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Phantasm II
Review
Director Don Coscarelli waited ten years before making this follow-up to his weirdly different cult classic because he didn't want to be pigeonholed as a horror director. But he ended up merely rehashing the original with an equally gory but far less effective entry that barely carries the story forward. All the same ingredients are intact: the justly celebrated flying ball, this time a souped-up version with lasers and a drill device; and the return of Angus Scrimm's mysterious "Tall Man", now moving from town to town, raiding morgues for fresh corpses to compress into midget zombies to act as slave labour in another dimension. It's slickly made, but with all the attention-grabbing appeal of an empty crisp packet.
Directed by: Don Coscarelli
Filmed in: 1988
Phantasm III ? Lord of the Dead
Review
Starting just after where the last entry ended, this third instalment in the series continues the adventures of Reggie (Reggie Bannister) and Mike (A Michael Baldwin) as they battle the "Tall Man" (Angus Scrimm) and his flying silver balls. Director Don Coscarelli tries to make things a little different with the addition of more humour and Gloria Lynne Henry as sexy female fighter Rocky. However, the jokes are more strange than funny, while the greatly promising Henry isn't used as much as we'd like. This is pretty much the same as the previous entry, though cheaper and slower than Coscarelli's other efforts. Yet another sequel, Phantasm IV: Oblivion, followed in 1998.
Directed by: Don Coscarelli
Filmed in: 1994
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