Phantasm II

Whoever made the poster for "Phantasm II" was smart enough to depict the movie's two drawing points: Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man, and the flying metal ball. Don Coscarelli must have felt like he'd hit the jackpot when Scrimm signed on for the first movie - and all the others. Here is an actor whose very appearance invites fear; he's like a Jack Palance stand-in. The series' attempts to give him supernatural abilities and yellow blood don't really amount to much; they should have just let him hang out in the background looking evil.

You might recall that the first "Phantasm" movie was basically a few neat schlock effects with no cohesive story or characters to string them all together. I remember wondering if the budget was spent entirely on effects that Coscarelli couldn't wait to show the world - and thus skipped writing a screenplay or developing characters.

"Phantasm II", which, like all sequels, has an obviously bigger budget, possibly proves my theory to have been incorrect. This one has more schlock effects, but makes no more sense. It also has many of the same flaws as the first one, such as pointless driving scenes with tense music giving the impression the characters are on their way to a showdown, but you never know where they're going, or why, so the scenes just play as boring filler.

The bigger budget also apparently paid for some incongruous action-movie like scenes, such as a house exploding, or a car flipping over.

At least the first five minutes of the movie actually explains what The Tall Man is up to: he robs graves to turn the occupants into zombies who kill the inhabitants of small towns. Then, he moves onto another town's graveyard, and starts all over again.

The first movie really should have made that clear.

This relatively auspicious opening makes the viewer hope "Phantasm II" might make more sense than its prequel.

Alas, it is not to be.

I saw "Phantasm II" before watching any of the other Phantasm movies, and despite its shortcomings, it converted me into a fan of the series. While it has an effective atmosphere and an interesting array of characters, the plot certainly could have been more carefully written. There is one part where Mike risks his life handling a very dangerous flying sphere and uses it as a key to open some weird door, but the movie fails to show the purpose of opening that door. Sure, it shows you what lies behind the door, but that's it! Mike and his friends don't really do anything in there! Also, the Tall Man goes through the trouble of luring Liz into a trap, but he just throws her against a wall once he catches her. If Liz was such a threat to his evil plans (as the plot asserts), then wouldn't the Tall Man want to make sure she's dead? Still, when you have a couple psychics, an ex-ice cream vendor, a mysterious hitchhiker, an army of dwarves, flying spheres and a rather omnipotent--and scary-looking--old guy called the Tall Man rolled into one picture, the movie promises to be interesting, and it delivers for the most part.

Compared to the other Phantasm movies, I liked "Phantasm II" better than "Phantasm III" and "Phantasm: Oblivion," but it's not quite as good as the original Phantasm.

I can't say I really liked Coscarelli's follow up to "Phantasm" much, at least I can't say I enjoyed the first hour a whole lot. Where the original film is like a waking nightmare, this is a pretty routine horror action flick filled with weird plot gaps and silly ideas. But then the last half hour happened, and I have to say I begrudgingly endorse this flick ... but only for the gleefully outrageous gory climax.

A Michael Baldwin wasn't in this movie as Mike for some reason the part was given to another actor however A Michael Baldwin returned for the third and the others that followed in my opinion A Michael Baldwin is 'Mike' like christopher reeve will always be superman.

WELL.... You GET.... What You PAY for!

You will HAVE TO INVEST an Hour and a 1/2 of Your life in PHANTASM II.... I would say.... OK... Fair Enough!

BUT BEFORE DIVING IN....

FIRST... Let us FOCUS on the Title's Content and Context:

When I saw PHANTASM in a theater in 1979, I liked it so much (9*), I went back a week later and saw it again! I missed Phantasm II while I was living in Colombia, So I decided to take a delayed-by-25-years look! My psyche was all set to enjoy PHANTASM II to the max! I hadn't seen much in the horror/terror genre in recent years, because I really don't like the direction the genre has been going in throughout the past 1/4 century. 8 to 9* was what I was hoping for...I was somewhat disappointed, but will give it 7.5*.

Let's talk about P-2 for a moment...The whole film is based around sustaining a mood of imminent danger, a foreboding atmosphere. If you agree to go along with it, providing suspension of disbelief, you'll probably get a nice kick out of P-2. IMHO elements of the film, music, sound effects, lighting, pacing, etc., all contribute well to that end. So if you are genre-friendly , let's bump my 7.5* UP to 8*! If the horror/terror genre usually isn't your cup of tea, well let's round DOWN to 6*...Fair enough? In this case, I'd say having seen the original PHANTASM would add tend to add a Star to rating P-2, so it does help, but isn't absolutely indispensable.

I really had forgotten how much gruesome gore there was in the original. There's probably even more here, but a lot less than in recent offerings, undoubtedly influenced by PHANTASM 1 and 2, like the SAW franchise (YECH!) As is typically the case in "B" movies, the acting and dialog usually leave a lot to be desired, but, hey, we don't watch these scouting for potential Oscar-nominees, now do we?!?

Bottom-line: ALL of you who are, or have been horror/terror film buffs; a semi-cult classic you won't want to miss, or that you'll want to REDUX! If not in the above group...MAYBE NOT!

In either case...ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!