A young woman named Liz (Paula Irvine) has been having some
terrifying visions over the last few years--visions of Mike, Jody and Reggie
fighting the Tall Man--the very same Tall Man who Liz senses is coming closer to
her small town every day, like a bad storm in the distance. She forms a psychic
connection with Mike, who has spent the past several years in a mental
institution, after just barely surviving the assault by the Tall One in the
final scene of the first Phantasm. Thankfully, in the beginning of Phantasm II,
we’re shown exactly how both Mike and Reggie escaped a full scale attack on
their home by the Tall Man, and despite the fact that the sequel was shot ten
years later, director Don Cosarelli does a great job of hiding the fact that the
young Mike is played here by a double.
James Le Gros also does a great job in taking over the role of the adult Mike, who
hooks up with a reluctant Reggie as soon as he’s released from the mental
institution. The reason Reggie is reluctant to go hunting for the Tall Man is
because in the intervening years, he's bought the official version that what happened
at Mike's house that night was just a hallucination. Plus, Reggie’s settled down
and raised a family. But the Tall Man is more than ready for round 2, and he
shoots the opening salvo by blowing up Reggie’s entire family while they’re
inside the house. Now out for revenge, both Mike and Reggie outfit themselves
with the proper weapons from a closed hardware store (being sure to leave
payment at the register), gas up the Barracuda, and head out to kick some undead alien ass.
Cosarelli is working from a larger budget this time, and it shows. The flying
silver spheres are back, with an addition. Cosarelli has added a
larger golden sphere, which is sort of like the howitzer of the bunch in that
it’s much meaner than the silver ones in what it does to a victim. The
pint-sized, Jawa-like minions, now sporting some pumped-up make up effects, look
much better than they did in the original film. They also move faster, and are
more dynamic in terms of being a threat to our heroes. And they have some help
this time out in the form of a ghoulish morgue worker who threatens Liz, and a graveyard digger
in a gas mask who's very handy with a chainsaw. Cosarelli also takes
advantage of his bigger budget to show the devastation left behind in a small
town that the Tall Man and his boys recently visited.
And the stark image of Mike
and Reggie walking through a cemetery with vast rows of headstones, but empty pits
where the graves should be, is very effective and creepy. There are also some
pretty big explosions that were shot just for the film, which just goes to show
that sometimes, bigger is better. Series
regulars Reggie Nader and Angus Scrimm are great in their respective roles as
Reggie and the Tall Man, and Paula Irvine is a welcome addition as Liz, who has
a nice little arc as she starts out being a timid damsel in distress, but winds
up eagerly fighting alongside Mike and Reggie. The DVD has no special features,
but is highly recommended because of the film itself, which is very stylishly done and
quite enjoyable overall. Sure, there are some silly moments, but if you let
yourself get caught up in the dream-like imagery, Phantasm II can be a darkly fun
ride that, in many ways, is actually better than the original. If only the same
can be said for Phantasm III
--SF
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