Taking place just a few seconds after the end of Phantasm II, Phantasm 3 proves that you can’t keep a good Tall Man down as the undertaker from hell bounces right back from his seemingly final demise and denies our plucky heroes a happy ending. He kills Liz (boo!) and very nearly does the same to Mike and Reggie, until Reggie manages to fend off the Tall Man and his posse of pissed off Jawas with the threat of blowing them all up with a grenade. The opening scene is marvelous in it’s intensity, as well as throwing away the standard story formula that’s prevalent in many horror films--to hell with a storyline build up, the Tall Man is coming for Mike right now, damn it, and nothing’s going to stop him. At least until Reggie’s ingenuity stops the old tall boy dead in his tracks.
But no sooner is Mike rescued then the Tall Man easily captures him, and then Mike promptly disappears for a large portion of the film. Reggie travels the back roads with an annoying little brat and a surly chick named Rocky (with a name like that, you wouldn’t think she’d be all sugar and spice, right?) who’s really good with numchucks--but she just won’t touch Reggie’s, no matter how hard he tries to score with her. Which brings me to the main problem with this flick. The first two Phantasm films had their share of silliness, but the entire third film is just very lame. We’re treated to stupid scenes of Reggie trying to get it on with Rocky, when he should instead be moving heaven and earth in his attempt to find and rescue Mike.
Oh, and Jody--Mike’s big brother from the first film--is back in Obi-Wan Kenobi fashion as a good sphere who tries to help out Mike and the others.
Got that? One of the flying, killer spheres suddenly became a good guy, because
Jody’s spirit is contained within it. Okay. This dopey plot point enables the
film to reunite the original trio of actors from the first film, to no great
effect, because they’re not really given much to do to except run around and
look scared. Angus Scrimm looked bored, and so was I. The film moved at such a
deathly slow pace that it was hard to believe the running time was only 90
minutes. And what’s the deal with the freaking zombies? Zombies…really? With an
army as unique as what the Tall Man has at his disposal, why would he fall back
on these Romero rejects? Watching Phantasm 3 is like watching a badly
decomposing corpse slowly fall apart--it’s just gross and a waste of your time.
Thankfully, things improve somewhat with the last film.
--SF
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