It Got Bad Again: Phantasm III (1994)

Phantasm (reviewed here) was awful. Phantasm II (reviewed here) was dumb but entertaining. Now, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead throws away everything the sequel got right and delivers a convoluted shitty mess. Warning: SPOILERS.

The Tall Man kidnaps Mike and Reggie tries to find them with the help of Jody's spirit, who is now stuck in one of the spheres of death, Tim, a Kevin McCallister that actually kills people, and Rocky, who's a woman and therefore must deal with Reggie's horniness.

Phantasm III starts with a recap of the other two movies and shows us the Tall Man sitting on an elaborate chair, surrounded by candles, holding a sphere of death. Inside the sphere there's a brain and the Tall Man pokes it. Turns out the spheres have dead people's brains inside because the Tall Man has an interdimensional portal and can create zombies but can't make a normal drone. The movie also rewrites the previous ending to explain how everyone (well, almost everyone) is still alive. Turns out Reggie's wounds were a lot less bad, and the Tall Man crashed the hearse, killing Liz and leaving Mike (who's back to being played by A. Michael Baldwin) unconscious. Given the shittiness that will follow, Liz was clearly the lucky one. Reggie gets the Tall Man and his vertically challenged minions to leave by threatening to blow himself and Mike up with a grenade. Instead of using his telekinetic powers to neutralize the measly man-made weapon, the Tall Man just goes away after making it clear that he has plans for Mike and he needs him in one piece.

Later, one of his non pygmy zombie minions shows up at the hospital where he's staying. It's a nurse who encourages comatose Mike to go into the light and die. So, I guess the Tall Man doesn't need him alive? Luckily for Mike, his brother's spirit shows up and tells him to not go into the light. So, he wakes up and fights zombie nurse, who bleeds yellow soup and turns out to be powered by a sphere of death. So, the fluids we saw in Phantasm II reanimate the body and the sphere of death allows it to pass for a normal person? (Do keep this in mind when the Tall Man temporarily reanimates Tim's father without doing any of this) Is this what Chemy was? Why wasn't that shown in the recap? Anyway, Reggie shows up just in time to get Mike out of there. On the way home, Mike sees Jody and he's not hallucinating!

Jody's mind/brain is in one of the spheres of death and he can project a holographic image of himself around it. Yes, really, and this will only get dumber. Other things the spheres of death can do apart from stabbing people, include teleporting and shoot lasers powerful enough to blast a wall. They're all controlled by the Tall Man, though Jody managed to break free. Again, wouldn't it be much easier to make a regular drone? (I could mention the sphere of death that was used to stab the Tall Man in Phantasm II, but I'm guessing the movie would rather the audience forgot that) Jody's holographic powers don't last long, though, and when they run out, Mike shakes him like a Magic 8 Ball. The Tall Man finds the trio, neutralizes Jody, and takes Mike. Yes, it was that easy. I guess he got tired of teasing. After they're gone, Magic 8 Ball Jody manages to whisper "Holtsville" to Reggie. What follows is an annoying, lame AF road trip where supposedly funny horndog Reggie picks up a couple of sidekicks and tries to get laid. Because I guess hunting down the corpse-stealing, zombie-making, seemingly unkillable being who murdered your family, put your best friend's brain in a metal ball, and kidnapped your other friend is a real turn on.

First stop, the deserted small town of Holtsville. Three scavengers, Edna, Rufus, and Henry, lock Reggie in the boot of his own car and get murdered by young Tim's deadly booby traps. His father was the town's sheriff, who died after a meeting with the new owners of the local funeral home. The Tall Man then reanimated his corpse and had it kill Tim's mother. We get the required Bloodless Jump Through Glass moment after Tim hides in the hearse to see where he's going and then changes his mind. Reggie tries to ditch Tim in the next town, but he refuses to leave.

They get Sidekick Number 2, Rocky, in the next deserted small town. She and a friend are investigating the local mausoleum and restrain Reggie. Right after that, Rocky's friend sees one of the spheres of death and just stands there until it stabs her on the forehead and her blood pours out. Rocky later joins the team and as soon as they reach a motel, Reggie immediately tricks her into sharing a bed with him. Rocky handcuffs him and... leaves him handcuffed all night. Good for her. Rest assured, dear reader, that she won't give in. Except in a dream sequence that's meant to make fun of Reggie's horny ways but also allows the movie to show the actress's boobs. Thankfully, Jody interrupts Reggie's fantasy before everyone dies of secondhand embarrassment.

