Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Phantasm IV: Oblivion

 (1998) ***

 Okay, so the Phantasm franchise isn’t perfect. In this final installment Mike crosses dimensions and winds up meeting the original Tall Man, while he fights the other Tall Man’s efforts to transform [Mike] into one like him. All this goes on while Reggie searches for Mike and deals with his own demons.

This little strip courtesy of Octopunk sums it up quite nicely:

 To describe this film I have to use a phrase that I really don’t care much for but it suits it to a tee, this film is a hot mess. There is way to much going on here and the worst crime is the effort to fancy it up and make it more modern. One of the biggest appeals of the Phantasm films is how different they are; they really embraced the weirdness. I think this one tries too hard to make sense of everything so in turn it ends up cramming too much information into one film. There are some scenes that are so unnecessary, like murder ball breast implants, why? I don’t want to imply that it’s a stinker in any way, it still has some game, the Tall Man is doing all those nasty little things that he does and Reggie is still kicking ass like he does and Mike is resisting the inevitable like he does.  It’s just a little weaker addition to the extremely solid trilogy that preceded it.

That's a wrap!

5 comments:

Landshark said...

Wow, way to plug on. I didn't even realize there WERE four of these things.

Octopunk said...

Argh, this movie is frustrating. Between this and Bubba Ho-Tep I can't help but wonder if Don Coscarelli's played out, but I refuse to give up..

Therefore, I will hope for a win with John Dies at the End. And maybe the Bubba Ho-Tep prequel, too. Younger Elvis.

Catfreeek said...

That trailer looks good.

Landshark said...

Also love Red Meat!

DKC said...

It's too bad they couldn't end on a higher note. Still, I'd like to watch all of these at some point.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...