Phantasm II (1988)

June 28, 2018

"When you die you think you go to heaven? You come to us!" Nine years later, the Tall Man is still at it! Reanimating corpses throughout the United States to use as his slaves in his other dimensions.

First, there are a few issues that need to be addressed from the get go before getting into the finer points of the movie. The first is the issue of Mike. In the first movie and the three movies that follow this first sequel, Mike is played by A. Michael Baldwin. However, in this movie the studio producers didn't want either Baldwin or Reggie Bannister to play their beloved characters. The director/writer/creator Don Coscarelli went to bat for them and had to pull a few strings just to be able to get Reggie to once again play Reggie. Unfortunately, he couldn't get Baldwin and instead hired James Le Gros to play Mike. While Le Gros did a fine job, the absence of the original actor who played Mike is very noticeable. Also, Mike's brother Jody, who along with Mike was the main character in the original movie, is not in the movie at all. He will also be in the following three sequels. Despite missing two of the three original actors (and one of the central characters) Phantasm II is a really great movie that builds on the success of the original but takes it into a completely different path.

Having been picked up by Universal Pictures, Phantasm II is a Hollywood production. Universal gave the film a $3 million budget, which is the lowest of any film Universal made that year but the highest budget for any Phantasm movie. What this means is that there is a lot more gore, special effects and explosions. The film moves beyond the "terrorized town" motif of the original into a road movie with Mike and Reggie hunting down the Tall Man to end his evil plans once and for all. The movie franchise to this point reminds me of the first two Mad Max films... move towards revenge film, road movie, and much for violence and gore.

This is also the movie to finally put Reggie in the protagonist shoes. In the original movie, Reggie took a backseat to Jody and Mike and only appeared as a buddy to those two main characters. In this movie Reggie is the four barrel shot gun and flame thrower wielding action hero he was always meant to be. He is a balding and pot-bellied Bruce Campbell, but for some reason it works. It was in this movie that I fell in love with Reggie. It is also in this movie that Reggie begins his tradition of banging random women he encounters in the films.

The special effects and gore in this film are really great. With a bigger budget, Coscarelli was able to do some really great things. We get a few great moments with the terrifying metal spheres. We get the metal sphere to the bridge of the nose with blood spurting again, however the dead body doesn't urinate itself this time. Bummer. We get the metal ball hit the tall man's head and spurt out embalming fluid this time. We also get a great scene where the ball hits one of the Tall Man's henchmen's hands and he is force to chop his hand off with a hatchet. Also, there is a new gold ball that shots lasers and does a cool smashing through three doors POV scene (a-la Evil Dead 2).

There's a couple of really great practical effect moments. The first is when a creature with a version of the Tall Man's face pops out of a dead woman's back to threaten Mike. Another great moment is when the golden sphere burrows its way into a guy's back and up throw his mouth. A third memorable scene is when the tall man is injected with hydrochloric acid and begins to melt in front of the camera.

All the scenes mentioned before could not have been completed without Universal's budget, but unfortunately that would also mean that something would be lost. A lot of the appeal of the first movie was the more cerebral and illusory aspects of the film. The nightmarish dream sequences and ambiguous plot points are some of the more memorable and beloved parts of the original movie. Phantasm II is largely lacking in these points. As a Hollywood movie, it gives a straight forward revenge road movie plot. There is nothing ambiguous and while it is visually beautiful (or horrific) it did not leave me with any questions to think about. There is also a love story with Mike that is forced into the film. I'd put money on this being the studio's idea. That being said, it was still a really solid horror flick and solidifies Reggie Bannister as a horror hero.