Phantasm II

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Phantasm II
Directed by	Don Coscarelli
Produced by	Roberto A. Quezada
Written by	Don Coscarelli
Starring	Angus Scrimm James LeGros Reggie Bannister
Cinematography	1
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Language	English
Preceded by	Phantasm
Followed by	Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
IMDb profile

Phantasm II is the 1988 sequel to Phantasm. It was written and directed by Don Coscarelli. Angus Scrimm starred as the Tall Man. James LeGros starred as Mike and Reggie Bannister reprised the role of Reggie from the original film.

The story of Phantasm II begins when the original ended, although production of the movies is separated by eleven years. While the first movie was a sci-fi/horror/ fantasy film, Phantasm II leans toward being an action/adventure movie in a horror setting.

It was produced by Roberto A. Quezada.

[edit] Detailed Plot Synopsis

The film is set a number of years after Phantasm. Reggie (Reggie Bannister) is now married to Celeste with a daughter Bonnie. He still drives Jody’s 1971 Plymouth Barracuda.

A girl (Paula Irvine) awakes and gets out of bed. She runs through to the kitchen and checks that the gas taps on the cooker are turned off. She opens a diary:

Psychotherapy Patient: Elizabeth Reynolds

Please make a detailed account of your dreams on a nightly basis.

Notes will be helpful with therapist.

The book is filled with notes and illustrations. Over the past eight years, Liz has had visions of the future and developed a psychic bond with Mike Pearson. She has also found the Tall Man.

She has seen the events that happened when the last movie ended: with Reggie suggesting a road trip and the Tall Man’s minion seizing Mike. Reggie mounts the stairs and finds the dwarf dragging Mike from the cupboard. He runs downstairs to arm himself with a shotgun. Looking for shells, Reggie opens a locker and a dwarf leaps out onto him. They struggle and Reggie beats it with the shotgun stock. He moves to the kitchen to search the drawers but when he turns around a half-dozen dwarves are advancing around and over the table.

Reggie looks around and spots the fire in the living room grate. He snuffs the pilot lights on the cooker and turns on the gas taps. He then climbs up the laundry chute and secures the lid. Arming himself with a baseball bat, Reggie lets the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) pass and then floors the dwarf dragging Mike. Reggie picks up Mike and the two crash through the window as the dwarves swarm up the stairs. As the pair crawl away, the house is destroyed in a huge explosion.

But the Tall Man has also escaped. Liz surmises that he comes from another dimension with his army of creatures, destroying towns and plundering graveyards to enslave the dead. She fears that when her Grandpa (Rubin Kushner) dies her visions will become reality.

Mike (James LeGros) has been in Morningside psychiatric clinic for many years. He was insitutionalised due to dreams about The Tall Man (the events of the original Phantasm) that he had been having since his older brother had been killed in a car accident. From his hospital bed, he senses Liz’s pleas for help. To effect his release from the clinic, he lies to his doctor (J. Patrick McNamara) and tells him that his stories were just fantasies and "paranoid delusions", and that they have ended, and that he wants to move back in with Reg and move on with his life. As he hands him his release papers, the doctor tells him to be well and remember that it was all in his imagination.

After successfully tricking his doctor into releasing him from the institution, Mike is discovered digging up graves at a local cemetery that night by Reggie. Mike tells him that the entire graveyard is empty, that The Tall Man is stil responsible, and he wants to stop the Tall Man. Mike says that the Tall Man is showing him visions, wanting him to come and that Liz is also drawn to him too. He needs Reggie’s help to save her. Reggie warns that if the authorities were to catch Mike digging up graves, they would lock him up for good. He takes Mike back to his house to talk it over. As they arrive, Mike remembers from his dreams that the house will explode, he warns Reggie but they are too late - the house explodes as they're driving up to it. But this time instead of killing the Tall Man's dwarves, the explosion kills Reggie's entire family.

After the funeral, Reggie tells Mike "You knew, before it happened", he then agrees to help Mike. They set off in the ‘Cuda to track down the Tall Man. They break into a hardware store to arm themselves. They grab torches, hammers, farming implements and chain saws. Reggie makes a sawn-off quad shotgun and Mike a flame thrower. They leave money in the till (which raises the question of why they bothered to break in to the store if they were going to pay for everything anyway?) and then hit the road again.

They pick up the Tall Man’s trail to the north west: a series of ghost towns left in his wake. Heavily armed, they check out Maritoz cemetery. They pick their way through a series of open graves to the mausoleum. The entrance is boarded up so they cut their way in with a chainsaw. Inside they split up. In the preparation room, Mike finds a girl’s naked body on the slab. He investigates a noise and when he turns back, she has gone. Reggie calls and Mike joins him. In the basement, they find a girl hiding beneath a blanket: it appears to be Liz but a gnarled version of the Tall Man’s head emerges from her back and tells them to come east. Reggie destroys the abomination with the flame thrower. They decide to travel east and investigate the town of Perigord, Oregon.

