Phantasm IV

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Movie
German title Phantasm IV
Original title Phantasm IV: Oblivion
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (full version)
FSK 16 (shortened version)
Rod
Director Don Coscarelli
script Don Coscarelli
production Don Coscarelli
music Reggie Bannister
Steve Morrell
Fred Myrow
Malcolm Seagrave
Christopher L. Stone
camera Chris Chomyn
cut Scott J. Gill
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The Evil III

Successor  →
Phantasm V - Ravager

Phantasm IV is an American science fiction - horror film of 1998 and the third sequel to the film Evil . As in the first three parts of the series, the role of the villain Tall Man was played by Angus Scrimm . The main character Mike Pearson was played by A. Michael Baldwin as in the first and third part and the role of Reggie by Reggie Bannister . Don Coscarelli again directed and wrote the script. The film did not come into German cinemas and was marketed on VHS from July 1999 .

action

The film starts exactly where Das Böse III left off. The Tall Man keeps Reggie trapped in the Boulton ghost town morgue with a large amount of spheres, silver balls that float and can kill their victims with all sorts of killing tools . Mike escapes the morgue after discovering that there is a large gold sphere inside his head. The boy Tim is torn through a window pane and killed by the shrunken corpses that the Tall Man brought to life and are now his servants. The Tall Man decides to release Reggie.

Reggie finally wants to stop the hunt for the Tall Man, but he is persuaded by Mike's brother Jody, who was killed in the first part of the Tall Man and whose ghost is now trapped in a sphere, to look for Mike. While searching for Mike, Reggie is stopped by a police checkpoint. Annoyed, he gives the police officer his vehicle papers. When Reggie has been waiting for the police officer for a while, he becomes suspicious and runs to the police car. He can't find the cop, but when he opens the trunk he is horrified to find a horribly tied up cop who begs Reggie to kill him. Suddenly the policeman who stopped him appears behind Reggie. It is about an undead who serves the Tall Man. He manages to seriously injure the policeman, but not to kill him. Only when Reggie blows up the police car does the undead die. The next day Reggie saw a young woman on the street who had an accident and is now trapped in her car. He pulls her out of her car and can run away with her before it explodes. The woman introduces herself as Jennifer. Reggie decides to take her with her. He also tells her about Tall Man and his friend Mike. Jennifer doesn't believe him, however. She also refuses Reggie's advances. Later the two break into an empty house to spend the night there. Reggie dreams of Mike there. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, Jennifer has unbuttoned her nightgown. There are two spheres in her breasts . Jennifer is also a servant of the Tall-Man. The two chest spheres attack Reggie. One he can destroy with a sledgehammer , but the other pushes him against the wall and pierces his hand. In desperation, Reggie takes a tuning fork and hits the wall with it. The sound of the tuning fork makes the sphere burst. He then kills Jennifer with a sledgehammer.

At the same time, Mike is looking for the Tall Man to uncover its secrets. A strange transformation is going on with him, which is evident from the fact that there is a golden ball in his head and, just like Tall Man, he has yellow blood. Driving a hearse he stole in Boulton through abandoned cities, he remembers the last days before the Tall Man came into his life, when his life was beautiful. Suddenly the Tall Man is sitting in the back seat of the hearse and brings the car under his control by telepathically steering it. Then he disappears into a coffin. The hearse is now driving Mike to Death Valley .

In Death Valley , Mike finds a dimensional gate, as it was in the first part. Mike walks through the gate and finds himself in a 19th century colonial house with an earlier version of the Dimension Gate. When he goes out onto the porch of the house, the Tall Man is sitting there, but he greets him warmly and introduces himself to him as Jebediah Morningside . Jebediah wants to speak to Mike and asks him if he came through the dimensional gate. Mike runs back through the gate, confused and afraid.

Back in Death Valley, Mike realizes that he can use his mind to move stones. Suddenly his brother Jody appears. Mike is suspicious and wants Jody to go away. Jody reacts indignantly and disappears. Mike then builds a sphere from parts of the hearse. Finally, Mike goes into the gate again to prevent Jebediah from becoming the evil Tall Man. This time, however, the gate does not lead him into the 19th century, but into an abandoned city. He can only escape the Tall Man at the last second with Jody's help.

Reggie has now arrived in Death Valley . He puts on his old ice cream seller uniform that he wore in the first part when he was still an ice cream seller, and arms himself with a rifle. He is fighting several shrunken corpses when suddenly Mike and Jody come out of the gate. Mike hugs Reggie and tells him not to trust Jody. You now go into the gate again. This time they manage to get into Jebediah's house again. You are invisible to the old man and Mike tries to stab him before he walks through the gate. But he doesn't make it because they are in another dimension. So Jebediah walks through the gate and shortly afterwards he comes out again as the evil Tall Man. Mike escapes through a gate that leads to a cemetery. Jody attacks him and overwhelms him. Mike finds himself on a stone slab in a morgue. Jody holds him while the Tall Man begins to saw open Mike's head with a sphere to get to the golden ball attached to it. In a panic, Mike hits the tuning fork, paralyzing Jody and the Tall Man. Mike kills Jody by sawing his throat open with the Sphere. The Tall Man becomes mobile again and takes Mike's tuning fork. Mike then flees back to Death Valley , and the Tall Man chases him. Reggie shoots the Tall Man, but is overwhelmed. Mike calls the sphere that he built. The Tall Man is unimpressed and pulls the Sphere towards him. Mike then telepathically starts the car's engine, which then explodes and destroys the Tall Man. But immediately afterwards a new Tall Man comes out of the Dimension Gate, who puffs the golden ball out of Mike's head, takes it out of it and then disappears back into Dimension Gate. Mike is near death and Reggie resolutely follows the Tall Man with his rifle into the Dimension Gate. Mike, lying on the floor with him, remembers his childhood when Reggie took him to his ice cream van one night.

criticism

“Completely unstructured horror film as the third follow-up in a less successful series, which at best reveals itself as an illogical hodgepodge of different genre elements. Sometimes brutal, the film shows that his idea has long since run out of steam. "

- Lexicon of international film

continuation

A fifth installment in the series, called Phantasm: Ravager , was published in English in October 2016. David Hartman will direct instead of Don Coscarelli. The main characters of the original take on their roles again.

Others

  • The fourth part is the first part of the series that doesn't end with someone being pulled through a pane of glass. In the first part Mike and Liz are pulled through a mirror by the Tall Man, in the second part Mike and Liz are pulled through the windshield of a hearse by the Tall Man and in the third part Tim is pulled through a window in the morgue by the shrunken corpses.
  • The fourth part is also the first part of the series, which was approved by the FSK for people aged 18 and over. The first part was confiscated nationwide, the second received SPIO / JK approval and the third was not checked.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Phantasm IV. In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Watch Phantasm Ravager () online - Amazon Video. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .