Ranking the Phantasm Series

Well, I finally finished watching the Phantasm series, which is a lesser known horror series that I knew virtually nothing about.  A horror podcast I listen to, Dead Meat (I highly recommend them.  Check out Dead Meat on YouTube.  It's good stuff.), covered the film earlier this year and I decidedly to give it a watch as well as the four sequels and boy am I glad I did.  It's a bizarre series which usually doesn't make much sense, but it follows the same few characters throughout the entire run and it's a lot of fun, with some impressive practical effects.  Will the original be the best film in the series or will one of the sequels claim the top spot?  Let's go dimension hopping and find out the ranking of the Phantasm movies.



#5. Phantasm: Ravager (2016)

The 5th and final film in the Phantasm series comes in dead last and is the only one of the movies I don't like.  Most of the problems stem from the extremely cheap production value (It looks like a mediocre student film) and lack of practical effects.  It's mostly CGI that would look bad in 1997.  This is also the only film that Don Coscarelli didn't direct and it's very noticeable.  And as the final film, I don't think it does a great job of wrapping up the story.  It's not all bad.  Both Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm nail their performances and it does manage to capture the general spirit of the series, but it's easily the worst.

 4/10: Bad

#4. Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

Fittingly, in 4th place is the 4th movie.  I actually like this one, it's just not as good as the rest.  Oblivion takes the series back to its roots in that its very strange and surreal.  It's not always clear what is happening, which I find fun in this context.  They use outtakes from the original film to give us more information on Reggie, Mike, and Jody, which is pretty cool.  The stunts and effects are still impressive even though this film had a much lower budget than the previous sequels and I appreciate that the filmmakers didn't overdo it on the backstory for The Tall Man.  They gave us just enough.  But the movie pulls an Alien 3 and unceremoniously kills off one of the best characters from the previous film off-screen and fails to even mention it.  Reggie is still a bit too creepy in this movie and we never get a good reason why Mike is so important to The Tall Man.

 7/10: Good 

#3. Phantasm (1979)

Yes, I am putting the original Phantasm in 3rd place.  Now don't get me wrong, I like this movie.  It's very impressive for being such a low-budget production.  It's really creepy with some absolutely surreal editing, Mike is a great protagonist, the introduction to The Talk Man is fantastic, the practical effects are unbelievable, and the amount of work and passion Don Coscarelli put into this really shows.  But I don't care for the first act of the movie.  It takes about 30 minutes for the story to get interesting enough to justify the strangeness.  It also feels like pieces are missing from the finale and I don't care for the ending of the movie very much.  It's an impressive film, to be sure, but it has flaws and I genuinely think the 2nd and 3rd film are both superior.  

 7/10: Good

#2. Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

The 3rd movie is really good with some amazing practical effects, awesome kills, and a really cool car crash.  Reggie is actually the protagonist this time around, which is fun, and it has an excellent cliff-hanger.  Best of all is a new character, Tim, a little kid who has no problem with straight-up murdering people.  He's a badass character and a great partner for Reggie.  The only problems I have with Lord of the Dead is that it feels aimless at times.  I'm not always sure what Reggie's motivation is and Reggie also gets overly creepy when hitting on Rocky.  Dial it back, buddy.  But apart from that, there's a lot to love here.

 8/10: Really Good 

#1. Phantasm II (1988)

But the clear winner here is the 2nd film.  It has a much higher budget which allowed the filmmakers to go all out with the effects and gore.  There are some truly phenomenal kills in this film.  The pacing is terrific with tons of excited energy all the way through.  The first act throws us headfirst into the story and I love it.  I know some people have issues with recasting Mike, but I think James LeGros does a fine job.  The only real problems are minor nitpicks including one truly dreadful line from Samantha Phillip's character, but Phantasm II has almost everything I like in a movie and is one of the best horror sequels out there.  It does nearly everything right and is easily the best film in a solid and underrated series.

 9/10: Great