Weekly schlock and "BOY!" part III

The passing of Angus Scrimm gas finally made me get motivated to see the remaining Phantasm movies. I had a real hard time getting through the first phantasm movie, but I love the sequel! Here is to hoping that the third part is not like the first movie?

As per usual the plot of these films is all over the place. The movie starts where part II ended with Reggie, Mike and Liz escaping in a hearse. This goes sideways quickly with a wreck, Liz dying, Mike in a coma and Reggie escaping the Tall Man.  After a silly hospital stay, Mike starts seeing his dead brother Jody. Jody is now  one of those fun flying silver orbs. The Tall Man continues his quest to grab Michael and saying “BOY!” all creepily. He does manage to eventually nab Mike and of course Reggie chases after him.

Then we are whisked away to a bit of this Home Alone gag with some kid. It is pretty bad especially when he kills a guy with a frisbee covered in razor blades. He teams up with Reggie to go after the Tall Man. This leads them to find Rocky and Tanesha (look quick because she is gone just as fast as introduced) who are in a mausoleum while on the trail of Mike and the Tall Man. Why are these ladies there? I don’t know. Now Reggie, Home Alone kid, and Rocky (who is an whiz-bang nunchuck artist) are avoiding the Tall Man and his little dwarves and trying to save Mike.

Mike is at the same time a captive of the Tall Man and is going through some elective surgery. Here there is some actual story being expounded upon, after three movies. It is finally shown that the Tall Man silver spheres contain a shrunken human brain. These brains are removed from the corpses the Tall Man collects from the cemeteries. He then takes the bodies to reanimate and shrink into his little dwarf minions. Why? Well see the Tall Man is from another dimension. He uses his army of silver brain spheres and robed dwarves to conquer other dimensions. Even better he has been after Mike all these years because  Mike already has a silver sphere in his head. I guess that makes Mike like the Tall Man? Maybe they are father and son, with a huge age difference?

Eventually this all boils down to a saving of Mike, a showdown with the Tall Man, a fight with the dead guys the Home Alone kid killed, Jody reappearing as morphing silver sphere, frozen heads in a vat, a look at what the Tall Man actually is, a ceiling covered in silver spheres, Mike with a silver sphere in his head, a familiar last scene grab through a broken
window and Reggie about to die.

Confused yet? Good. I was too.

The third movie in this installment and there is finally a glimmer of what the Hell has been going on in these films. It doesn’t make much sense as to the how and why of the Tall Man’s actions, but at least it was something. Hell, up until now there has been no rhyme or reason really to anything in these films.

Is Phantasm III any good?

Nope.

At least part was fun!

There was obviously a much lower and noticeable budget from the previous film. That doesn’t equate to a bad film, but it sure as heck didn’t help make it good. There was a definite slide from the polish of Phantasm II to a more direct to DVD feel in Phantasm III. That doesn’t make for a bad film, just a sort of bad looking film.

The story is still bonkers with a ton of unanswered questions and head scratching events. I expect this from the franchise but it is also getting to the point of annoyance. The little backstory that is given does help, but not enough. The goons that terrorize the Home Alone kid and Reggie are terrible. Plus they die and come back as talking zombies for some unknown reason. The addition of the Home Alone kid was terrible! I’m not sure why he was introduced to this universe, and hopefully he gets the same treatment as Liz at the being of the next movie.

Yup, Phantasm IV should be on the way as I type this. For some sick reason I can’t wait to see what happens next in this franchise.

While this is not as fun or has the production value of Phantasm II, it is marginally better than the original Phantasm. Here is hoping that the fourth movie will finally lead to an end to this story.