Starring: Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm, Bill Thornbury, Heidi Marnhout, Bob Ivy.
Director: Don Coscarelli.
So the last of the current installments. It's been a good night of honoring the legendary Angus Scrimm. Whenever the fifth (and presumably final) installment comes out, I'll be here to write about it. The funnest part has been reliving this great absurdist mystery: I had forgotten how weird and inscrutable a lot of this is, even if it DOES offer more information than I originally remembered. It's also just a lot of bizarre fun, no matter its weaknesses.
So, let's finish this off.
Reggie's narration says TM is trying to transform Mike into one of his own kind. Okay. That works for me. Tim is summarily written out, as if he never existed. Probably for the best, he wasn't that strong a character and really this only has room for our two main guys anyway. Tall Man tells Reggie that his end is near, and that the final game will begin. Well, final until the fifth one, dude.
Reggie Bannister managed to remain strangely ageless throughout this whole series. Baldwin and Thornbury are not quite as well preserved, but I wouldn't expect them to be, really. Also of note is apparent deleted or previously shot footage from the making of the original, considering that it clearly is young Mike and young Jody. Fascinating that Coscarelli had shot that stuff way back when...but it may have just been stock footage that he still had laying around. It's probably the latter. Still neat.
Much like large amounts of the previous film, a lot of this is not looking familiar. I know I've seen it, but it's still coming across as very unrecognizable. The Tall Man very congenially informs Mike that he's all that Mike has left, and that the experience may seem odd as he undergoes his evolution. What I wouldn't give for TM to just sit Mike down and explain everything to him. Of course, Mike probably wouldn't sit still for that.
I will say that this one hasn't opened with the same amount of energy as the previous entries have. Well, other than a very kinetic opening montage. That isn't necessarily a bad thing: really, at some point the story needed to slow down and think about itself a little. That changes a little when Reggie does battle with an undead cop, which has some of the trademark bluster we've come to expect from Reggie(such as locking himself inside a cop car, giving the zombie the finger while laughing, and then realizing that he's still kinda screwed), and that's nice to see. By the fourth installment, you can get by a lot on nostalgia, familiarity and call backs...let's hope the film doesn't rely on that in its entirety, though.
There is a nice, quiet energy to Mike's scenes, alone in the desert. It's contemplative and gives Baldwin an opportunity to give a bit more of a mature performance. Plus, we get flashbacks which might give us some more insight into The Tall Man's origins. I remember seeing those when I first watched the film, so I am looking forward to pouring over them some more to see if I can't get more out of it this time. Part four is a lot brighter, too. In general. Lot of daylight and blue skies.
So, we have some new scenes with young Mike which means that Coscarelli must have had some sort of inkling towards his future endeavors and actually shot scenes for the fourth movie when he was shooting the first one. That is just remarkable. Well, either he planned it or wrote the fourth one to include scenes he had shot from the first movie that had went unused which is admittedly a little more likely. Either way, it shows a lot of thought on the part of Coscarelli.
Mike seemingly travels back in time and meets a Pre-Tall Man Tall Man Jebediah Morningside. I think this might make a closed time loop. Mike inadvertently caused Morningside to become The Tall Man...or at least kind of introduced him to himself or whatever. Morningside also has the psychic lady from the first one in his care, which is weird since she was still alive in the first film...also, Morningside is the name of the town from the original. Kinda blowing my mind here, guys.
Slightly stalled out second act: Mike fixes up a car, Reggie meets a girl and replays the last two movies of being horny and shameless. Baldwin and Bannister are able to make it watchable, but it has slowed things down a bit. Maybe a dream sequence of Reggie in a graveyard might pick up the pace a little? Nah, kind of a false alarm. Oh, well, a second sequence of Jennifer's boobs being replaced by attacking balls IS a bit more exciting. Guess Reggie will never learn.
There is something genuinely affecting about Reggie dressing in his Ice Cream Man garb for his final battle. Especially with the traditional Phantasm theme playing in the background. It ultimately leads to more Reggie Vs. Midget Monks carnage which, while occasionally entertaining, is what we've seen a lot of already. At least Reggie lampshades it: "I'm getting really good at killing you little fuckers."
Mike has a plan to go back in time and change Morningside from becoming The Tall Man. So we have a flashback where Jody explains that Morningside found a way between realities by altering vibrations and became The Tall Man. Now that doesn't seem to explain exactly what is IS just that he went through a doorway to another world and came back different and started his reign of terror. In essence, Mike becomes important because he was there the day it happened. Closed time loop of sorts: Mike proved to Morningside that it would work, and so he needed to be manipulated into arriving at the point that he was supposed to travel through....however, that doesn't tell me what Mike exactly IS either. We know he has a ball in his head, we know he can do psychic stuff and we know he's important to The Tall Man but...to what extent? The time loop element could only really be part of it: How did a ball get inside Mike, and what is his greater connection? What is Mike, exactly?
So Tall Man gets the ball inside Mike and takes off through a portal and Reggie gives chase...and we cut back to young Mike and first movie Reggie hearing their discussion from the present day...which kinda has to mean he shot footage for this movie back then, right? I mean, jesus.
Final Thoughts: I'm glad we're getting another movie, because this one came really close to giving some crucial answers to the overall mythology of the series. It has a lot of awkward moments and a dragging middle point, but it gets a lot of mileage out of nostalgia and call backs. It's much more self serious than previous entries, but as I said earlier: at some point even a series as silly as Phantasm would need to stop a moment and reflect.
Final Rating: Two and a Half Stars.
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