Phantasm: Ravager (2016) Review

"What a fine use of our time that was."

-Chunk

The final Phantasm film follows ice cream man turned warrior, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), across two different timelines as Reggie flashes between the two.  In one, Reggie is in pursuit of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his missing friend, Mike Pearson (A. Michael Baldwin).  In the second, Reggie is in a nursing home, suffering from dementia, and frequently visited by Mike.  As Reggie tries to figure out what is real, he has to find a way to stop The Tall Man's master plan.

What Works:

Once again, both Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm nail their performances.  Reggie is a fantastic hero, an everyman willing to do anything to help his friends.  All these years later, Bannister has not lost a step with his character.  Even with all the insanity happening around him, he is still determined to defeat The Tall Man, no matter the cost.

Angus Scrimm is a phenomenal villain and his scenes are the highlights of the movie.  His performance is wonderfully menacing.  This is Scrimm's final performance before his death and he nailed it.

Ravager does manage to capture the general spirit of the first four movies.  These films have always been a bout a group of friends who have lost a lot, but continue on in the face of that loss.  The sense of family and friendship between Reggie, Mike, and Jody (Bill Thornbury) is still there all these years later.  Plus, this series has a fantastic score and when they use it, it brings up a lot of the emotions from the earlier films and gives some more weight to this one.

What Sucks:

First and foremost, this film is cheap.  I know both the first film and the fourth were very low budget movies, but this one is ridiculous.  It looks like it was shot on a cheap HD camera and the cinematography is uninspired.  It feels like a sophomore student film.  The other low budget films in the series had enough craft involved that one could look past the low budget, but it's so egregious here that I simply can't ignore it.

Most notable is the use of CGI.  The early films used mostly practical effects and they were amazing. They are what made the earlier films so fun.  Ravager uses almost entirely CGI effects and they aren't good ones.  They contribute to how cheap this movie feels because the effects, the blood, the spheres, everything looks really fake and that's a major letdown for this series.

This is the only Phantasm film that isn't directed by Don Coscarelli and it's pretty obvious.  Coscarelli had a sort of magic touch when it came to these films and Ravager does not have that.  If it wasn't for the return of familiar actors and the score, this wouldn't feel much like a Phantasm movie.

Finally, if this is supposed to be the final film of the series, it doesn't feel like it.  Every film in this series has ended on a cliffhanger as does this one, but it does a poor job of wrapping up the story.  There are still plenty of unanswered questions as our characters drive off to continue their war with The Tall Man.  I think a better director could have made an ambiguous ending like this work, but in director David Hartman's hands it doesn't work.

Verdict:

Phantasm: Ravager is easily the weakest film in the series and the only one I wouldn't recommend.  It has the general spirit of the first films and both Bannister and Scrimm are great, but the effects are terrible, the ending doesn't work as the finale of the series, and the whole thing feels very cheap.  It's a disappointing ending to an otherwise fantastic series.

 4/10: Bad