[Live watch notes as I went through the first four movies on a lazy Sunday]
Embarking on watching the Phantasm movies for the first time. I only even know of them because comic book writer Evan Dorkin references them a lot.
Boy, they are really struggling to fill this 89 minute running time. I'm only 20 minutes in and they've already replayed one scene then had two characters just jam out on their guitars for a while for no reason.
Yeeesh, that was terrible. It was actually more like 85 minutes without credits and it was still incredibly slow and full of padding. It was like Rocky Horror Picture Show but played completely straight and made with no talent. I wonder if this is one of those horror franchises that starts so poorly it actually gets better as it goes...
Well, the second one has a much higher budget, that's for sure. From $300K to $3m, and Universal as distributor.
Okay, this one basically skips straight to the Dream Warriors stage and is a lot more fun and pacey. They've already doubled down on the 'ah it was a dream, no it wasn't, well some of it was maybe!' silliness from the end of the first one, blown up the same house twice, and put the survivors from the first movie on the road, tracking the Tall Man across America armed with a flame-thrower and a quadruple-barrelled shotgun.
Bah, it slowed down almost immediately after I wrote that, about half an hour in. It's trying to build up tension, or a dreamlike atmosphere, but it's really just long stretches of not much happening punctuated by supposedly 'scary' moments that are directed so flatly and languidly that they feel more Wes Anderson than Dario Argento. At least the acting is a little better this time round and it all looks a bit nicer.
lol they just showed a bag of remains with the name Sam Raimi on the label.
Wow, Phantasm II is heavily inspired by Evil Dead II (and possibly Bad Taste). This means it's more fun to watch than the first one, and the extra budget and Kurtzman/Nicotero effects don't hurt, but it's just not up to the standards of those movies, or Elm Street at its best or even Child's Play. You could probably get a reasonable 60 minutes cut out of each of these, but they still wouldn't be good movies.
I think I'll have a quick skim through the next two, but they're apparently DTV and I'm guessing they get worse again. My time is probably better spent on a hundredth watch of Rocky Horror or Braindead.
Ha, well Coscarelli has definitely seen Bad Taste by this point because Phantasm III just ripped off the same 'goons fall out of trees' gag as one of the original Worms cutscenes did.
Anyway, this one's a total mess. He brings back the previously re-cast child actor from the first one, but clearly it's out of principle rather than any kind of faith in his acting ability as he gets rid of him after about ten minutes in favour of having his friend Reggie (playing the character "Reggie" for the third time) wander through R-rated riffs on Home Alone and blaxploitation movies, and once again a gratuitous sex scene.
Oh boy, this is shameless, they just did a disembodied demonic hand slapstick fight.
Onto IV, and it's promising some deep lore revelations.
A handy way to tell how much care has gone into each one of these is just how easy it is to see the camera crew reflected in close-ups of the silver orbs. For a while they at least put sheets over them and stuff, at this point they're practically waving at the audience.
Agggh, the digital title card is so tacky, it's straight out of a Wing Commander game.
Good grief, they do so many recaps and flashbacks and what have you in these, I feel like I've watched the first movie twice at this point along with all its deleted scenes.
Finished Phantasm IV and that movie is also a mess. Ends up feeling like an episode of of Stargate SG-1 or something, just three old guys in the California desert talking about how they're going to erase each other from time or something and then not really doing very much after all.
Thankfully I do not have access to the fifth movie!
Rating: goes from a sincere yet crappy attempt at an Argento to a rip-off of Raimi to finally just eating its own tail and becoming a big pile of nothing.
