Phantasm II (1988)

Full disclosure: I have not seen any of the other "Phantasm" films, and do not expect ever to do so. This one was adequate in some ways. It was a little fun to see such a young James Le Gros, before his countenance doomed him to a career of playing villains. The acting was OK for this type of film, but the script, wow. I'll just say that I laughed out loud at what would have been the most inappropriate time, one of the most supposedly intense and scary scenes. I'm pretty sure they weren't going for camp, but who knows.

Better than the original, in my opinion. The first of the series to feature a female lead, some really good special FX, and the ice cream man played by Reggie Bannister gets to kick some ass! The ONLY THING -- is replacing A. Michael Baldwin with a Brad Pitt-type actor (FUN FACT: Brad Pitt actually auditioned for this role)

The Tall man and his balls are back (Err, that's not what it sounds like). This time the action is ramped up, the gore is plentiful, and one of the actors has been replaced. Reggie and Mike are out for revenge, and follow the Tall Man across America, with modified guns and a flamethrower. Looks like they're finally going to get to the bottom of the enigma of Phantasm, right? Wrong! What you do get is more flying spheres attacking folk, more weirdness, bigger set pieces, and a lot of fun. It's not quite up to the quality of the first film, but the sequel certainly holds its own. This time Michael's searching for a girl who's been dreaming about The Tall Man, who is getting bolder and emptying entire towns (not to mention the graveyards). It's hard to describe a plot which involves people chasing each other about, but this time our heroes have also got to contend with the Tall Man's assistants (all of whom meet very gory deaths). The film is a lot more linear than the last one, so 'linear' fans might get a kick out of that.

One does not need to have seen any of the other films in this series to enjoy Phantasm II. The story, though odd, is easy to pick up on. Once we are introduced to everyone, it is easy to figure out what they represent, and what they have on their agendas. The story centers around two men (Reggie Bannister and James Legros) attempting to track down and kill "The Tall Man" played with sinister creepiness by Angus Scrimm. When you are name "Angus Scrimm", its a pretty good bet you are going to end up as a horror movie actor. Angus Scrimm the Pediotrist just doesn't sound right. But this Tall Man and his minions travel from one small town to the next robbing graves and turning the corpses into evil dwarfs resembling Jawas from Star Wars. And in Phantasm II, The Tall man has apparently made the jump from not only harvesting the dead, to also preying on the living. Needless to say, he must be stopped.This is a gory, campy film that is fairly well-paced. The acting is as good as one could ask for, though the experience of the cast is fairly limited to this series itself, and other genre pics. Only James Legros really went on to do more high profile projects after this. And he seems to have peaked in the 1990s. The action is played out in a series of explosions, characters battling each other with hardware store equipment, and using mortuary devises to inflict painful death. The Tall man has quite a lot at his disposal. He has his dwarf army, creepy mortuary workers, gas mask-wearing grave diggers, and chrome spheres that seek out and suck the brains from the nearest person they find. But our heroes are also heavily armed, drive a fast car, and have a determination to see this thing through to the end.The only trouble is, this is just one of four parts to this series. Even though things seemed to be wrapped up nicely until the final frames, apparently this story goes on and on. And though I enjoyed this film, I'm still not compelled to seek out the other three. I got the point just fine with this one. The writer/director of this film has not done a lot else outside this series. Perhaps he has ideas and just can't get funding. Or maybe just no additional ideas. If you are a true fan of this series, more power to you. If not, and you still come across Phantasm II, give it a look. Its well-made, gory, suspenseful and the production values aren't dirt-cheap. 7 of 10 stars.The Hound.