“You think that when you die, you go to Heaven. You come to us!”
Phantasm II was my first Phantasm movie, so it has a special place in my heart. (It’s not the only horror series I started by watching the second film – Friday the 13th Part 2 comes to mind.) It’s still the first one I think of when Phantasm comes up. Reggie’s four-barreled shotgun. Mike’s homemade flamethrower (and completely unnecessary welder’s mask). The dark, marbled halls of the mausoleum. The Tall Man (and his goopy, gory avatar rising up out of a woman’s back). Liz and Chemy. That cemetery with all the graves open.
The original Phantasm has recently become my favorite of the series, but I still have a fondness for this crazy horror/action film, and I’m always happy to see it again. This week was no different. It reminds me of walking into the video store and choosing a horror film based solely on how crazy the cover looked. Of watching a lot of dreck and occasionally finding mad, awesome films like this one. It’s like visiting an old friend.
The Medium
I have the Phantasm 5 Movie Collection from Well Go USA. It’s a bare bones set with not much in the way of extras, but the films are all recent transfers and look good. It will do until the inevitable 4k release.
For streaming, Phantasm II is only available for rent or purchase, and isn’t included in any subscriptions or for free on any ad supported service. If you want to see ANY of the other Phantasm films, you’ve got options galore – hell, you can see them all on Tubi if you want. Phantasm II was distributed by Universal, however, and because of that the rights and costs of the film are always handled separately, leading to this stupid situation where you can’t see a pivotal film in a series because… well, because money. It aggravates me.
The Movie
Phantasm II picks up seven years after the events of the original film (which is helpfully recapped). Mike has gone through a rough puberty and looks completely different (he’s now played by a different actor, James Le Gros). Reggie (Reggie Bannister) seems to have no memory of what happened and believes Mike – who has been in an institution – is delusional. There’s also a girl, Kim (Paula Irvine) who has a supernatural connection with both Mike and the Tall Man.
Mike fakes recovery in order to leave the institution and tries to convince Reggie that they need to hunt down the Tall Man (played once again with disturbing eyebrows by Angus Scrimm). Despite the empty coffins in the local cemetery, Reggie refuses to indulge in Mike’s beliefs. That is, until the Tall Man blows up Reggie’s house with his family inside. (I always wonder why they didn’t just have Reggie – who survived a struggle with the Tall Man and the murderous dwarven minions – remember everything, and just be better at hiding it, ‘cause he’s an adult.)
This is the point in the film where director Don Coscarrelli jams some A-Team into my horror film. Reggie and Mike spend a night at the local hardware store in a “gearing up” montage straight out of Stephen J. Cannell’s seminal TV show. While they end up with a ton of classic hardware supplies, it’s their signature weapons – the four barreled shotgun and flamethrower mentioned earlier – that stand out.
Then they get into Reggie’s black Hemi ‘Cuda and hit the road, tracking the Tall Man throughout the West Coast, mostly by finding the dying or dead towns and monsters the man and his minions leave behind.
Wait a second. Two guys with a family-style bond, driving a classic black muscle car around, fighting monsters with a trunk full of weapons? This isn’t the A-Team, this is the premise for Supernatural! I mean, there’s gotta be some DNA from this film in Erik Kripke’s 2000s era TV show, right? Throw some classic rock on the soundtrack and it would be like watching an 80s version of Supernatural that we never knew about.
Anyway.
That feeling of unreality, of dreamlike oddness, that permeates the original Phantasm is almost completely missing from this film. The film has its fair share of weirdness, with new monsters like the gravediggers and their gas masks, but it’s more concerned with upping both the action and the body count. It’s not just Reggie and Mike that have leveled up their weapons; the Tall Man has added a new, terrifying gold version of the classic silver sphere – and this one has lasers and a saw blade!
Liz, who has been dreaming about Mike and the Tall Man for years, finally meets the monster of her dreams at the funeral of her grandfather. The local priest (Kenneth Tigar) is absolutely no help at all. Both her grandparents will eventually become the twisted dwarfs that the Tall Man seems to use as slave labor in this world and the world that lies beyond the silver pillars in the locked room inside the mortuary. Yes, there’s another world beyond silver pillars in a locked room in the mortuary. Phantasm II might not be AS weird as the original, but it’s still damn weird.
Mike and Reggie show up to help along with hitchhiker Chemy (short for Alchemy, and played by Samantha Phillips), and they all hole up in an abandoned bed and breakfast while they plan what to do. (This leads to one of the funniest sex scenes in a film between Chemy and Reggie.) Unfortunately for everyone, the Tall Man shows up and abducts Liz, leading Reggie and Mike into a car chase and rescue attempt at the mortuary.
The connections between Mike, Liz and the Tall Man are never really explored in depth. They’re kind of a way to shortcut a relationship between Mike and Liz, and provide a direction for Mike to go in during his pursuit of the Tall Man. There’s an oddness there that could have been explored, but there’s not time for that. We’ve got car crashes and explosions, multiple spheres on the loose (including that freakin’ cool gold ball), undead mortuary assistants that need to be chucked into incinerators, a chainsaw duel, and a final (?) epic confrontation with the Tall Man himself, involving flames and acid-infused embalming fluid.
In classic Phantasm style, though, nothing is as it seems. Or maybe it is.
The Bottom Line
I still love Phantasm II, even without the eerie mood and atmosphere of the original. I admit that I’m probably viewing it with nostalgia glasses on, but I’m happy to ride along in the ‘Cuda with Mike and Reggie, out to avenge their families and put the strange, powerful Tall Man and his killer spheres down for good. It’s got enough action, gore and weirdness to satisfy any fan of 80s horror. And if that ending is too much of a cliffhanger? No worries, Part III is just a rental (or online viewing) away.
