The Delusion Of A Disordered Mind

Call me crazy (or slow on the draw) but I noticed something new while recently rewatching Phantasm II. While Reggie and Mike are driving through a Tall Man-ravaged small town, one shot of the debris-strewn streets and boarded up store fronts suddenly jumped out at me as being not an actual location, as I always assumed it to be, but in fact a miniature set.

This detail has probably been completely obvious to everyone all along but it's taken me I don't know how many viewings for my eye to detect telltale signs of artifice in this shot.

But rather than ruin the moment, spying the fakery instead put a big smile on my face. This is the kind of unexpected discovery that the digital age has robbed us of now that moviemakers no longer have to use a variety of practical methods to pull off their illusions.

This moment amounts to just a brief few seconds of screen time and it's not any kind of pivotal scene - it's just there to give a sense of the Tall Man's path of destruction. But yet it required some craftsman on the crew (perhaps Ken Tarallo, credited as model maker in the film's credits) to spend what was likely weeks to construct a cool little miniature full of finely acheived detail which then had to be lit and photographed just right to make it convincing. Or...perhaps I'm just seeing things.

Either way, Phantasm II continues to be damn cool.

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.

Phantasm II

Amid the bright hues of the '80s, writer/director Don Coscarelli's Phantasm II (1988) forged a dark path through a wasted America of violated graveyards, abandoned towns, and ghoul-ridden mortuaries. With Angus Scrimm at his cadaverous best returning as the Tall Man and with his arcane arsenal of flying spheres capable of even more diverse acts of mayhem (they have so many astounding applications they deserve their own not-found-in-stores infomercial), Coscarelli's sequel to his 1979 cult classic was a satisfyingly macabre follow-up.

Phantasm II is essentially one long chase as the survivors of the original film - young Mike Pearson (James Le Gros, replacing A. Michael Baldwin) and balding ice cream jockey Reggie (the returning Reggie Bannister) - hit the road in their black Hemi Cuda to hunt down the elusive Tall Man and kill him once and for all or die trying.

Seamlessly picking up from the last moments of Phantasm (with some ingenious sleight-of-hand from Cosarelli, making it convincing that not a minute has passed for these characters), we see Reggie put down his guitar and jump into action, saving an unconscious Mike from being dragged off by the Tall Man's diminutive minions. Reggie gets himself and Mike to safety and - thanks to a gas stove - is able to blow Mike's house to debris as the Tall Man watches.

When we next see Mike in present times, he's intent on seeking out a young girl named Liz (Paula Irvine) who he's developed a psychic rapport with (and who also has visions of the Tall Man) but because Mike never backed off from telling his tale of the Tall Man, first he has to bullshit his way out of the mental institution he's currently incarcerated in. Once on the outside, Reggie tries to convince Mike that they only imagined their incredible ordeal of years ago. But when the Tall Man strikes again, exacting a catastrophic toll, Reggie is forced to team with Mike on a do-or-die mission of vengeance.

Even though the '80s were known for its portrayals of macho invincibility, Coscarelli doesn't depict Mike and Reggie as Rambo-esque action heroes. Instead, they're credible, fallible characters - always a frustrating step behind the Tall Man, working past an array of lethal booby-traps and taunting messages ("Come East if you dare!"). When they do offer some signs of bravado (as Reggie calls out to one henchman: "Come on, you Mutha!"), it's quickly followed by a humiliating smackdown.

More often than not, the overwhelmed duo are seen openly doubting what they'll be able to accomplish against the Tall Man's forces. Mike and Reggie are portrayed as soldiers embedded in enemy territory - rousting mausoleums, prowling cemeteries, and torching funeral homes - and like most foot soldiers, they're denied a view of the big picture. From one bloody skirmish to the next, they can't ascertain whether or not their missions are thwarting their foe's larger goals.

But the audience never has a privileged view of what's going on, either. In true Phantasm fashion, by the end of Phantasm II we have no clue as to what the Tall Man's goals are. Is he from another planet, or from another dimension? We don't know. But to me, it hardly matters. The action is fierce, the gore is gratuitous by late '80s standards (compared to what the MPAA was letting, say, the Friday the 13th sequels get away with at the time, Phantasm II was spectacularly nasty - like the moment where a drill-equipped sphere burrows its way through a henchman's body), the car and weapons are memorably bad-assed (check out the four-barreled shotgun!), and the chemistry between Le Gros and Bannister has a natural camaraderie (I wish Le Gros could've continued in the part, in fact, rather than Baldwin reclaiming the role).

It may not have a proper beginning or a real ending but for all its loose-ends and open ambiguities, Phantasm II feels oddly complete to me. It may not tell the most coherent tale but by sticking close to the grave, Coscarelli's morbid instincts prevail. While the Phantasm saga may have been sidelined, Phantasm II is a lasting reminder of a time when Cosarelli still had all his balls in the air.