Liz and her sister Jeri (Stacey Travis) attend their Grandpa’s funeral. Liz tells her Grandma (Ruth C. Engel) that she has stopped having her dreams. At Perigord cemetery, Father Meyers (Kenneth Tigar) performs the ceremony. The pall bearers open the coffin and Grandma kneels by her husband. Jeri tells Liz that she must leave early to get to the station in time to get home. Liz follows her to the door but she is gone. As she sits in the corridor, she catches a glimpse of a dwarf.

Mike wakes in a motel room and tells Reggie that Liz is in danger. He says that they are close to finding her and the Tall Man. Reggie is not convinced that she is more than “a wet dream” but they set off.

At Perigord, Meyers asks God for forgiveness and determines to end the sacrilege he has witnessed. He pulls a knife out from his jacket and stabs Grandpa’s corpse. Grandma sees this and collapses. Walking through the corridors of the mausoleum armed with a hatpin, Liz comes upon a moulding casket on a trolley. Before she can touch it, the Tall Man grabs her shoulder and tells her that the graveside service is beginning. Shocked, she hurries away. Her hatpin has pierced the Tall Man’s finger. He licks yellow blood from the tip.

In his home, Father Meyers has turned to drink. He hears a noise at his front door and puts on the security chain. He tells himself it is only the wind. He hears more noise and opens the peephole in the door. Liz’s Grandpa looks in from the other side. Meyers cries out and slams the peephole shut. Liz goes into her Grandma’s bedroom to check she is sleeping. At five to three that night, Grandma awakes. She turns on the light. Her undead husband is in bed with her. She screams.

Mike dreams that they drive past the girl from the Maritoz slab thumbing a lift. When he wakes, he finds that she is in the back seat of the ‘Cuda. Reggie has picked her up. He introduces her as Alchemy (Samantha Phillips); “Chemy for short,” she explains. Mike asks Reg to pull over so he can take a leak. To one side, he tells Reggie that he has seen the girl in his dreams and that they should not involve her. Reggie is attracted to her and argues that she is in less danger if she stays with them.

Liz goes to wake Grandma but finds her missing, her bed unmade. Liz’s hatpin is embedded in the bedside table. Psychically, the Tall Man tells Liz to come to him if she wants to rescue Grandma.

When Mike and Reggie arrive at Perigord, they find it like a ghost town. Chemy says it is very different from when she left ten years before.

Liz goes to Perigord cemetery and finds her Grandpa’s grave open. The Tall Man tells her he has them both. She heads up to the mortuary and goes in through an open side door.

Reggie drives to Chemy’s uncle’s bed and breakfast to find it abandoned. Reggie and Mike get the bags while Chemy goes up to look around. Across the street a frightened resident pulls down the blind. The house is boarded up, so they break in. They booby-trap the place to slow down any uninvited guests, then they head up to the cemetery, leaving Chemy to sleep.

Inside the mortuary, Liz sees a mortician drain the blood from a corpse and replace it with a yellow liquid. When a graver in a gasmask arrives with another coffin, she hides. Mike and Reggie arrive at the cemetery to another graver digging in a grave. Mike says he has seen them in his dreams: they exhume the bodies for the Tall Man.

Meyers is also in the mortuary. He finds an altar with a small box on top. He opens the box and pricks his finger on a spike within. As he walks through the building consecrating it with the sign of the cross, the Tall Man walks up behind him. He telekinetically throttles Meyer with his rosary. He tells Meyers that when he dies he will not go to heaven but “come to us“. He releases Meyers and the priest runs away. The front of the box drops down and three silver spheres emerge.

Liz is wandering through the corridors when Meyers grabs her and asks what she is doing there. She explains that she is looking for her Grandma. He tells her it is too late. The Tall Man is harvesting the entire town. Meyers hears a sound and steps out to look. A sphere flies by and severs his ear. It swoops around and impales his head. It drills into his face and he falls dead. The Tall Man grabs Liz by the throat and hurls her against the wall. A dwarf shuffles toward her: it is her Grandma. She tries to drag Liz away but she escapes and floors the dwarf with an urn.

Liz runs outside and falls into an open grave. A figure wearing a gasmask emerges behind her but it is only Mike. They kiss as Reggie arrives. Mike introduces Liz. Reggie joins them in the grave as two hearses pass. Then they head back to the bed and breakfast. Mike lights the fire with his flame thrower. Liz and Mike swap stories. Reggie is not keen to hang around and wait for the Tall Man to come to them. They decide to get some sleep and then make tracks in the morning.

Liz tells Mike that the Tall Man wants them because they are different: only they can see what he is doing. She tells him she loves him. In the other room, Reg and Chemy are making out when there is an explosion downstairs: one of the traps has been sprung. Mike and Reg arm themselves and head downstairs but its only a cat that has been killed. Upstairs, Liz checks the windows but the Tall Man crashes through and kidnaps her. Reggie tells Chemy to take Liz’s car and drive south. Then he and Mike chase after the hearse. As they drive alongside to get a shot at the Tall Man he forces them off the road. The ‘Cuda flips onto its roof. Mike finds himself on the road but Reg is trapped by his seatbelt. Petrol is teeming out towards a flaming post. Mike manages to get Reggie and their weapons away from the car before it explodes.

