Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're continuing the "Phantasm" series by taking a look at the third entry that came out in 1994. That movie is "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead".
Now, unlike the previous entries in this series, this one, along with the other two films that I'll be covering later on, have surnames added to them. I'm guessing, maybe, since there at least 5 movies in this series, it would probably make sense to make the titles sound more appealing, especially if you're gonna be doing sequels.
Now, beyond that small tidbit of information, I don't really know much else about this movie. I haven't really bothered to look up any kind of plot details. But then again, I didn't really do that for the first two movies, either. The only thing I do know is that this one is written and directed by Don Coscarelli again. So, if anything else, at least this one will probably live up to the same quality as the first two movies have had.
At least, that's what I'm hoping for. I have heard somewhat mixed things about this movie. Some people say it's really good, others say that it kinda sucks. I don't know where it's gonna lean for me, personally speaking, but it does make my job easier, since I don't know what to expect from this movie at all. The only way I'm gonna know as to whether or not this movie will be any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead".
11 minutes later
OK, guys, well, I learned something new about these metal spheres. Not only can they kill you in spectacular fashion, but they apparently can also have an eye attached inside them that let's them spy on you, and also are able to control other people by being placed inside their head. I'm gonna say, that was actually sorta cool. Not totally sure how long it was controlling that nurse, but regardless, it was really rather interesting.
13 minutes later
So not only did this kid axe this guy's nuts off, but he also used it as a tomahawk and threw it at the bitch's head, shortly after they broke into his house. So essentially, this entire scene was basically just "Home Alone", if "Home Alone" turned into a horror comedy. Shit, I actually kinda want to see that now after seeing that! I'm sure it would probably be more interesting than what Disney has done with the franchise, or lack thereof.
14 minutes later
Well, guys, if there's one thing that hasn't changed about these metal spheres is that their method of killing people is still really awesome to see. It honestly never gets old.
19 minutes later
So apparently, Jody's metal ball can not only let Reggie inside it, but is able to create a laser that is able to cut and blast through walls. All of a sudden, I now have to question how much power these metal spheres actually have if they're able to do all this kind of stuff. Now it's possible that this scene, in particular, is all in Reggie's mind, but it is something that I'm still curious about.
12 minutes later
So, let me if I understand this. The Tall Man takes the brains out of these...creature's heads, is able to amputate their brains and inject them into the metal spheres so that they can become the killing machines that they're known for. All right...well, I guess that explains their origin. I would've never known that personally, but at least it explains how they're made, I guess.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead", and it ends on another sequel hook. Interesting. I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, um...what to say about this one? I'm gonna be honest, guys, this one's gonna be a bit of a tough one for me to review, because there are things here to definitely like. But it also leaves a lot to be desired, which ultimately stops this thing from being great.
Let's go ahead and start with the writing here. I am going to give this movie praise on one thing. And that is that they are actually able to continue the story of where the previous movie picked off from. I say this as a positive, because when I think about other movie series, specifically horror movie franchises, that have numbered sequels, some of those have a habit of doing prequels or in-between films rather than continuing off from where the previous movie ended. The "Puppet Master" series is probably one of the worst offenders of this, since those movies have a timeline that is more convoluted than the "Legend of Zelda" timeline, where it spawns itself off with prequel films and in-between films that tries to fill in the gaps of something that may or not be necessary to the overall series. Or in the worst case scenario, they try to reboot it for "modern audiences" to try and either reinvigorate nostalgia or just milk a franchise to death until there's nothing left to mooch off of. But with the "Phantasm" movies, so far, they have been continuing off from where they left off from, rather than leave it as an ambiguous ending. Granted, this one kinda ends the same way the other two movies did, but at least they have been able to go somewhere, rather than trap themselves in the prequel/reboot shit that a lot of other franchises seem to have a habit of doing sometimes.
So with that said, where does the story go from here? Well, this movie actually does recap the events of what happened in the previous two films, just in case anyone is either a newcomer or somebody that has stuck with the franchise up till this point. And in this one, Mike actually ends up getting taken by The Tall Man, and Reggie is on a mission to go find and rescue Mike. And along the way, he ends up meeting two other characters. One of them is a young boy named Tim, whose Dad died and his mother ended up getting killed by his reanimated corpse. And the other character he meets up with is a black lady named Rocky, who ends joining them along the way. I'll get more into her later when I talk about the characters, but essentially, they all join together to hunt down the Tall Man, while also dealing with the reanimated corpses of all his victims that he, or specifically his dwarf-Jawas, has been digging up.
