Fair Warning: This review has spoilers, so read at your own risk.
How I Got Into Phantasm
Okay, lets put this into perspective: I had not seen a Phantasm movie until 1998. What Phantasm film did I see? Oblivion. I was lost as fuck. However, in watching the 4th installment of a franchise, I got hooked, it seemed pretty awesome and I wanted to watch the previous movies in the franchise. So I started with the first movie and worked my way through. Here was my thing, each subsequent movies before Oblivion was bigger in scale. The budget was larger, the stakes were higher, and we were getting close to figuring out what the Tall Man's deal was. Oblivion was a nice primer for new fans, at the time, but for long time fans it was like a recap episode of an Anime. Then there was nothing for 18 years! The longest gap between Phantasm movies.
After so many years of disappointments, delays, setbacks, there was news in 2014 that a new Phantasm movie was shot in secret. The movie was due to come out the following year but didn't. Finally, it came out in 2016. After so much anticipation and since this was going to be the final Phantasm film, expectations were running high.
I'm going to say right up front, I was completely disappointed with this installment. So if you don't want to read about what I disliked this film, and how it didn't work, then stop reading here.
Windshield Dressing
"But... But... It still has the car!" - Says people who don't get the artistic part of film-making.
A lot of this movie has a fixation on the Barracuda and Reggie's four-barreled shotgun. They are featured more heavily than the rest of the cast. Mentions and excessive shots abound, it seems like they were more focused on the gimmick and nostalgia these objects bring to the franchise. Look, as awesome as that muscle car and the tipple barrel shotgun are, they are window dressing to the plot. The Tall man is wiping out middle America and turning all the cadavers into Jawas, can't we focus on that?
Nope, just scene after scene of Reggie running around and using different weapons to destroy the Silver Spheres, or driving around and shooting Silver Spheres. I'm sorry, but no matter how good of a marksman you are, I'm not buying the idea that you can shoot something reflective in the middle of the desert while you're also driving.
Then there is the completely useless scene where Reggie takes a bunch of weapons out of the trunk of the car and puts them in a huge sack. It's a stupid amount of weapons: guns, chainsaws, knives, and nunchucks of all things. Half of the arsenal isn't incredibly practical when you're fighting floating orbs. Also, he never uses those weapons and that sack of weapons is quickly forgotten.
Perhaps if they spent less time trying to titillate us prop weapons and focused on a better plot, maybe this movie could have been salvagable.
Scrimming the Bottom of the Barrel
Fun fact: Angus Scrimm was legally dead in this shot.
Thanks to all the delays, Ravager was made while Angus Scrimm (who played the Tall Man) had one foot in the grave and the other hovering over the edge. Which is probably the main reason why he doesn't have a whole lot of screen time in this movie. In fact, when the Tall Man appears he doesn't do much but stand there while others do all the dirty work.
I think the biggest tragedy of the entire Phantasm franchise is the amount of time that was wasted getting to this final installment. Angus Scrimm was old, to begin with (he was 53 when the first film was made), he was pushing 90 before he died. Let's face it, regardless of how great Angus Scrimm was as an actor, there are limitations to what you can do in your late 80s. This is telling when you consider how little screen time Scrimm has and how very little he does during the course of the film.
“The biggest ravager in this film was time.”
The other drawback of this is that Scrimm doesn't really seem all that menacing or evil. He just looks old and worn out. Oh, he was able to utter his lines correctly, but the most strenuous thing he does in the whole film raises an eyebrow. In fact, I'm trying to think of the times you see Scrimm walking in the film, and it's a scene where he has a walker.
It's not just Angus Scrimm either, looking at Reggie Banister, A. Michael Baldwin, and Bill Thornbury, all look miserable in their roles. There's not a whole lot of action. Banister seems to be the only one with a little pep in him, but the inaction over the years is certainly visible.
Digitally Ravaged
The other thing I noticed about this movie is that it was made on the cheap, as such they had to rely on digital effects in a lot of places. I get that they didn't have a whole lot of money coming in for this project, but it seems so cheaply made. Unbefitting for the final installment in an epic of this scale. Unfortunately, all of the digital effects in this movie makes everything kind of flat. Sure, they were able to do more, but it just doesn't feel as real this way.
The problem with past movies was, apparently, the balls weren't big enough.
No Catharsis
I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I was hoping this movie would be a battle to the finish. A final confrontation between the Tall Man and his enemies. There should have been some kind of resolution, the fact that the movie ends with a speech about fighting harder and an apocalyptic future seems kind of unfulfilling.
Also, it would have been great if they explained what the Tall Man's deal was. They started revealing his origins in Phantasm: Oblivion , the Tall Man was an inventor who created the portal to another dimension and came back at the Tall Man. It would have been great if they explained how and why he turned into the Tall Man. Also, what is the point of turning the dead into his mindless slaves and decimating the entire world. I get that Phantasm is supposed to a huge unraveling mystery, but leaving it up to interpretation is just lazy. It's a horror franchise, not Citizen Kane. There is a way to explain some of the mysteries while maintaining the mystique of the series.
I've heard of a franchise being on life support, but this is ridiculous.
Where The Movie Went Wrong
I think their biggest mistake was making this movie in secret. In a day where filmmakers can start a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter page to raise money for their filmmaking, it seems incredibly asinine. Look at Mystery Science Theater 3000 which has just the same kind of cult following as Phantasm. It wasn't a very profitable series either yet, over a decade later, was able to revive itself through Kickstarter. It was the most successful Kickstarter campaign to date.
I think if Don Coscarelli went this route fans would have been a better source of funding than doing it in secret. I think that really hurt the production and the level of quality everyone was expecting.
Then there was the story, oh the story, was a cop out in more ways than one. Tossing in unnecessary characters, making Reggie question reality and something about parallel universes (sorta) just added further complications. Instead of tying up loose ends, solving the mystery of the Tall Man, they decided to go bigger than what was needed for this final film and no budget.
It also suffers from the same problem Stephen King's Dark Tower series suffered. All of a sudden there was a huge impetus to complete the series and it was a rush job. Just like King's heroic Gunslinger, the heroes of Phantasm are discharged into a nebulous ending with no finality. With the death of Angus Scrimm, the idea of making further Phantasm films is pointless, so getting some kind of resolution would be hollow anyway.
You know what is at the bottom of this pit? Any potential this movie had.
I can see this franchise taking the next course of its evolution: An uninspiring comic book series, something many horror franchises have done in the past.
So, was it worth the wait? I'd say no. I think Phantasm: Ravager is a strong case of doing too little too late.