Phantasm:OblIVion Review

As a big 'phan' of the Phantasm franchise, I eagerly awaited this, the fourth entry in the series. It's about five years between each film in the series, so these movies aren't just churned out like some film franchises. Now, about this one...

For starters, this film is not for casual fans unfamiliar with the previous films. For the uninitiated this one will be incomprehensible. Even longtime phans are likely to be confused by a lot of it. The story takes place right after part three. Mike is on the run from the Tall Man and Reggie is trying to find him. Some new plot revelations surface about Mike and his brother as well. There is a great deal of unused footage from the original Phantasm that can be seen for the first time in this film. The footage has an eerie quality to it, seeing that all the actors are twenty years older now. And for the first time in the series some revelations are made concerning the Tall Man's origin. The film stays in the same thematic and visual style as its predecessors, though the trademark mausoleum setting is largely replaced by less-effective desert scenery. OblIVion features some of the scariest moments in all of the films.

So far so good, except for one major flaw - the ending. I won't spoil it here, but I will say this: all the phantasm films have open endings and leave questions unanswered. The difference with OblIVion is that the ending here is completely unfulfilling. When the end credits began rolling I thought it was a joke at first, because there was a complete lack of resolution of the story. It felt like there was another fifteen minutes of movie that was somehow missing from the tape. It's a "that's it?" feeling I haven't had since the ending of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Yes, that is bad.

The question is, does a poor ending completely sour an otherwise entertaining film? It's easy to see now why this film never got a real theatrical release. Its too complicated and 'inside' for mainstream audiences to understand. For people unfamiliar with Phantasm, I'd recommend avoiding this film until you've seen the first three films and enjoyed them. This film is for die-hard phans only. That being said, I give this film a B.