Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

(1994) ****

Man, that Phantasm series! I can barely myself believe the following true fact: before last Thursday, I had only seen the first two Phantasms, and I have yet to watch number four. I don't think I can quite explain the perfect balance these movies strike between groovy horror fun and moldy horror cheese, but the result is pure, grade A awesome sauce.

Murder Ball!
Like Phantasm II, this one starts exactly where the last one ends, getting things rolling with the balls-out storytelling economy I love about this series. Heroine from last movie? Beheaded. Reggie? Bloody but okay. Mike? In worse shape -- but suddenly no longer played by hunk puppet James LeGros, the original 1979 actor having returned to the role. Tall Man? Well, he was dissolved on the morgue floor but another one of him pokes his head out of the dimensional-portal-tuning-fork thing. Ready people? Go!

Although they might not always make sense, Phantasm movies never bore you. Mike's not out of his coma five minutes when his dead brother Jody from the first movie shows up (once again the original actor was fetched for the role), reveals that he's actually a rogue murder ball (turning into one in a very cheap morph shot), and then fights The Tall Man, who shows up by rudely beaming one of his tuning fork things right into Reggie's house.

In the next scene Reggie delivers a line that had me cackling with laughter. He wakes up, Mike has been taken and the Jody ball is mute and tarnished. He kneels at the spot where the tuning fork had been, and says "Well Jody, I guess you couldn't beat him either." And then, as an afterthought: "He sure fucked up my hallway."

Oh, I'm laughing as I type it. His best friend has just been snatched by a freaky mortician creature from another dimension, and he takes his time to gripe about the mess. That precise flavor of doofus in these characters is definitely a big piece of the Phantasm charm.

Reggie and the Jody ball get their own little road movie going, following the Tall Man's progress across middle America so they can rescue Mike. On the way a couple new sidekicks emerge, Tim the gun-toting kid and Rocky the nunchuck-wielding tough chick. If you think you're looking at the worst pair of unwanted stereotypes movies can offer, you'd be right. But you'd also be wrong...

I mean, look at this kid. You hate him, right? Of course you do. If someone said this kid ruined this movie for them I'd sigh and shrug and not bother to argue. But the fact is his character is extremely well written. His Tall-Man-killed-my-parents backstory has punch, he never makes any stupid quips meant as comedy relief, and he's a downright lethal opponent. When he saves Reggie's ass it doesn't feel like a horrible Wesley Crusher moment. But jeez, look at him! He's been living on his own for months and his hair is perfectly styled! What a little fuck!

Like I say, that's the weird bit of moldy cheese that keeps the Phantasm movies grounded in their "so bad it's freaking awesome" mode. It's Reggie who provides the comic relief, getting hot for Rocky like only a horny hippie can. His silly, awkward attempts to get her into bed are half just plain awful and half the perfect dash of trash.

I will admit that Angus Scrimm's advancing years make him seem more and more like a malfunctioning animatronic robot from The Hall of Presidents. Nevertheless, he delivers the goods. I'm still impressed by his origin, that he's from another planet or dimension and comes to our world to enslave our dead. Our dead! That's the part I find so original and strange. He's not a demon from the recognizable Judeo-Christian machinery, he's screwing with the human afterlife... using science! That is so damn creepy! Pretty good for a guy whose eyes don't face the same direction.

In a future 'thon I will have to give the series a marathon treatment, but this year I'm content to just finally see the rest of it. When I reviewed the first two movies four years ago, numbers 2 and 3 weren't available on dvd, but they are now. I recommend these to anyone; their particular brand of low-level swagger is just right for Horrorthon.