So, on the surface, it's sounds like a really easy plot to follow. Which it is, however, there are problems here in the writing that just feels incredibly vague. One example I wanted to bring up was Jody. And for those who don't know, he was Mike's brother from the first movie. He's in this one, and his appearance here leaves me wondering whether or not he's truly dead. See, he was actually reanimated into a metal sphere, and I'm going to assume that it was done in the same way that the Tall Man has done it with his other victims too, by essentially just putting his brain inside as a sphere. Which, OK, that part I don't really have an issue with. But, like I said, it makes me wonder if he's actually even dead at all. Because, there's a line in this movie where he tells Reggie that he shouldn't believe everything that he sees. Reggie wonders what the hell that even means, and Jody says that you'll know eventually, and that I'll be in touch. And as I thought about what he said, a horrible theory came into my mind. Now I'm not going to say what this is theory is just yet, at least until I've finished the other two movies in this series. But as it is, you really have no idea as to what he means by that, and it never gets answered in this movie. Now it might it get answered in the 4th installment, but I have no idea if it will or not.
Speaking of which, let's talk about the characters next. Specifically, I mainly want to focus on Reggie. Now, as I stated earlier, Mike is out of commission for most of this movie after he gets taken away by the Tall Man, thus is the reason why Reggie gets more of a focus in this movie. And I have no problem with that, because Reggie is a character that I really do like and have grown to appreciate. But for some reason, his character in this movie seems to have slightly been regressed. Because, at first, when he takes Tim along on his journey, he actually attempts to leave him behind at an orphanage after paying the owner there to take care of him, to which Tim hides in the trunk of the car after Reggie leaves. Now in Reggie's defense, he eventually does let Tim come along after he saved Reggie from an attack by a metal sphere that almost killed him. But it leaves me a little baffled as to why Reggie would leave him behind like that, considering the kid was able to defend himself and his home all by himself. I mean, he's good with a handgun and was able to self-teach himself on how to drive. Granted, that one is a little bit questionable, but still, why you would leave a capable kid like him behind makes very little sense to me.
Now let's talk about the other companion on this journey; Rocky. See, Rocky in this movie kinda just appears in this movie with another chick at a mausoleum, whose name I don't fucking remember, and once that other chick dies, Rocky shortly joins Reggie and Tim. She really doesn't have much of a character other than that she's a former member of the U.S. Army who was trained in self-defense. Reggie actually tries to hit her on a couple of times in this movie, but nothing really comes from it because, one, it comes right out of nowhere. And two, there's almost no chemistry between the two characters that warrants them being in a relationship with each other. And the biggest kicker out of all this is that, a little bit of a spoiler here, Rocky ends up leaving right towards the very end of the movie saying that she doesn't want to get more involved in kicking zombie ass and just heads off on her own Mary way. Why the fuck you would try to build this kind of relationship off between two characters that had almost no chemistry with each other, followed by her leaving near the very end of the movie, just makes me wonder why you would even have here at all to begin with?
Now let me make something clear here. I am not trying to dump on this movie entirely. The movie, on it's own standards, is pretty solid. So I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that it's all bad. It's just that there are some things here and there in the writing that could've been easily improved on. Everything else though, guys, I'm gonna tell you, is mostly just positives I'm gonna give this movie. For starters, the acting here is really solid. I'm actually kinda happy that they were able to get back the recurring cast members to reprise their roles. I'm mostly talking about the actors playing Mike, Reggie, and the Tall Man. They were really good with the scripts that they were given. And the new actors mostly do a really good job, too. I'm even gonna include the child actor that they got to play Tim. He actually was able to turn in a rather decent performance here, given the material and all. The only actor who I thought sounded rather one-noted was the guy they got to play Jody. Like I said, his voice comes off as being really flat and one-noted. And because of which, the actor for Jody sorta phoned it in here. But otherwise, guys, the acting here is mostly really good amongst the entire cast. So I gotta give them props here.
Same goes for special effects. The special effects in this movie are really good. Mind you, this movie was still working with a rather low budget. And in this case, it was about 2.5 million dollars. But they were still able to work with that budget rather well, and it shows. The make-up effects here on our reanimated corpses look great, the blood effects here are really solid, and the costuming and sets all look really good too. So yeah, I can definitely say the special effects are really good, and they are also up to par with how they looked in the previous movie. Camerawork here is also really good. The lighting here is lit rather well. The sound-mix here is mixed very well. And the score here is just about as good as it was in the previous two movies. So if anything else, this movie has all of this nailed down in spades.
And on that note, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead"? If you enjoyed the previous two films, you'll mostly likely enjoy the same thing here. And as someone who is rather lukewarm to this franchise, I'm still invested to see where exactly these movies are going to go from here. Mind you, this entry isn't as strong like it was in the previous two movies, but it's still solid enough to where I could still recommend it to any followers of the franchise who haven't seen all the movies yet. I really won't know if it's gonna get any better or worse from here on out, but that's what this series is here for. And until then, I'm gonna go and watch more of the "Puppet Master" movies. And right now, I'm on the 4th movie, so I'm gonna go and watch that next once I get done writing this review up.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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