The Ball Is Back!

In an unexpected bit of good news, the lone Region 1 holdout among the Phantasm series, 1988's Phantasm II, is finally coming to DVD in the US on September 15th courtesy of Universal. This'll hit stores on the same day as a slew of other Universal horror titles, including back catalog classics from John Carpenter and Wes Craven, but the arrival of Phantasm II eclipses everything. Until now I've held off buying any of the other three Phantasms until I knew that II would be available on disc because the Phantasm saga isn't a saga without its best entry.

With the deep pockets of Universal backing him, writer/director Don Coscarelli didn't squander the opportunity to go bigger and better on this follow-up. The new spheres, with more accessories than a Swiss Army Knife from Hell, were great and the array of new mayhem they were able to inflict was bad-ass. And even though Coscarelli ran into problems with the MPAA, I still feel that he was able to get away with a lot. The scene where a sphere burrows through the body of one of the Tall Man's lackeys remains one of my favorite splatter moments of the '80s, as does the Tall Man's oozing 'demise' as acid is pumped into his body.

With its action taking place in cemeteries, funeral homes and mortuaries, there was a grand ghoulishness to Phantasm II that I loved. That summer I wanted to be riding along in that black '71 Hemicuda with Reggie and Mike, tracking the Tall Man from one ravaged small town to the next, prowling among the crypts and graves that his minions had raided. I was never one for role-playing games but by God, if they had ever come out with one for Phantasm I would've been the biggest dork for it.

By rights, Phantasm II should've been Coscarelli's graduation to the big leagues and vaulted the Phantasm series to the forefront of horror franchises instead of being consigned to the graveyard of cinematic duds. How audiences didn't respond to this, I don't know. Maybe it was too confounding, or too corny, for most people. I loved it unabashedly, though. In every regard it struck me as cool. For me, it was a sequel just as successful as Aliens or Evil Dead II. When it comes to Phantasm II being more widely regarded as one of the best of the '80s, though, maybe this DVD release will finally get the ball off the ground.