Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) Review

"Death is no escape from me."
-The Tall Man



Phantasm IV: Oblivion picks up right where the third film left off, with Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) facing a strange revelation that he has a golden sphere inside of his head, and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) trapped by a group of silver spheres.  The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) decides to let Reggie live to play one last game.  The Tall Man proceeds to capture Mike and takes him to Death Valley.  Mike begins to discover that he has strange powers of his own, while learning more about his own history, his brother Jody's (Bill Thornbury), and the Tall Man's.  Meanwhile, Reggie hits the road to rescue Mike, but he runs into a lot of strange obstacles on his journey.


What Works:

Oblivion takes the Phantasm series back to its roots, with this film being extremely strange and surreal just like the first one.  This weirdness is hit-and-miss, bit it is kinda fun being left in the dark about what is happening.  It's not a very common trait in movies, and I find it fun once in a while.

To really take us back to the original, a lot of outtakes from the original movie are used to give us more backstory on what really happened to Mike, Jody, and Reggie in the first film.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what actually happened, but it was really cool to see the unused footage used in this one.

The budget for this movie was very low, so the filmmakers didn't get to have elaborate sets or action pieces like the second and third films had, but that's ok.  The action we do get is smaller scale (basically just Reggie fighting monsters), but it's still solid and the practical effects continue to astound.  Plus, we get one of the coolest person-on-fire stunts I have ever seen in a film.  Really impressive work.

I was hesitant about getting a backstory on the Tall Man, but the filmmakers didn't overdo it, and gave us just enough to fill in the rest on our own.


What Sucks:

My biggest complaint is a character from the 3rd film, Tim, the baddass kid, apparently gets killed off-screen, but no one ever mentions it in the film.  I had to go online to find out that in the script, they mention that he got eaten by the dwarves, but for a character who was so close to Reggie, you'd think they would have mentioned it.  It's Alien 3 all over again.  I get that it's been a few years, and they would have had to recast the actor, but something would have been better than nothing.

Reggie is still a bit too creepy for my taste in this film.  He's not as bad as he was in the third movie, but the dude needs to take a cold shower and stop hitting on women half his age.

I wish we could have gotten a bit more of a coherent reason why Mike is so important.  I don't really know why the Tall Man needed him so much and why he had a sphere in his head.  And with the massive cliffhanger of an ending, and the fact that there wasn't another film for 18 years, this would have really bothered me if I saw this when it came out.  I'm hoping the final film will wrap things up nicely, but I have a feeling this series is going to go full Twin Peaks and leave more questions than answers.


Verdict:

This is my least favorite of the Phantasm movies so far, but I still liked it.  I respect how good the movie is for the tiny budget, and the practical effects and stunts are still amazing.  Oblivion definitely has flaws, but I like how weird it was and that it doesn't hold your hand.  This series continues to impress me and I hope the final film does as well.

 7/10: Good 

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