Remember how Mike got kidnapped in the beginning and this whole road trip was to look for him? Well, what if instead of an exciting rescue mission Jody just teleported Reggie to where the Tall Man has Mike, blasted the wall where he's being kept, and teleported them back? Too easy? Well, that's all you're getting. But wait, the Tall Man can't cut Jody off the spheres of death network?! Seriously?! Anyway, he tries to follow them, but Reggie switches off the pillars like he did in the first movie. However, the Tall Man's hands stay behind and one of them turns into a creepy alien bug that promptly tries to hump Reggie's head. Back in his evil lair, we see a new Tall Man come through the interdimensional pillars and throw away his dead handless predecessor. After Rocky stabs the creepy alien bug, they leave... only to be intercepted by the zombiefied scavenger trio. The fight (which forgets about Rocky) ends with the road blocked by the wrecked and burning zombies' car. Since they're now on foot, Mike, Reggie, and the others decide to hide in the largest Gothic mausoleum in the country because that's the last place the zombies and their corpse-hoarding master would look. Naturally, they're wrong. Which is something they would've predicted, if they weren't idiots.

Jody shows Mike stuff about the Tall Man without really revealing much. You know, I'm starting to suspect the movie has no idea of WTF is going on. The Tall Man detects them and shows up at the mausoleum. The only shocking thing about this is the fact that it took him so long to do it. How is reanimated brain in a drone Jody able to block his maker (apart from it being convenient for the plot)? Oh, and guess who else shows up: the miraculously intact and unburnt zombie scavengers. How is that even possible? We've already seen that zombies aren't invulnerable. You know what? I don't care. This is the final fight and that means this shitty movie is almost over.

While the Tall Man is teasing Mike about opening his skull with this metal thingy (really, there's no way he would've taken that long if he just did it) and asking him to remember stuff (oh, crap, Mike is going to be retconned into an alien/demon/whatever the hell the Tall Man is, isn't he?), the others fight the zombiefied trio. This fight includes: Reggie being sexually assaulted by zombie Edna, Rocky and Edna fighting over Reggie, Jody pulling Rufus's head off and flying through Edna's head, leaving a perfect hole. Only these last two are remotely entertaining, and only barely. They release Mike and freeze the Tall Man, who once more conveniently forgets to use his powers. He also turns out to have a sphere of death inside him because this just keeps getting stupider. Afterwards, Rocky drives away because she's the smartest person in the whole movie. Everything seems fine - the Tall Man is finally vanquished, Jody is back, and Mike is free - but of course it's not over yet.

Mike realizes he's bleeding yellow soup and his skin is peeling! This would be a shockingly awesome reveal except it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for Mike not to be human. Really, it doesn't. He aged from a thirteen-year-old to a twentysomething and regular human Reggie has known him for all that time, FFS. Jody tells Reggie that seeing isn't understanding and the brothers walk away. You know what I'm understanding? That the people behind this thought they were making a TV series and not individual movies released several years apart. Reggie and Tim stay in the mausoleum. Reggie gets immediately pinned to a wall by a bunch of spheres of death, and Tim gets pulled through a window after the Tall Man predictably shows up again.

Phantasm III doesn't live up to its promising moniker, Lord of the Dead. The attempts at humour didn’t work - the Phantasm movies are funnier when they're genuinely trying to be scary. Wasting most of the running time on Reggie's road trip was a huge mistake. It made no sense to keep Mike off screen for so long, especially if the movie was building up for that final reveal, which, again, made no sense. I didn't care about Jody's return. Worse, his presence messed with the Tall Man's efficiency as a villain. It's bad enough that the more he talks, the less scary he is, but now he can't even control his own devices? Him not destroying Jody was ridiculous. What was the point of making Liz so important to just kill her? If she was like Mike, why didn't she bleed yellow soup? After everything he's been through, Reggie shouldn't act like such a clown. Tim was annoying and it's impossible to accept him as some Hit Girl wannabe when he needs the older characters to stand still or act like idiots so he can be a little badass. Rocky was okay and didn't deserve to be stuck with Reggie and his horny delusions. Of course, the most baffling decision of the entire movie was what was done to the spheres of death. They were the only good thing about this. Deadly, stabby metal balls whose only goal is to kill and maim. And Phantasm III stuck them with Jody's spirit guide bullshit.

Phantasm III abandons everything the previous movie set up, and drags the story into a more ridiculous, shittier direction that's not even entertaining. Verdict: unless you're a Reggie fan, don't bother.

By Danforth