OctoBOOOOOOY: Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

Like its antagonist, Phantasm has proven itself a franchise that just doesn't want to stay dead. Despite still being popular with fans, Phantasm II was not the box office smash Universal had hoped for. Though they still provided funding – albeit less than before – they also refused to give the next movie theatrical distribution. So, the series began the next leg of its journey in the wild wasteland of straight to video.

For the record - this is it: this is the best any of the sequel subtitles will get.

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead is probably the entry on which my opinion has changed the most from when I first saw it. Though I was pleased to see A. Michael Baldwin back in the role of Mike, I found parts of this entry off-putting at the time, particularly some of the new characters and harder push for humor. It's still a flawed entry, but overall, I feel like I'm more open to what it's trying to do now than I was then.

Picking up in the aftermath of part II, this is where the overall balance of the franchise comes together. After the first movie's more free-form dream narrative and the second's supernatural action, III lands in the middle of the two poles. There's still a good amount of Reggie, Mike, and new cast members blasting their way through the Tall Man's various creatures, as will remain a series norm. There are also parts that play to the first movie's weirder side as this one sends Reggie through other dimensions to try and rescue Mike from the Tall Man.

"Okay...it's just another cross-dimension space portal.
It can't be any worse than the other ones you've been through, right?"

One example comes thanks to another old cast member's return – despite being killed at the end of the first movie, Bill Thornbury comes back as Jody, now trapped in one of the Tall Man's spheres. It's not a bad idea, once you get past questions of why and how he continued aging after death. Given his role in guiding Reggie through the Tall Man's world. His presence is also one of the ways the movie gets to justify returning to the dimension-hopping story.

Regarding that, this movie marks one other sad note in the series overall – this entry would be the last to predominantly feature practical effects work over CGI. It's not as impressive as the previous entry thanks to its lowered budget, but there's still good to be found in of this, including a scene that redeems the first movie's low budget insect monster and some great work in this movie's finale.

What caused the biggest issue with fans, arguably, was the new characters and the tone that they bring with them. Gloria Lynne Henry was generally considered the best of the new additions as Rocky – a survivor turned fighter who joins Reggie's group following an encounter with one of the Tall Man's spheres. Besides being a good character to have in the front lines, the movie also tried to use her (more successfully than last time) as a tweak on the idea of Reggie's less than successful luck with the ladies. Going the opposite direction here, with Rocky not interested despite Reggie testing, could have gone wrong on a few levels. Thankfully the movie had a good sense of where to pump the brakes on Reggie’s end. Combined with the fact Henry and Bannister manage to play the dynamic with a level of good humor, it made Rocky one of the better parts of this movie's legacy.

and I'm still digging around to verify whether they were actively trying
for a Grace Jones feel here or if that just came by coincidence.

The subject of more debate is the third member of Reggie's new team, Kevin Conners as young survivor Tim. Tim is one of the areas where this movie gets shaky, as he gives the series a case of a combat wunderkind. His first sequence in particular was one of the stranger moments of the movie – and for this series that's saying something – where he dispatched three adult bandits with various improvised weapons of his own design. To his credit, Conners isn't bad in the part, and like Henry, he has some good interplay with Bannister that makes the character likable. The big hangup is the overall idea – adding a kid to a horror series is always a risky prospect; trying to compensate for their age by making them unusually capable, doubly so in fighting, is even riskier. His backstory, at least, is a good addition as a way of showcasing the growing menace of the Tall Man.

The bandits are even more of a mixed bag – where Tim was a bit strange for being the fairly serious 'not a kid anymore' survivor, these three (played by Cindy Ambuehl, Brooks Gardner, and John Davis Chandler) bank hard in the other direction as goofy villain characters. This is an odd shift for a series where, despite some humor, its villains have all been played straight before this. The three are trying with their roles, but at times it feels like something slipped in from another movie. Overall, that push for more humor is the most striking departure for this entry. Given how often the heroes in this seem to be on the losing end of things, I can see why you’d lighten the tone, and sometimes it's a nice release valve. However, it doesn’t work overall and I'm glad it didn't become a norm.

Back in high school, I found the razor blade frisbee kind of stretching
Having since seen it used in the earlier, and far cheesier, Hard Ticket
to Hawaii has not helped its case any.

Lastly, with Baldwin's return, this movie also marked big changes in how Mike's character developed, and the Tall Man’s interest in him.

Depending how invested you get in his story, this movie is equal parts interesting and frustrating – the ideas it introduces are followed up on, but one major revelation is set up and left hanging at the end of the movie, with Reggie literally joining the audience in wondering 'What the Hell just happened here?'

Of course, to help segue between Le Gros and Baldwin, some
rather drastic procedures were called for.

It's a different take, and not everything in it lands, but enough does to make this a worthwhile addition as well as a good follow-up to the second movie. As before, the new cast don't stick around at the end, which is somewhat of a shame, as the next movie is one that could have benefited from their return.

Of course, there's a lot to be said for OblIVion, but we'll get there next time.

...sometimes, there's just no caption that will do what's being seen justice.