Rank The Phantasm Films

[Anthropophagus]

Phantasm is readily available here in Blighty,not sure why you are having trouble obtaining it.

[Lord Voldemort]

I live in The States bruv. It's not available on this side of the pond.

[cheebacheeba]

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Phantasm-...74uOleUxtBMEwA

[Sculpt]

I thought this was a funny short review of Phantasm 2, by Roger Ebert, from 1988. (in quotes below)

Despite my hobby-study of symbolism, the subconscious and horror, I've never seemed to enjoy much "dream surreal horror" -- the 'not making sense', without much of anything else of interest, burns me up, basically. There's certainly some I have liked, including the original Phantasm, but films like "The Beyond" just leave me shaking my head.

I haven't seen Phantasm 2, but from most reviews I've read, I doubt it will ever hit the top of my "to see" list.

1/4 stars | Roger Ebert | July 8, 1988


The silver sphere is about twice the size of a billiard ball. It has a couple of very sharp hooks built into it. It flies through the air, attaches itself to your forehead and digs in. Then a drill comes out and pierces your skull right above the bridge of the nose, while blood spurts out the other end.


The sphere is the property of the Tall Man. He is an evil mortician who lurks in the ghost town of Paragore, where all of the houses seem empty and most of the graves seem robbed. "When you die," he tells one of his luckless victims, "you don't go to heaven. You come to us."

Who is us? Or, to phrase the question more elegantly, what's going on here? After having paid close attention to "Phantasm II," I am not sure I can answer that question. "This time, I'm going to get him," Mike vows early in the film. But unless you have seen "Phantasm," a low-budget horror film released nine years ago, the reference is likely to be lost. I did see the original "Phantasm," but the details do not exactly leap into my mind with crystal clarity.

There is a sense in which Mike's history is not so important to this film -- a sense in which the plot itself is expendable. "Phantasm II" is like an extended dream in which characters appear and disappear according to no logical timetable and a wide-angle lens makes everything look distended and nightmarish.

The images are of corpses and graveyards, spurting blood and severed skulls, rotting flesh and faces filled with terror. Sitting through a film like this, which contains so little of genuine interest, I found myself meditating on such images, wondering who they would appeal to, and why.

The target audience for "Phantasm II" obviously is teenagers, especially those with abbreviated attention spans, who require a thrill a minute. No character development, logic or subtlety is necessary, just a sensation every now and again to provide the impression that something is happening on the screen.

But why would images of death and decay seem entertaining to them? For the same reason, I imagine, that the horror genre has always been attractive to adolescents. They feel immortal, immune to the processes of aging and death, and so to them these scenes of coffins and corpses represent a psychological weapon against adults. Kids will never die.

Only adults will die. Kids, of course, eventually become adults, but there is always a new generation of kids, and perhaps there we have our answer to the question of why anyone would have wanted to make a sequel to "Phantasm."

Those aren't my views, entirely, but that is really funny.

[Kat]

I have all of them. They're in a Sphere.

[Jigsaw Killer]

After seeing Ravager, my revised ranking:


2
1
4
3
5


I didn't hate 5 but it's definitely the weakest, IMO.

[anglewitch]

Originally Posted by Jigsaw Killer

After seeing Ravager, my revised ranking:



I didn't hate 5 but it's definitely the weakest, IMO.

I haven't seen it yet.
The trailer made it look so good.

[socio-zombie]

I love all of the Phantasm films. And I really enjoyed part 5! For me it's great to see all of the characters again.

[Lord Voldemort]

Originally Posted by Repo'd

Ah, Jigs, when we finally are gifted with Phantasm Five I am going to howl at the fucking moon! So many delays and false release dates, it's been torture. I know that kind of thing usually signals trouble and possibly some bad product, but it looks like most of the holdups have been caused by distribution disputes and Coscarelli's unwillingness to prostitute himself and his work to make a few extra bucks.

I need this damn sequel!

Anyway, my Phantasm rankings are..

1--Phantasm
2--Phantasm IV
3--Phantasm II
4--Phantasm III

Truth be told, I see all four as a whole piece and I'm madly in love with every installment of the franchise. The Phantasm universe isn't for all fans, but those of us who have fallen into the Tall Man's snare will always be loyal and fervent.

Bring the ball back!

Just saw the dvd for Phantasm 5, last night. And a buddy told me they re-released the first one on Blu-Ray!

[idoneus1957]

On the subject of this movie, a discussion of this movie in some magazine said that is has enough satisfying surprises for 3 horror movies and not enough logic for one.
I was posting to some forum a few years ago, and some idiot said he could not see the appeal of this movie. Well, the first half hour is pretty slow. But the payoff in this movie is when the door flies open and there's the Tall Man, big as life and twice as ugly. He growls out "Boy-y-y-y!" And Michael starts to run, and the Tall Man chases him, and that eerie music starts up again, and we are right back in the middle of a classic nightmare: being chased by the Bad Man.
If you leave the theater 5 minutes too early, you miss the twist ending.
I didn't think the sequel so much. The director seems to think that if one blood-sucking sphere is scary, then 3 are scarier. Not true. They made the same mistake in the sequels to Aliens.