Phantasm V: Ravager (2016)

"The Final Game Now Begins."

Ever since my dad introduced me to the first Phantasm, way back in nineteen-eighty... something... I've been a huge PHAN of the Phantasm franchise. So yes, this review is extremely biased.

But how could it not be? It's the fifth film in a franchise that prides itself on being abstract, dreamlike and intentionally confusing with its story. One needs to be at least semi-familiar with the lore in order to even begin to understand what's going on here. I really want to emphasize that this is absolutely NOT the place for newcomers to start with the series. Go back and watch the previous moves, IN ORDER.

In general, the series follows two main protagonists; Mike, played by A. Michael Baldwin, and Reggie, played by Reggie Bannister. Jody (Bill Thronbury) is an on-again, off-again main character as well, though he is rarely in this particular installment. Together they chased down and attempt to defeat the Tall Man, played by the late Angus Scrimm. Though we are initially introduced to the Tall Man as the mortician of Morningside Cemetery, we soon discover that he is actually an extradimensional being who is collecting the dead and creating an army; for what purpose, we are never truly shown. Besides the expected henchmen, The Tall Man weapon of choice is a multitude of flying metallic spheres that are equipped with blades and drills. He can also travel in between dimensions via portals made from two magnetic poles that resemble a tuning fork.

Still with me?

Phantasm Ravager picks up where the fourth movie (Oblivion) left off, which Reggie re-emerging from the tuning fork portal in the desert. See what I mean about needing to know the lore? Anyway, the main theme here is that Reggie's reality keeps getting disrupted. One moment he's on a desert highway, the next he is in a retirement home, being told by Mike that he has dementia. Before he can come to grips with this reality, he suddenly finds himself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where The Tall Man has apparently taken over the world. Despite being tossed back and forth between multiple dimensions, Reggie manages to get his bearings quick enough to continue his search for the Tall Man, who always seems to be one step ahead of him.

The movie is open-ended enough to interpretation that it has sparked controversy in the Phantasm community as to whether or not this movie negates all the events of the previous ones. Personally, I don't believe that it does, and I believe that it's kept ambiguous on purpose.

Phantasm Ravager is a labor of love, for better or worse. There are moments in the film when it becomes very apparent that they had a limited budget, but tried their best to push it for the sake of telling the story that they wanted to tell. Personally, I admire the ambition, but I am biased because I have been rooting for it for the last decade. Your mileage may vary.

That said, everything you'd expect from a Phantasm film is here. The Tall Man is a little more chatty in this installment, but I enjoyed his back-and-forth with Reggie. We continue to get more of his backstory as well. Reggie Bannister brings his A-game to the table and is always a treat to watch. There are gory kills via the silver balls. The badass 1971 Plymouth Barracuda is present. There is glorious b-side horror camp. There are cameos for the fans. There is a general vertigo-inducing sense of surrealism throughout. This definitely a movie that you're going to want to watch more than once to get the full impact of the story. Maybe even three times.

What else is there to say, except: "BOYYYYYY!!!!"

Watch the trailer: