Phantasm 5: Ravager
And so comes the end of the long road that constitutes the Phantasm Franchise in all of its freaky, undying glory. With filming having begun in 2008 on the original pretense of being a Reggie based web series, then having more and more scenes shot as the script was coming together, the general outside world had no idea that this fifth film was even in production until a 2014 press release came out announcing that the film had actually already been completed! Released on a very limited basis in 2016 (following the death of iconic series villain Angus Scrimm) the film successfully shot underneath the radar of most of the established fans of the series, leaving it only really available to those who would seek it out through the blu ray / DVD release. In addition, series creator and longtime director Don Coscarelli would relinquish the director’s chair to children’s TV animation veteran David Hartman, but Coscarelli did take a co writer credit as well as a position as a producer. The established angle for this sequel was to tell it almost completely from Reggie’s point of view (not much surprise since Parts 3 and 4 had practically done the same thing) but this time the ante was upped greatly for all of the loyal fans of Bannister’s dogged horror hero (and Reggie himself along with his wife would also serve as producers here) by having him literally become unstuck in time and space with his character slipping in and out of at least three different parallel dimensions at any given time (at least two of which apparently being ones where Bill Thornbury’s Jody had never died after the events of Part 1) along with the morass of his own dreams where The Tall Man chooses to communicate with him directly (offering Reggie the chance to be reunited with his dead wife and daughter who were blown to bits at the beginning of Part 2 if he would stop interfering in his plans). The opening scenes of the movie continue the linear timeline from Part 4 with Reggie now wandering the desert in his tattered ice cream man uniform and lamenting about his beloved and legendary Hemicuda being stolen (a situation which is quickly rectified). After having it out with several of the deadly silver spheres, Reggie suddenly opens his eyes to find himself gasping in a wheelchair, looking disheveled and wearing a bathrobe and even more shocking, turning and seeing MIKE (A. Michael Baldwin) looking fine and healthy while explaining to Reggie that he has been diagnosed with dementia which led to him being confined to this old folk’s home where Mike assures him that he will be looked after. The amazing thing is that in THIS alternate dimension, Mike has apparently no knowledge whatsoever of The Tall Man (except what Reggie tells him) and moreso, The Tall Man has seemingly never invaded this world to enslave the living for his own personal army of the undead. Of course (as Reggie suspects), the whole thing could just be an elaborate mind trick perpetrated by The Tall Man for the purposes of keeping Reggie trapped in a much weaker version of his old self or it very well could be the actual (and only) reality where Reggie, Mike and Jody had never encountered any such supernatural evil and had all lived a long, joyous life hanging out together with the dementia hallucinations that Reggie had suffered late in life being the basis of the previous four films which had really never happened except in Reggie’s mind. Or it could be as stated, Reggie is now slipping in and out of alternate dimensions at any given time (sometimes within mere seconds) and this scenario with him in a convalescent home is just one of those many alternate dimensions, albeit one where the three main characters all lived a happy, peaceful life. Eventually we arrive at what can be called the MAIN dimension, one where The Tall Man and his minions have taken over the world, wiping out most of the population with some kind of an alien virus that makes people’s heads explode(!) and where we FINALLY get some kind of explanation for The Tall Man’s longstanding hatred and obsession with Mike: In this world where the shit has hit the fan and humanity is on the brink of extinction, it is Mike who seems to serve as the John Connor like leader of The Human Resistance, just as adept at being a killing machine as Reggie is when it comes to spheres, dwarves and anything else that The Tall Man can throw at him (“BOY!!!!”). Interestingly, we also get a sort of explanation for Reggie and why The Tall Man tolerates him when he could have killed him very easily over the years as it turns out that most of Reggie’s antics (which won him legions of fans even as he never could get close to wiping out The Tall Man) have become a sort of pathetic form of entertainment to The Tall Man who always gets to watch Reggie trying to be the hero and then fumbling the ball even as Reggie’s greatest quality is in picking himself back up, dusting himself off and continuing in his quest to defeat his enemy and save his friends. Even The Tall Man himself in his mysterious mission claims to be merely trying to “make everything better for everybody” even if doing so seems to not only be in killing a lot of people, but also condemning them to a fate worse than anything as some kind of a reanimated zombie slave or worse, crushed down to being a chattering, cloaked dwarf. But the problem is that Reggie is just jumping from world to world (and storyline to storyline) with us following him and him alone (Mike, Jody and The Tall Man only appear to him when necessary) and his disorientation at where he has just popped up into at any given time (which makes perfect sense at the convalescent home) is shared by the viewer for better or worse. Admittedly, the film’s first 30 minutes (when we are still in the “linear” storyline going back to the sequels) is where most of the great “Reggie Moments” take place and also features Daniel Roebuck as a brain dead farmhand who can’t speak any English and Dawn Cody as a beautiful young woman who gets picked up by Old Reggie after she has car trouble and is subject to his usual charms. Suddenly at the rest home, Mike (who is seemingly there as a watchful friend and has no knowledge of encountering The Tall Man) starts confiding in Reggie about having the same dreams recently and that he might actually be starting to believe in what he’s been saying and then the story starts looping back to the post apocalyptic scenario with Mike in “John Connor Mode” much more rapidly. The movie also starts to dig in with several surprise pop up cameos from the past movies with the best one being Reggie’s sudden random encounter with The Lady In Lavender (Kathy Lester still looking good), The Tall Man’s female alter ego who has not been seen since Part 1 (and had actually killed Reggie back then in what had been the confused confines of Mike’s dream) in what turns out to be a genuinely evocative sequence. Of course, the film’s biggest drawback is the fact that most (if not all) of this would make little to no sense to those not weaned on the mythology of the first four films (and not just the first one) along with requiring a heavy amount of appreciation for the Reggie character himself as he careens through one situation after another with little rhythm or reason unless one is familiar with everything that he’s been through prior to this. Thankfully, with the special effects technology that’s been made available in the last ten years, even low budget filmmakers today can make a film that in the 1980s would have been considered big budget looking and we do get a few of those “moments of awe” especially in the post apocalyptic sequences even if they go for (and don’t quite succeed) at making the most badass commando of the bunch into a midget and also take a stab at the idea that any incarnation of The Tall Man who is destroyed in our world can merely be replaced by another physical copy of enslaved mortician / scientist Jebediah Morningside BUT if one were to go over to his red planet dimension and destroy him THERE, that might be enough to finish him. Lots of ideas here (good ones) with no full cohesion, but at least this acknowledged final chapter allows Angus Scrimm to go out with a measure of dignity while also giving us a happy ending (of sorts) for the likes of the three lifelong best friends Mike, Reggie and Jody along with all of the loyal fans who stuck with this series over the course of several decades…
7/10