Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) — Triskaidekafiles

PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION

WRITER: Don Coscarelli

DIRECTOR: Don Coscarelli

STARRING: A. Michael Baldwin as Mike
Reggie Bannister as Reggie
Bill Thornbury as Jody
Heidi Marnhout as Jennifer
Bob Ivy as Demon Trooper
Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man

QUICK CUT: Two men drive across the desert in search of themselves.

THE MORGUE

Mike - A determined young man, with a clock on his life, seeking answers.

Reggie - Mike’s best, only friend, and guardian. A warrior forged over years of combat, and ready to be done with the battle.

Jody - Mike’s brother, possibly dead, possibly a sphere.

The Tall Man - A mysterious figure seeking to end all life on Earth for his own, mysterious purposes.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We are back, and it is time to March onwards into the madness of Phantasm, and the continuing adventures of Reggie and Mike, and their pursuit of the Tall Man. So hop in the 'Cuda and let's hit the road.

The movie opens up with the Tall Man walking down the lengthy corridors of a mortuary, and about halfway down, he gets winded. Look, it's a REALLY LONG hallway, okay??

But no, seriously, he's heading towards Reggie, still hugging wall and staring at a whole fleet of drone balls since the last movie..

Meanwhile, Mike is driving around in the hearse, having flashbacks to all the previous movies, but mostly just flicker flashes to remind you of events. This won't really catch any newbie up, aside from showing them cool stuff they missed and...oooh there it is, their favourite shot of the house exploding. I don’t feel like it’s really a Phantasm movie until Reggie’s house explodes.

Fortunately Reggie gives some voiceover work about the Tall Man and his spread of evil, which is more helpful, saying that the Tall Man wants to transform Mike into a creature like himself. Okay, thanks for clearing THAT up, at least. Finally.

He also informs us that Mike went off to learn the Tall Man's secrets in hopes of stopping whatever is happening to him, and Reggie was left hanging.

The Tall Man arrives and lets Reggie down, then tells him his end is near (Why not just kill him now??) and that they're in the endgame now.

As Mike drives on and comments on how empty everything is, as the Tall Man wreaks his path of destruction across the countryside, he also reminisces on the good old days before it all went to hell.

I gotta say, they pull off a cool trick here I rather love, because those old days would have been so many years ago, and Mike has obviously grown, but they had some old filmed but unused scenes, so get the most out of them. That's pretty clever.

The deaging tech they have these days is amazing!

Mike has a couple weird visions of people riding with him, but then we cut over to Reggie trying to fix up the Hemicuda, and giving Jody the Exposition Ball a ride.

The Tall Man shows up in the back of Mike's hearse, and Mike loses control of the car. It's still driving safely though, he's just no longer the pilot. The Tall Man and Elon Musk must come from the same place.

With the Tall Man as his co pilot, Mike has no choice but to sit back and enjoy the ride as he is driven to wherever the Tall Man is taking him.

So far, there has not been a lot to this movie. A whole ton of sitting around in cars, and a bit of talking. But it does give this film a slow, dreamlike, haunted quality to it as it drifts along.

Reggie eventually gets pulled over, and it's not long before the cop reveals he is more than meets the eye, but also unlike anything we have seen before so...who knows?

They struggle for a bit, the cop is the usual flavour of seemingly unstoppable, until Reggie huffs a flare down into the gas tank of the cop car, and it blows up.

Have I mentioned this series sure does love its fire?

While Reggie makes things go boom, Mike finds his way to the Vasquez rocks, and wanders around the desolation until day turns into night.

Mike writes up in his journal that he doesn't really know why he's there, but it feels right, and he also has a suicidal plan to take himself off the game board.

Mike grabs a few zonks waiting for morning, and he has dreams or visions of the Civil War, and a man who looks a lot like the Tall Man experimenting on injured soldiers.

He awakens from those dreams, and finds ye olde pair of cosmic tuning fork in the desert nearby.

Meanwhile Reggie is at a rest stop, doing his business, and he sees an actual live human being trying to use the payphone.

Do I even need to point out what has happened to every single other person Reggie has met in this series that he could bang? It has yet to end well.

