Phantasm II

Phantasm II
US Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Don Coscarelli
Produced by	Roberto A. Quezada
Written by	Don Coscarelli
Starring	Angus Scrimm James LeGros Reggie Bannister Paula Irvine
Music by	Fred Myrow Christopher L. Stone
Cinematography	Daryn Okada
Editing by	Peter Teschner
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 8, 1988 (1988-07-08)
Running time	97 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$3,000,000
Box office	$7,282,851

Phantasm II, also known as Phantasm II: The Ball is Back! is the 1988 sequel to Phantasm. It was written and directed by Don Coscarelli, starring Angus Scrimm, James LeGros and Reggie Bannister. To date the other films in this series are Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, and Phantasm IV: Oblivion.

Plot

Picking up where the first movie left off, the Tall Man and his minions attempt to take Mike (James LeGros), but Reggie (Reggie Bannister) manages to save him after turning on the gas while the fireplace was on, blowing up the house.

Six years later, the film introduces Liz Reynolds (Paula Irvine), a young woman with a psychic bond to Mike Pearson and the Tall Man that manifests in the form of prophetic nightmares. After she awakens from one, she looks at her dream journal, which includes drawings detailing characters and events from the first film; during this, she recalls a vision that picks up immediately where the first film ended: after the Tall Man's minions attacked Mike through his bedroom mirror, Reggie heard the commotion and ran upstairs to his aid. He tried to get a shotgun, but was attacked by Lurkers and had to flee, although he managed to surreptitiously snuff the pilot lights on the stove. Once upstairs, he dodged the Tall Man and rescued Mike, and the two dove out of the bedroom window to escape as the gas fumes reached the living room fireplace and destroyed the house. Following this, Liz pleads for Mike to find her, as she fears that when her grandfather dies, the Tall Man will take him.

Having been institutionalized as delusional since the first film, Mike feels he can no longer ignore Liz's dream pleas, and fakes his recovery to obtain a doctor's release. At night, he returns to Morningside Cemetery to exhume bodies and is interrupted by Reggie who tells him that the attack at the beginning of the film never occurred. Mike reveals that the coffins he dug up are empty and urges Reggie to help him hunt the Tall Man down. En route to Reggie's house, Mike receives a vision of an impending gas explosion, and frantically tries to warn Reggie seconds before his house is consumed in an explosion, killing his wife Celeste, daughter Bonnie, and Aunt Marta. Mike's futile warning convinces Reggie that he is telling the truth and agrees to accompany Mike on his quest.

They break into a hardware store at night and stock up on an abundance of supplies and tools to build weapons. They then travel the country roads, encountering abandoned towns and pillaged graveyards, as well as a few traps and apparitions the Tall Man has left. One of them is an apparition of a fully nude deceased young woman. The clues lead them to Perigord, Oregon.

Meanwhile, Liz's grandfather has died and she accompanies her grandmother to the funeral with her sister Jeri, who leaves prematurely and mysteriously vanishes. While searching for her, Liz explores the mortuary and discovers an exhumed coffin, but before she can open it, the Tall Man surprises her and she runs away. The presiding priest Father Meyers (Kenneth Tigar) maddened with fear and alcohol withdrawal, desecrates the grandfather's body with a knife in a desperate attempt to thwart the mysterious occurrences he has witnessed. That evening, during a bout of drinking, the reanimated grandfather surprises him at his door and then spirits into the grandmother's bed before absconding with her. In the morning, Liz finds the empty bed and a funeral pin; the Tall Man psychically tells her to return at night if she wants to rescue her grandmother.

Prior to their arrival in Perigord, Mike awakens to find that Reggie has picked up a hitchhiker named Alchemy (Samantha Phillips) who eerily resembles the nude apparition. They find Perigord deserted and decrepit, and stop in an abandoned bed & breakfast before venturing out to the cemetery. Liz arrives at the mortuary to search for her grandmother, but is confronted by Father Meyers, who tries to rally her to escape with him but he is killed by a flying sphere. She encounters the Tall Man and discovers that her grandmother is now one of his Lurkers. As she escapes, she and Mike meet in the cemetery and return to the bed & breakfast, where they try to sleep. When a tripped alarm distracts them downstairs, the Tall Man captures Liz, knocks her unconscious and drives her away in his hearse. Mike and Reggie chase him in Mike's deceased brother Jody's car, but the Tall Man runs them off the road and the car explodes.

At the crematorium, Liz slowly regains consciousness while being taken into the furnace room by the Tall Man's mortician assistants. She fakes unconsciousness by allowing the assistant to partially undress her and take her crucifix. She manages to fight off the mortician by sending him into an active furnace and escapes. Mike and Reggie break into the mortuary and venture into the embalming room. As Reggie pours hydrochloric acid into a tank of embalming fluid, Mike discovers that the Tall Man, having learned from his mistakes, has hidden his transdimensional portal (Spacegate) behind a heavy steel door. In lieu of a handle, there is a large round "keyhole" in the wall and Mike realizes that they must capture a sphere in order to access the room. They then split up to find Liz.