A mortician (Mark Anthony Major) has Liz tied to a trolley and he pushes her into the crematorium. He ignites the burner and prepares to put Liz in the furnace. She rolls off the rollers and he grips her throat. She gives him a low blow with a rake and he falls into the furnace. She slams the door shut. Mike and Reggie find a sealed door and a locking mechanism with two slots. Mike thinks a sphere might open it and beyond may be the gate to the Tall Man’s world. Reggie adds hydrochloric acid to the yellow ichor in the transfusion machine. He is determined that it will not be used to reanimate anyone. They split up to try and find Liz.

Wandering through the mortuary, Liz is targeted by a sphere but is shoved to safety by Mike. Together they run but Liz is grabbed by a henchman. They struggle and the sphere impales the henchman’s hand to a door, drilling through. A second sphere appears and the henchman produces a hatchet to lop off his hand and escape. The sphere locks on to Mike and Liz but they manage to shut a door between them. The sphere burns through the door and uses a laser to search for them. It detects a rat and incinerates it. They run and it follows, burning through each door they try to bar its way with. The henchman reappears and captures Liz but the sphere transfixes him. Then it burrows into his back, up through his torso and lodges between his jaws.

In the basement, Reggie fights with a graver. He brandishes his chainsaw but the graver reaches for a longer one. After a fierce battle, Reg cuts the graver up through his groin. The graver drops dead but four dwarves emerge and follow Reg up the stairs. He blows them all away with a single shotgun blast.

On the road, Chemy has broken down. She starts to walk and comes upon an abandoned hearse. She gets in and hotwires it.

Mike wraps the sphere impaling the henchman’s severed hand in a curtain tie. Reggie carries it through to the locked door and they open it to reveal the gate. There are also barrels with dwarves inside. Reggie wants to torch the place but the Tall man appears and floors the men. He grabs Liz. Mike falls into the gate and Reg follows. A dwarf emerges from a barrel and crawls towards them. The Tall Man prepares to inject Liz with the yellow ichor. The men escape the gate and Mike grabs the sphere. He aims it at the Tall Man and it drills into his head. It has little effect: the Tall Man seizes Mike and an insect-like limb emerges from his wound, reaching for Mike. From behind, Liz injects the Tall Man with the contaminated ichor as Mike tears the limb from his head. The Tall Man screams and the flesh sloughs from his bones. Reggie torches the building and they escape.

Chemy is waiting outside in the hearse. Reg gets in the front and Mike and Liz in the rear. They drive off celebrating their victory. However Chemy is one of the undead. She pulls off part of her scalp. The car swerves as Reggie screams. The car brakes and Mike and Liz see a bloodied Reg fall against the side window gasping. Then the car sets off again. Mike tells Liz it is only a dream. The Tall Man reappears and shouts "No! ... It's not!"

[edit] Other Comments

Phantasm II centers on a now nineteen-year-old Mike and his friend Reggie as they pursue the "Tall Man" in their black Plymouth Barracuda. The Tall Man (played by Angus Scrimm) is a supernatural entity in the form of a mortician, who roves from one small town to another, leaving behind cemeteries empty of corpses and the towns themselves empty of people. Reggie comments on this process, saying, "Small towns are like people. Some get old and die a natural death. Some are murdered." These empty towns are the Tall Man's signature and they become a trail for Reggie and Mike to follow in their pursuit of him.

The Tall Man's objective is not clear. The protagonists only know that he takes his victims from their graves, seals them in drums, and sends them through a gate to another world. The other dimension is a barren, rocky landscape with a red sky and high gravity. The Tall Man's victims are crushed into gnarled dwarves by the atmosphere and then brought back to Earth. Upon their return, they are clad in hoods that make them very much resemble Jawas from Star Wars.

The ultimate purpose of assembling this collective of zombie dwarves remains unknown. It does not seem to be world domination, given the Tall Man's patient, tolerant attitude towards those who try to interfere with his plans. Instead he seems to serve some mysterious, but eerily natural purpose. He tells a priest, "You think that when you die, you go to Heaven. You come to us!" The Tall Man's role on Earth seems most like that of an overseer and agent rather than a mastermind; he is the physical aspect of the side of the process that can be detected by humans, and straddles the boundary between the known, human, physical world, and the world to which he sends his victims.

Outside of his ghoulish dwarf servants, the Tall Man is assisted by a pair of apparently human pallbearers and gas mask clad worker bees whom Mike calls "gravers". They do the physical work of digging up the bodies and begin the process of conversion.

The Tall Man's most notable assets, however, are the flying metallic silver spheres, about the size of softballs. Although they have no visible force to propel them, they fly rapidly through the air and are able to negotiate complex paths without any understandable method of guidance. The silver balls are equipped with a pair of serrated razor sharp blades which pop out through slits. The balls, or their movers, whoever they are, show no allegiance, neither to the Tall Man or his lackeys.

The spheres will impale any moving target once activated. They usually aim for the forehead and once implanted, a combination drill and suction tube will pop out, draining a few pints of blood which are ejected from the sphere's other side.

[edit] External links

• Phantasm II at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Website
• Fan Site