14th April 2016, 08:34 PM
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| Cultist on the Rampage | | Join Date: May 2011 Location: Leeds, UK | |
PHANTASM 4 – I'm a big fan of Don Cosarelli's original, that bizarre coming of age yarn about ice cream men and mutant dwarfs. Can't remember much about parts two and three, but 'Phantasm 4' is surely a sequel worthy of the first film. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, for a start. The kid Mike from part one has grown up, and he's driving around a desert when he's not fending off apparitions in his car. He goes back in time, too, where he meets a kindly Angus Schrimm who used to be a civil war medic way back before he became the embodiment of evil or whatever. Mike's brother is back from the dead, and crops up as either a flying silver ball, or occasionally in human guise when he needs to have a heart to heart with Mike. Meanwhile, Reggie the ice cream man is off fighting zombie cops and being menaced by silver globes in hotel rooms. He's still got his pony tail, and by the end of the film he'll tape two shotguns together in the form of a climax weapon which doesn't do much to rival Ash's chainsaw-arm, but which looks hilarious when wielded by a guy who seems like he should be in a Status Quo tribute band. I can't really recall what happens in the end, it's all ungraspable anyway. 'Phantasm 4', in case you haven't guessed, is all over the place. Geographically, historically, phenomenologically (there are long passages of dreamy recollections, for which read: bits of the previous movies stitched in by way of padding). It's a formidable brew, one which actually benefits from its slightly anodyne stylistic quality. It feels like late night TV surrealism, as if Bunuel had hijacked a ninety minute graveyard slot and decided to broadcast bits of direct to video horror he found lying around in bargain bins. Needless to say, I liked it.
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