to some extent by how bad and rundown the vehicles and buildings look. But Tall Man didn’t conquer the US. As at some point, there’s a town that is wondering what happened to the town next to them, but nobody really cared, right? I’m just trying to follow this logic. But there are people still alive in this current town, I think.
Wow, Al has no idea how they’re gonna break into this boarded-up, practically barricaded house. Reggie says “Allow me” and Mike forcefully pulls her away. Like it felt as if he didn’t grab her that quickly, Reggie’s impulse was to slice through whatever was in front of him, but yet he was thinking with his dick? The soundtrack is still really good.
Liz is going for Grandma. Reggie is setting up booby traps with grenades and Budweiser cans. Reggie and Mike are leaving Al in the booby-trapped house. Liz watches a mortician prepare a young man’s body. The other guy comes in with another casket and a gas mask on. Why the gas mask? To look cool? Because it worked. I’m tired and just rambling trying to make it through this before bed.
Reggie and Mike are in a graveyard. The gravedigger didn’t notice them pull up, even though they weren’t that far away. You’d hear a car, right? It’s not like they’re driving a Prius, those things are significantly quieter. The priest opened up some small casket that hurt his hand. That’s fun to say. Tall Man is behind him. Tall Man strangles the priest with his chain, or perhaps those are rosary beads. The Priest survives. The tiny casket had 3 sentinels!!! Yay! Liz is still wandering around aimlessly. The Priest grabbed her for a predictable jump scare that still startled my leg but not my hands as I was typing. And Sentinel flying at Priest, has a saw, cuts off the ear, then flies back and bores its drill into his dome. Liz walks into the choke. Is Angus Scrimm secretly Kane or the Big Show? A Jawa talks to Liz, it’s her grandmother. Liz breaks free. Oh dear that scene wasn’t great. Well hitting the Jawa hard with a vase was amusing. I snagged 3 slices of Swiss cheese. I haven’t had much protein today.
Liz runs outside and falls into a grave, and Mike grabs her and they kiss, and Reggie interrupts. Alright, so they go back to where Al is. Now each guy has a girl. Liz just called the Sentinels a flying Cuisinart, which is what Ron and I always refer to them as. Mike will watch over Liz. Al will get topless for Reg. Everybody wins. Except Mike. He slept with his pants on. Mike wakes up or is dreaming, and he’s communicating with Liz without talking. There’s ole titty bags and Reg. I had to rewind the sex scene, and not like I’d done when I was 14. I have valid reasons, kinda. Firstly, they’re supposedly having sex but her panties look to be perfectly in place. If she’s gonna wear the panties, and they probably had to for an R rating, the panties would be off-center, just a little at the very least, and that’s without suggesting that Reggie is possibly an ass man and really likes to grab hold. Down the rabbit hole, I just went. Okay, and I was also right on the second thing. Under her right breast is either a really big bruise or some weird discoloration that proves that maybe she isn’t who they think she is. Either way, Reggie probably loved filming this scene. And an explosion ends the fun, and not the usual explosion that ends the fun. Mike’s got the gun, Reggie has the chainsaw, but it’s not on. So it’s not that impressive. The front door exploded.
Liz looks around and gets kidnapped by the Tall Man. The guys go running, but they’re too late. Time to gear up!!!! Reg tells Al to take Liz’s car and drive 100 miles south and he says that afterward, he will find her if he’s able. She’s confused by that. English mother fucker, it wasn’t a hard statement to comprehend. Regulators……mount up!! The music is amped, they’re driving fast, the wind blowing through their hair, and they already caught up to the hearse. That took no time at all. Reggie hesitates at shooting Tall Man while driving parallel, and Tall Man bumps them off the road. Reggie, you gotta be better my dude. The Barracuda and Reggie are upside down and the fuel tank is leaking toward a fire, because if there’s a leaky fuel tank in a movie, then there is always a flame, and often a dramatic last-second rescue, dive, and explosion. Believe it or not, I paused it before I watched it play out, and that went perfectly.
Liz is in the Funeral Home and enters the crematorium with her mouth taped shut. So this mortician, I think he’s going to just burn her alive. There will be no last-second saves, and no shenanigans, she just won’t survive, right? It’s just gonna go to plan.