The pair drive off, and we go back to Mike trying to hang himself off a tree, which leads us to another flashback to unseen bits of the first movie, with Mike capturing the Tall Man and trying to hang him, paralleling the real world.

In the flashbacks, Mike is called back to the hanging man and he demands, "Cut me down, boy!" "No!" So he tries again, "CUT ME DOWN!" "NO!" "Oh, uh...cut me...down?"

But the Tall Man promises if he cuts him down, he'll let Mike live. He even conjures a knife so Mike can do it...but if he could do THAT, why not just cut himSELF down? I guess for corruption reasons.

However, in the really real world, Mike's rope snaps, and it is heavily implied the Tall Man cut him down with his brain powers, because there is A Plan. And that he has been waiting for Mike for a Very Long Time. Whatever that plan is, I hope it’s better than the Cylons…

The Tall Man offers him a hand up, but Mike summons a tuning fork, and runs through it, with the dire warning that he just might find what he's looking for.

Mike finds himself in a not trying hard enough to be steampunk lab, between less refined tuning fork prongs, now looking like Van De Graff generators.

This is all quickly revealed to be Morningside, but in the past. And he soon meets the Tall Man, who seems to have no recollection, seems rather nice and normal, and asks if Mike stepped through the portal.

Now, I know trying to logic out the Phantasm movies is a fools game, like looking at a Lovecraftian creature that will drive the best men mad, but I've always wondered if there's some sort of time loop going on here. With the old man in the past meeting a time traveling Mike from the fourth movie, and knowing that made him Special so when he saw him in the first movie, he recognised him, setting off a chain of events. And it ties in with that line of waiting for Mike for a long time

All of this is a bit too timey wimey mumbo jumbo for Mike, so he heads back to the present. Where Reggie is driving along, and comes across the lone other person left in the world, pulling alongside her

You're like, the only two survivors of the mortuary apocalypse, first people you've seen in days? Weeks? Months? Let's just drive along side her for a few miles, that won't be weird!

You see a turtle along the side of the road…

Well, the girl didn't see the turtle, swerves, and the car flips over. Reggie quickly rushes to her aid, frees her from the car, and the two walk away before it explodes.

Back in the middle of nowhere, Mike is trying to recover from his splitting goldball headache, and uses his growing brain powers to crush one of the Jawas with a boulder.

Jody shows up so they can chat, and it sheds no real light on just what he is or who's side he's on, which is pretty typical for this series.

Back with Reggie and Jennifer, he offers to give her a ride to the next town. Yeah that's the LEAST you could do, since you helped crash her car!

We get some more backstory, about how Jody didn't die, or abandon anyone, he was taken, so I guess that clears some stuff up? But he keeps disappearing like he's Schrodinger's Jody. Put a bell on that guy.

But we've got Reggie driving around, Mike sitting in one spot tinkering and chatting, and WOW I forgot how much of this movie is just spent sitting around and waiting for plot to happen.

I don’t think that comes standard with most cars…

Jennifer and Reggie find an old hotel to hole up in for the night, and he gives her the infodump on what's been going on in the world.

But..how...how do you not notice this happening? It's not like the mortuary apocalypse happened over night, it's been like ten years! She might not know about Tally *SPECIFICALLY* but she acts like she hasn't noticed the COMPLETE LACK OF EVERYBODY.

After Jennifer rejects Reggie's advances, he falls asleep, only to awaken in a graveyard. He wakes up quickly though, and discovers that once again, the girl he has fallen for is a minion of the Tall Man.

When will you learn, Reggie?

One of the boobspheres attacks Reggie, and it begins drilling through his hand. He uses that to his advantage, pinning it to the wall with the protruding bit on the other side of his hand. Once it's stuck for a moment, he gets out his handy tuning fork, and makes it explode.

Well, that’s a handy ability to have! We could’ve used that three movies ago!!

Anyways, he then finishes off his not girlfriend with a sledgehammer.

Mike sees a vision of a desolate, abandoned city, and told it's not a where, but a when, and that he needs to get out because there is a risk of infection. Oh, for any sort of explanation...

Reggie meanwhile is getting closer, and he gears up when he finds the hearse he's been chasing. He makes the final part of the journey on foot.