Reggie searches the basement where he is attacked by a Graver, then four Lurkers. Mike saves Liz from a silver sphere but they are both attacked by the other mortician, who is defeated when the silver sphere pins his hand to a door and cuts off the hand in an attempt to escape another sphere. A golden sphere pursues Mike and Liz but instead kills the second mortician as he tries to catch them.

Reuniting with Reggie, the three pry the mortician's severed hand off the door and carry the embedded silver sphere to the embalming room, where they insert it into the "keyhole" and open the metal door to the white room containing the portal. Reggie ignites the flamethrower to burn the building down, but the Tall Man surprises them, knocking Reggie down, throwing Mike into the portal, and carrying Liz to the embalming table. Reggie helps Mike climb back out, while the Tall Man prepares to embalm Liz alive with a giant probe; Mike pulls the silver sphere from the keyhole and attacks the Tall Man with it unsuccessfully. Liz gets free and stabs the Tall Man with the probe, and Reggie quickly activates the embalming machine, pumping the acid-contaminated fluid into him, causing him to melt. Reggie sets fire to the room and hallways and the trio are greeted at the back entrance by Alchemy, who has procured an abandoned hearse.

They ride off with Mike and Liz in the rear compartment and Reggie and Alchemy in the driver's cabin. Reggie thanks Alchemy for coming back for them and tries to flirt with her until she gently plucks a section of hair and flesh from her head, revealing that she is not human. As Reggie screams, the hearse swerves wildly and Mike and Liz try to get out; the hearse stops and a bloody and battered Reggie hits the window before falling to the ground. As the hearse begins to drive away, Mike and Liz tell each other "this is just a dream" but the slot to the driver's cabin opens, revealing the Tall Man who tells them "No, it's not."

Hands break the rear window and pull Mike and Liz through it, mirroring the ending of the first film.

Cast

• James LeGros as Mike Pearson
• Reggie Bannister as Reggie
• Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man
• Paula Irvine as Liz Reynolds
• Samantha Phillips as Alchemy
• Kenneth Tigar as Father Meyers
• Rubin Kushner as Grandpa Alex Murphy
• Ruth C. Engel as Grandma Murphy
• Stacey Travis as Jeri Reynolds
• A. Michael Baldwin as Young Mike
• J. Patrick McNamara as Psychologist
• Mark Anthony Major as Mortician

Production

This is the only installment in the Phantasm series that does not include the entire original main cast (Bill Thornbury and his character did not appear in this film), and the only one to replace a main character with another actor. After acquiring the greenlight to make the film, Universal executives insisted on replacing the two main characters of Mike and Reggie with recognizable actors instead of the original ones. Don Coscarelli resisted their efforts and was forced to audition A. Michael Baldwin and Reggie Bannister for the opportunity to reprise their roles. His efforts won him a concession: he was allowed to keep one of the two, but had to replace the other; Coscarelli chose to keep Reggie Bannister, and cast James LeGros in Baldwin's place. This is why Mike's face is never shown in the flashback scenes shot for this film as Baldwin was not cast, and thus, a stuntwoman stood in his place.

The casting of James LeGros has had a conflicted effect on the cast members. LeGros reportedly enjoyed his time on the production and got along very well with the cast and crew; even 20 years later, Coscarelli, Scrimm, and Bannister speak glowingly of their experience with him. A. Michael Baldwin, however, appears to remain bitter about the incident: in the audio commentary for Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, he twice referred to Phantasm II as "the film which shan't be named."

The budget of this film is reported as $3,000,000.00, the largest of all the Phantasm films, but allegedly the lowest of any Universal production in the 1980s.

There is a slight ret-con at the beginning of the film: footage from the first film originally showed Reggie and Mike at Mike's house. In Phantasm II, these scenes take place in Reggie's house. A new set that has some distinct differences from the original film is utilized. The new set recreates the fireplace, gun-rack, bedroom and hallway (now upstairs) seen in Phantasm, but there are some obvious changes to create the impression that we are now in a different location. This creates a continuity error when Mike runs up the spiral staircase to the right of the fireplace. After the footage from the first film ends, the spiral staircase has vanished and been replaced by a mini-bar. This requires Reggie to run up a different flight of steps to get to Mike. It is not clear why director Coscarelli chose to include the shots of the spiral staircase, since this represents an obvious error in continuity.

The US television edit of Phantasm II is sought after by fans because of its inclusion of alternate shots and slightly altered sequences from the theatrical cut and a slightly different narrative.

In the scene in the mortuary the mortician pounds the bones after a cremation and places them in a plastic bag. The name on the bag is Sam Raimi, which appears to be a reference to the movie director of the same name.

Home video release

The film was released by Universal Home Entertainment on VHS. A Region 1 DVD was released by Universal on September 15, 2009. The Region 1 release only includes the original theatrical trailer as an extra. A German bootleg currently circulates on the internet that has behind-the scenes footage, a full-length work print, horror festival footage and few additional extras. The film has been attributed to an inability of Universal and Anchor Bay to reach a mutually amenable distribution deal (but since the film was distributed independently in international territories, it was easier for Anchor Bay in the UK to obtain the rights). There have also been DVDs for this film in some other regions.

Sources

• http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6663030.html

External links

• Phantasm II at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Website
• The Phantasm Archives - a Series Resource