The guys brought a drill gun with them. Is it just me, or does that seem oddly specific? Like, you have guns, ammo, a flamethrower, a chainsaw, and then a small drill gun. One of these things is not like the other. Reggie needs to get a kill with the drill so they can rationalize bringing it, in my opinion. I don’t remember shit, so I feel like it’s possible. Reggie is adding hydrochloric acid to the centrifuge machine. I don’t know if that’s the right term. About 20 minutes remaining. This got a 6.4 and the original a 6.6. This final act must be tremendous or someone really likes small titties. Oh yeah, Liz rolled off the conveyor belt and then roasted the mortician. He had a really bad day.
Reggie is walking down the stairs, but the other worker is there hiding. A sentinel sees Liz, and then Mike makes the last-second save. A mortician grabs her, but then the sentinel pins he has to the door. Another sentinel shows up to finish the job. But he’s like screw this, I’m chopping my hand off, and he did just that, in one fell swoop. Reggie and the guy in the gas mask have a go. HAHAHA, yup, Reggie used the drill on his armpit. So it had a second use. Now we have dueling chainsaws, but this dude’s is significantly longer than Reggie’s. The sentinel broke into the room with Mike and Liz and then made a lightsaber sound and killed a rat. The chase is on. The sentinel will get through the door. One hand hank is in here. He goes to kill Liz, but he just got bored by our sentinel friend. Right in his back and then flying him around. It flew around in his belly and up to his neck, and now he’s supposedly dead. Oh, it ended up stuck in his mouth. That looked good at least.
Reggie’s chainsaw is smaller not only in length but also in girth. It’s almost like a double entendre. Almost. Reggie is like a fucking ninja now. Reggie did almost all of his stunts except one in this very scene, I believe. Good on him. I bet he was sore the next day but probably had a lot of fun. Now we get Jawaas. Now Jawas get the quad barrel boomstick because that was inevitable. I really want to know if this got dumbed down by the studios or if Don wanted to do some fun cliches and setups for various weapons. Al’s car broke down, but the other 3 met back up. Al has found the hearse. She hot wires the hearse. Am I the only person that has no idea how to do that? And how valuable of a skill is it in real life if I don’t plan on stealing cars? If the movies are a litmus test, then it’s a core skill everyone should have.
Mike, Liz, and Reg find a brightly lit room, more barrels, and a portal. Seem familiar??? Tall Man bitchslapped Reggie. Mike gets sent into the portal. Regie with the save, but only holding on with his feet in the very warm and weird red world. Tall Man has stuffed Liz’s mouth, no, not in that way, and he wishes to do the centrifuge thing. I really hope that is the right term. Mike tosses a bladed Sentinel into Tall Man’s forehead. Out comes the honey mustard, but he rips it out. Now some weird insect thing is growing out of Tall Man’s wound. Now he gets the need and the hydrochloric acid treatment. The makeup effects are 90% good.
Reggie has decided to burn it all down. Al shows up at just the right moment in the hearse. Perfect timing. But she still ain’t right, correct? Mike and Liz are in the back. Reggie is in the front with Al. Time to check out the coffin. It appears to be empty. Al closes the divider for privacy. But she has to be……and she pulled off her hair and chunk of flesh. Too easy. The car swerves. Reg approaches the back window all bloody. The hearse takes off again. Mike says that they will wake up, it’s all just a dream. The divider comes down and the Tall Man says “No, it’s not.” Then they get pulled through the window as a nod to the original.
End Film
This was fun in places. I had an overall good time. If I were to critique this, and that’s what I’m here to do, I think that the pacing for this film was nowhere near as good as the original. The original’s pacing was strange, but it didn’t drag anywhere, plus it was a dream. This suffered from not having the dream crutch. There were at least 3 different spots where they could have shaved off a little bit here and there, in my opinion.
The acting was Phantasm quality. The music was still outstanding. The big explosions worked, and the special effects most worked for me. Yes, it got silly at a few spots, but for its time, that is forgivable. It really was just pacing that I didn’t love.
Final Rating – 6.5 – I would say that they tried to give the franchise more longevity here, and also to just have a lot of fun. The Al story was incredibly predictable by that time since we are led to believe in Mike’s dreams, but the way that they did it and left the cliffhanger was really well executed. Horror tries to tell you in the end that maybe the bad guy is still alive, leaving the window partly open, but Phantasm II was like, we’re making a third movie, believe that.
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