The endgame (so far) comes in "Phantasm IV: Oblivion"

Alright, let's finish this bitch off. And not a moment too soon. Hopefully it hasn't been made clear, but while I've mightily enjoyed this series, sweet Mary, writing about them is exasperating. When I first sat down to watch these Phantasm movies, I envisioned...something entirely different from what wound up taking place. Some standard stalk-and-slash action, a badass villain, and different victim characters in every movie. Kind of like an all-dudes version of Friday the 13th. And, well, if you've been reading these reviews, that has wound up not being the case.

Before we get going, I have to disclose something - I'm not happy at all with how my reviews of these movies have turned out. They've been something like 95% recap, 5% all other shit. The series is just SO freakin' weird that it's difficult to describe it in handy-dandy condensed form without confusing the holy hell out of readers, but it's a sorry excuse. So, from the Horror Nerd to all of you, much apologies for the piss-poor performance on these flicks, and I shall do my best to streamline the whole experience with this go-round.

Phase one of that plan: Some introductory comments on THE FILM ITSELF. Phantasm IV: Oblivion was unleashed upon the world of direct-to-video patrons in 1998. Once again, Don Coscarelli returns to man the directing and writing duties, and since he is the guy who has concocted perhaps the most baffling long-running series I've ever taken in, does about as well of a job as anybody in the history of the world in making a series about killer spheres, hooded dwarves, and mystical otherworldly Undertakers (but not Mark Calloway) seem cool and relevant. What's more, Bill Thornbury and A. Whitney Brown are once again back as Jody and Mike, the brothers who serve as the lynchpins of the action, as well as Reggie Bannister, who in my book is a far cooler "baptism by fire/unlikely hero" character than Ash Williams could ever hope to be. Maybe a good inflammatory comment like that will make this review a bit less sucky.

Whoo boy...are you ready, kids? Ready for the final (to date, and MORE ON THAT LATER) movie in this confounding series? Christ, I don't even know if I am.

But first...LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY!
Now that we got that out of the way, welcome to the crazy world of Phantasm IV. It starts off with what's actually a pretty cool bit of recap/narration by Bannister that makes me all wishy-washy for the two months' worth of nostalgia I have for these movies. Like the previous three flicks, it then resolves the cliffhanger ending from the last installment, which had Reggie pinned to the wall by the Tall Man's sentinel weapons and Mike tearing away from the Bolton mortuary/lab. For whatever reason, the Tall Man decides to let Reggie live and pursues Mike.

The one really nice thing about this movie is that it's much, much easier to follow than the others. Don't get me wrong - it's still off the charts insane, but while the other flicks were all about rapid-fire events and action, this one is more restrained, and only has two plot threads to follow instead of the 17,000 that I'm used to.

First, we get Movie A - the Mike show, and man, is it something else. Apparently Mike ran away from the mortuary so as not to be turned into one of the Tall Man's drones, or something, and eventually winds up in Death friggin' Valley. While there, he seems to be preparing for his death, as he periodically writes these cryptic notes to his buddy Reggie, but his primary goal seems to be unlocking the mystery of the cosmos that is the Tall Man's back story.

Yup, we finally get some semblance of an idea of who this guy was before the whole heinous body-stealing world conquest plot started. There is a fascinating little scene involving the guy working in the battlefields of the Civil War, obviously a doctor of some sort before the big reveal. As far as we can tell, he was an undertaker named Jebediah Morningside who became obsessed with finding the line between life and death (possibly due to witnessing so much of the latter in the war). And golly gee, he actually succeeded, inventing the very first dimensional poles sometime in the 19th century and crossing the gate, eventually being reborn as the evil Tall Man. I never told you it was a definitive answer.

The rest of Mike's story in this film isn't worth recapping quite as much. All you really need to know is that he follows his brother Jody around through a bunch of dimensional gates, unlocks past segments almost as if you would unlock content in a PS3 game by accomplishing little tasks, and eventually gains the power of telekinesis, which he immediately uses to kill a scorpion. I wish I was making that up.

Then, there's Movie B - the typical Phantasm "cool Reggie in pursuit of pussy and the Tall Man" story. This time around, there isn't much action from ol' Reg, which is really a shame, since Bannister has really grown on me as this series has gone on. He went from being a nonentity in my mind in the first movie to a cool alternative to Bruce Campbell in the second to legit badass (and somewhat lecherous) antihero in the third, and I was particularly fond of him here. This time around, all he is doing is tracking down his buddy Mike. Along the way, he defeats a demonic cop (YES!) and engages in a Phantasm classic sequence for the ages.