He investigates the seemingly abandoned hearse, finds Mike's little science project under the hood, and is soon hounded by the Jawas. Which he takes care of pretty handily.

Jody hears the commotion, and he and Mike return to the desert from wherever their tuning fork journey has taken them.

20 minutes left, and everyone finally shows up for the finale.

Mike is only there for a moment though, telling Reggie not to trust the deathball with the face of his brother. Reggie palms him the tuning fork, and Mike heads back to the beginning with Jody.

They watch as Jebediah works on his stuff, and some exposition on why this is all happening, something about wanting to conquer death, and he heads through the Van De Graffs into the void.

And shortly after, the Tall Man returns. Mike holds him off with the actual tuning fork, then steps back through to head home. Wasn't the whole point to come back and stop him before he started? Oh well.

Mike and Jody start to fight back in the present, and Mike slices his brother's hand open, making him bleed yellow tempera paint, saying he had to be sure, before he killed his brother.

Ah, you brought a ball to a knife fight!

That doesn't stop Jody though, and he takes Mike directly to the Tall Man, who is more than ready to harvest the Mikesphere he's becoming.

He gets held down by the Tall Man, and as he gouges out his brain with an orb, Mike digs out the tuning fork, uses it, and makes them both freeze, because reasons.

Mike uses the orb that was harvesting his brain, and kills Jody with it. Once he’s free, he runs off back to the waiting hearse in the desert.

Suddenly, Mike's little car project springs to life, and he SOMEHOW MADE HIS OWN SPHERE OUT OF SCRAPS IN A CAVE!!

Mike's eyes go chrome, the car starts humming, causing the Tall Man to investigate. Whatever mods Mike did then make the car go boom in Tallman’s face. Dude, do NOT have that guy as a mechanic.

With the Tall Man seemingly gone boom...another one steps out of the tuning fork, so that was all a waste. NOW what are you guys gonna do??

The new Tall Man stalks over, digs into Mike's skull, and rips the gold sphere from it. Man, with this headache, Mike should take some Advil

And with that, the Tall Man takes the Mikesphere and leaves, and as he convulses, Reggie heads off to through the tuning forks to end this and...

...I DIDN'T MEAN END THE MOVIE!! GET BACK HERE WITH THE REST OF THE PLOT!!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: This looks pretty decent, as I come to expect from major releases.

Audio: Some great use of the surround effects, especially with the echoy halls and whooshing spheres.

Body Count: Thankfully something more straightforward than the last movie.

1 - Not until 23 minutes in, and Reggie blasts Officer Freddy
2 - Crushed Jawa by rock.
2 - Jennifer takes a sledgehammer to the head
3 - Reggie blasts one of the critters.
4 - And another
5 - And a third if we want to guess the sounds.
6 - Shoots at a fourth in the car
7 - Reggie knifes another in the neck.
8 - Another graver gets a pistol to the face from Reggie.
9 - Mike uses a ball to kill Jody
10 - Tall Man gets blowed up

Best Corpse: Probably the most notable death is the cop, who gets shot up and exploded.

Blood Type - B: Not a LOT of blood, but still used well, and always amazing effects.

Sex Appeal: We get SO close, but are denied by sphereboobs.

Drink Up! Every time the Tall Man says BOYY. Hey, it’s a classic.

Movie Review: Hmm. This is tough. In all fairness, there isn’t a lot here. Like I pointed out a few times, there’s a lot of sitting and waiting and talking. But it’s done well, It delivers on some creative kills, although nowhere near the other movies. But the movie is designed to be dreamlike, strange, and contemplative. And it succeeds. I don’t like it quite as much as the other movies in the series for that, but I also am thoroughly sucked in. Three out of five makeshift spheres.

Entertainment Value: It also doesn’t quite land as hard as the others. Other movies have done this better in this franchise, and there feels like not a lot of progression. But it’s well made, and if you’ve seen the other movies, you’re invested in the characters, so it resonates more. Everything feels a little…less here. Perfectly fine, but again, done better in the franchise. I suspect budget issues, as we don’t see as much of the spheres, not a lot of deaths, but I can’t fault it for revisiting old friends, and telling another chapter in the story. Lesser, but still solid. Three out of five steampunk tuning forks.