PHANTASM RAVAGER is the apparent conclusion to Don Coscarelli’s PHANTASM saga, now available on VOD and very limited theatrical release. It doesn’t necessarily feel like it has to be the last one, but they probly wouldn’t want to continue without Tall Man Angus Scrimm, who passed away after filming.
This one focuses entirely on Reggie (Reggie Bannister), the ice cream man/singer-songwriter turned four-barrel-shotgun-toting warrior drifter who started as the adult friend to the young protagonist, Mike (A. Michael Baldwin). We first find him falling through a portal back to earth in a stretch of desert somewhere. The badass opening sequence recalls MAD MAX as he scavenges wreckage in a seemingly unpopulated area, has to get back his missing Barracuda and then is involved in a high speed chase with the famous silver balls that fly around trying to stab or drill people’s heads. While this chapter does suffer from some phony digital gore, that’s thankfully not the case with the many incidents of balls digging into people’s skulls and spewing geysers of grue out their exhaust valves like water out the back of a jet ski. (read the rest of this shit…)
Before he did PHANTASM, a 22 year old Don Coscarelli wasn’t even looking to be a horror director. He got together the people he knew and filmed in his neighborhood and made this sweet coming-of-age type comedy about growing up in the California suburbs of the ’70s. Kenny (Dan McCann) is a kid about 12 or 13, his company is Doug (PHANTASM star A. Michael Baldwin) and Sherman (Jeff Roth), a goofy younger kid from across the street who they pick on but start becoming real friends with when they see him getting beat up by Johnny Hoffman (Willy Masterson), the same neighborhood bully they live in terror of.
I’ve enjoyed the sleazy, creepy original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT several times over the years, and the hilariously awful half sequel/half recap PART 2 almost as many times, and tried to convince myself that Monte Hellman’s PART 3 was kinda interesting two or three times. But I never got around to the straight to video parts 4 and 5. UNTIL NOW.