OK, here's the deal - for those of you who have been keeping score, all of the sequels have featured a young hot chick for Reggie to attempt to mack on, and this one is no different, as he rescues a hot young blonde named Jennifer (Heidi Marnhout) from certain doom after her car flips over. After driving to an abandoned hotel and falling asleep for the night, Reggie is awoken from a nightmare only to discover that Jennifer's...uh...chest is heaving. Ever the sexual harassment proponent, he opens up her shirt, and, well, take a look.

Yeah. Sentinel boobs. You can always count on Phantasm movies to have SOMETHING in them that will stick out in your memory forever, and this one is no exception. Anyway, he destroys the sentinels and demon-Jennifer and continues on his merry way, eventually catching up to Mike in the desert for the AFOREMENTIONED "crossing of the poles/Jebediah Morningside" revelation.

What else do you need to know? Well, not much. This flick doesn't have much of a big, rousing ending action sequence like the other films do, and as it turns out really wasn't supposed to. There's only a couple other things worth mentioning: (1) Mike gets the honors of offing the Tall Man once again, this one with some sort of strange interdimensional bomb (don't ask), and (2) we get ENDING TWIST #4, as a new Tall Man immediately comes through the gate and completes the wackamaroo transformation that he had been putting Mike through, removing the sphere from his skull and leaving him for dead as Reggie dives through the gate in HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Our closing scene is an outtake from the first film of child Mike getting into Reggie's ice cream truck, and the two of them driving off into the distance. And it's a scene that could bring a tear to a glass eye.

I'm not sure I know why, exactly, but I enjoyed this movie. The relaxed pace was a welcome change after the all-out frenetic campy weirdness of the first three films, and simultaneously despite and because of that tone-down, the movie gives us some classic moments. The stuff with the Tall Man's past is really awesome, and it's great seeing Angus Scrimm play something other than the slow-stalking, slow-talking killer for a change during his scenes as Jebediah. In addition to that, both Movie A and Movie B have some decent scares, and the killer breasts? Immortal.

Of course, there's also a wholly boring story associated with the possible future of the franchise. Way back in the mid-'90s, Roger Avary (the co-writer of Pulp Fiction) wrote a screenplay for the final movie in the Phantasm saga, which would pick up from the events of Phantasm III and take place in a dire, post-apocalyptic landscape. As cult movies often do, the project ran into financing difficulties, prompting Don Coscarelli to create this movie as a way to bide time and keep interest until enough money could be raised for the endgame film, and Avary even has a cameo as one of the civil war soldiers in the movie. And no, there hasn't been any headway in raising the finances for said movie, which would be titled Phantasm's End, although Coscarelli hopes to make it sometime in the future. Hope you enjoyed the information I was able to impart due to the five minutes' worth of Wikipedia research I afforded Phantasm IV.

Thus, for that reason, while I ordinarily hate open endings to horror series, I'll give Phantasm IV a slight pass since it's not OFFICIALLY over yet and award it *** out of ****.

Now, a few words on the series as a whole. This series is the very definition of "cult" - it's out there, it's definitely not digestable to the masses, but it's off-kilter wackiness and cool hero characters easily lends itself to a small but very diehard group of fans, which this series no doubt has. After taking in every movie in the series, I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore fan, but the films should get regular play during my daylight hours sleep schedule while so many of my other DVDs sit in the shelf for all of time after one watch. They're oddball, they're loads of fun, and as a whole experience, I can't recommend them enough.

More than that, however, I'm sure all of you out there reading this who consider yourselves horror fans have people in your lives - be they family, co-workers, significant others, etc. - who give you funny looks for some of the things you watch. You know, the usual "how can you watch this crap" look. According to some people (not looking at you at all, Roger Ebert), we are only supposed to watch cerebral, artistic works of social and cultural importance that make us reflect on who we are as a society and human beings. And just TYPING that last sentence almost made me hurl.

Are these films high art? No, not by a long shot. But movies can be good in different ways, and yes, the Phantasm films are good. Not in the way that they should have walked away with bagfuls of Oscars, but the best movies are the ones that are able to make you feel something. Shocked, confused, invigorated...these are the effects that these films had on me while watching them, and I'm a slightly curmudgeonly 28-year-old man. God only knows what I would have thought if had I seen this in my impressionable childhood. So shut it, Roger, or else Reggie, his awesome ride, and his cavalcade of weapons will be pointed at YOU.

Far out, indeed.