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55%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #4,911
...out of 20,698 movies
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Taking off immediately where the last one ended, in this episode Mike travels across dimensions and time fleeing from the Tall Man, at the same time he tries to find the origins of his enemy, and what really happened the night that his brother died. Meanwhile, Reggie battles the spheres and the undead in a quest to find Mike before the Tall Man can complete his transformation.
--TMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: March 21, 2010
Thus far, the Phantasm series has been quite the mysterious thing. To put a specific finger on that mystery, how in the world its obtained the "horror classic" status it possesses is totally beyond me. The first was mediocre at best, the second was a fun cheesy romp but nothing really special, the third was abysmal, and the fourth goes absolutely nowhere.
You'll have to excuse how helter skelter this plot outline is, since there isn't exactly much of a plot to speak of. Anyway, we pick up right were part III left off. Reggie is pinned to the wall by a bunch of spheres, but for whatever reason the Tall Man lets him go. Tim and Roxie aren't so much as mentioned (thank God for small favors), and Mike has gone tearing off in a hearse and heads out into the desert, all the while reminiscing a series of flashbacks. Meanwhile, Reggie has had enough, but Jody convinces him to follow Mike and protect him. Along the way, he meets a young lady named Jennifer and has a nightmare of another flashback. In the desert, Mike's car is completely totaled, and he's been wondering around hallucinating a series of flashbacks. He begins moving through the Tall Man's gates and learns a few things about who the Tall Man really is, and just what his plan for Mike is.
All of these flashbacks are actually unused material from the previous films, and considering just how much of this movie is flashback, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn it was made with the sole purpose of using all that preexisting footage as a cheap method to squeeze whatever blood it could out of the Phantasm stone. Maybe I shouldn't call them flashbacks, since a lot of them, especially in the second half, are hallucinations that are supposed to give the movie a surreal, dream-like feel. Unfortunately, this didn't connect at all. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if there was something tying them all together, but as it stands they're just random scenes that they keep chucking in there to pad out the running time. The real killer in all of this is that there's some very real potential plot-wise in the new material. Ideas are offered up, but never truly explored. For example, while he's traveling through the gates, he meets up with the Tall Man before he's become the Tall Man. We're given what he was, a vague, brief explanation of what started him down the path, but we never get to see the actual transformation. This isn't necessary of course, but it'd definitely be nice to see. And at any rate, there should have a lot more scenes with this entirely new side of the character. The same holds even more true for the path Mike starts down in the second act. I'm not going to spoil it, of course, but it's a brilliant idea that desperately needs to be expanded upon, and just never is. As the final credits roll, the combination of the random flashback padding and these underused ideas leave you coming to the realization that you've just spent the last ninety minutes watching a movie and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
Acting in this sequel pretty much lines up with the rest of the series considerably well. Angus Scrimm is great (especially in his pre-Tall Man scenes, which are by all rights a completely different character), Reggie Bannister gets the job done with no complaint, and A. Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury are useless. Newcomer Heidi Marnhout is in there for five minutes as Jennifer. Just long enough to show off her body (which is quite nice even if she doesn't show the goods) and give Reggie a chance to get rejected as per Phantasm norm.
Remember, how Saw V wasn't exactly a movie in it's own right, but more of just a bridge between parts IV and VI? Well, Phantasm IV is kind of like that, except there's no V to lead into, which makes it so much worse. There's a lot of backstory and future events hinted at, but nothing with any substance is actually given; and all of this plot points being barely introduced just to be ignored is pretty maddening. After watching this, I would actually like to see the proposed fifth movie, Phantasm's End, come to fruition as long as Coscarelli expanded on these ideas. 4/10
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#1:
Chad
- added April 24, 2010 at 7:24am
The series hadn't exactly been the best thing I'd
ever seen up until this movie, but my word, this
one was just horrible. I was wanting to turn it
off after twenty minutes had ticked by, but I
braved through it just to see if something would
happen. I should have listened to myself at that
twenty minute mark. 1/10, and that's a pity
point.
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