Well...huh. New director, new direction. Same characters. Same motivations. Just older. And seemingly none the wiser, if the ending is any indication. And maybe a bit confused. At least for Reggie, he don’t exactly see things quite right these days.
The story? Uh. Things get weird. Er. Weirder. Opening with Reggie staggering out of the desert with his 4-shootin boomstick, he’s pretty beat up. He gets his car back. Then things go a bit sideways. We know from the previous chapters that reality can be altered and dreams can be influenced, so when Reggie starts experiencing a wholly different reality, he is as confused as the audience.
Interesting take here on the progression of the overall Phantasm storyline. It’s spanned almost 40 years at that point so things have changed. While Coscarelli didn’t direct this one, he does have partial writing credit here. The scope broadens pretty significantly, taking it into a more, shall we say, sci-fi kinda realm. The question of reality and getting old plays a pretty big part with the Reggie character. Pretty well done in that regard too actually, because reality does tend to melt, what are dreams can seem real, and dimensions bend. Needless to say, the ice cream truck guy is a bit out of his depth as he is dumped into a Full-On Fucktocalypse*.
This one doesn’t totally suck. It has a good tie to the first where the initial concept of Reggie’s new situation is grounded in a believable reality that just goes skwerpy. Nice to see he still likes the ladies, though. And his dark sense of humor is appreciated in the few lighter moments of dialogue. Some things just can’t be changed. The Tall Man Domination thing is still left kinda open, really. It touches on it, but no stupid exposition to the “why” and I’m actually fine with that. Angus Scrimm here is ooold, and passed away a little before the film was eventually released. It is the Inevitable conclusion of this particular dimensional timeline, the point where dementia, insanity, and reality all meet.
* Fucktitall + Apocalypse = Fucktocalypse
