PHANTASM will always be a film that I hold in my heart as one of the underdog horror franchises with one of the baddest, meanest horror villains ever to grace the screen, or video store for that matter. PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION is the obvious forth installment of the ever going franchise that as of late seems to have ended with this film, that was originally released in 1998. Just think it’s been ten years since the last Phantasm film was made, and yet Jason went to space and so did the the Leprechaun a year before this film came out and he also visited the hood twice, and yet we can’t get the final Phantasm film made., which is rumored to be in production, or the production is on hold. Whatever the case may be this is a franchise that I really enjoy, and so do my co-workers as the films are a constant conversation at work. So here we ten years later with what is really the unofficial tenth anniversary DVD of PHANTASM IV.
PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION starts off right where PHANTASM 3 left off. The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) takes Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) into his world though the portal and you really don’t know what has become of him. He takes kind of a STAR WARS like journey where he realizes he has some kind of psychic powers like a Jedi and squashes evil jawas rocks. Ok, yeah I’m comparing the film to STAR WARS because I really does seem like that The Tall Man has Mike trapped on Tatooine. All jokes aside there is kind of a STAR WARS reference here I just needed to point out. Anyway, Like ends up finding out a lot of the origin of The Tall Man and how he became to be. Meanwhile, The Tall Man has let Reggie ( Reggie Bannister) go, Reggie tries to get as far away from The Tall Man as possible but the ghost of Michael bother Jodi ( Bill Thornbury) keeps trying to get him to go find Mike. Now Mike, Reggie and Jody must come together and go though all the different portals of time and space to stop The Tall Man from unleashing his army of undead little people and spheres upon the world.
OBLIVION has a script that is full of many surprises and is just as wild and crazy as all the other PHANTASM movies. Writer/Director Don Coscarelli really seems to like to take his characters and put them into a bizarre hellish world of confusion. The script really relies on the previous films for it’s back story, even though we do learn the true origin of The Tall Man. It’s a story that to truly capture it, you need to have seen the previous three films. The good thing is that the script is just as fun if not a hell of a lot more fun than the previous three films and it has not just the horror but the adventure element to it as well with some dark comedy thrown in for good measures.
The films acting is alright, just like the previous films you have your basic characters of Reggie ( Reggie Bannister) , Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), Jodi ( Bill Thornbury) and of course Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man. All of them of course are great again in their roles and their performances are really the only ones we get to know for most of the film, although there are a few other characters in this film but mainly a small role of Jen played by Heidi Marnhout to give Reggie that feeling of being a sexist. Other than that we’re pretty much stuck with the same characters that we have grown to live in the PHANTASM films, and the great actors who play them.
Overall, the film has better production value than the first three films and has a fantasy/adventure feel behind the horror. It’s photographed nicely and both the visual and special make-up effects look good, despite the green/yellow like blood of anyone who’s undead in the film. Overall, the film looks good, and Anchor Bay did a great job with the transfer to give the disc a good clean look.
The DVD has a fe bonus features which include Audio Commentary with Don Coscarelli, Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm, a behind the scenes featurette, English subtitles for the hearing impaired and plenty more…
While PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION is not the scariest film of the franchise is it the film that is the most adventurous and packs a lot of fun. I still have no clue how they did all the scenes with Mike as a young boy, and the film does end on a note that this is not the final chapter, but it does give us a lot of fun filled horror goodness to make fans of the PHANTASM series proud to see these characters back in action. As a fan myself, I really think it’s time for a fifth one to get made, and I hope in the near future we will get our wish.
– Horror Bob
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- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
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