6WH: Oct 14

Phantasm II (1988) directed by Don Coscarelli
What an ultimate guy's fantasy: driving around with your best friend in a sweet car, picking up pretty hitchhikers, armed to the teeth with flamethrowers and quad-barrel shotguns, ready to save what's left of the world. It's hard to get more bad-ass than this, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons I love this flick so much.

The dreaminess of the first film takes a backseat to a more action-packed road trip/chase of the Tall Man, but thankfully doesn't disappear altogether. This creates a nice mix completely appropriate to the series: one minute, Mike is (day-)dreaming of corpses of future hitchhikers, the next he's torching a Tall Man demon.

One bit I'd never picked up on before was that Mike and Liz were the "only ones who can see what's going on" in regards to the Tall Man's slow rape of the country's small towns. It's a decent Phantasm-style explanation as to why the FBI/National Guard aren't crawling all over these dead towns, looking for clues as to what's happening. The Tall Man's influence over perception and dreams has sort of the entire country asleep, allowing him the freedom he needs. Or, Mike's still in the insane asylum and has cast himself as the hero of his own delusion. Either way. (8/10)


[Universal: frell you for keeping this film in your vaults. I know you're proud of being the worst major studio when it comes to home video, so just sell the damn thing to Anchor Bay so we can get a North American DVD already.]