Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

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Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

Directed by	Don Coscarelli
Produced by	Don Coscarelli
Written by	Don Coscarelli
Starring	Michael Baldwin Reggie Bannister Bill Thornbury Angus Scrimm
Release date(s)	1994
Running time	91min
Language	English
Preceded by	Phantasm II
Followed by	Phantasm IV: OblIVion
IMDb profile

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead is the 1994 sequel to Phantasm. Like the rest of the series, it was written and directed by Don Coscarelli. The film starred Angus Scrimm, reprising his role as the Tall Man. Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin (reprising the role of "Mike," who was portrayed by James LeGros in Phantasm II), and Bill Thornbury also starred. Despite being filmed in 1993, the film sat on the shelf, unreleased, for nearly two years before being released direct to video.

In this movie, it is the first time the dwarves are referred to as lurkers and the spheres as sentinels.

Reggie has a black 1970 Plymouth Barracuda convertible (only 14 were ever made). He tells Tim he had spent two years restoring it. He also has a new home. He later tells Mike that Jody has been dead for ten years. We may assume then that at least two years pass while Mike is in hospital.

The film's tagline is "We Tried To Warn You. If You Don't Get It This Time We're Going To Have To Drill It Into Your Head!" The film is getting a Region 1 dvd release by AnchorBay Entertainment.

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) gazes at the reflection in a silver sphere as Mike's voice over gives the back story. Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) says the Tall Man has been watching him for years, since he was a boy. Reggie (Reggie Bannister) told Mike that it was all just a dream and Mike was beginning to believe him. But then the Tall Man tried to take him. Reg saved him that time and they had been on the run ever since. The Tall Man floors Reggie at Perigord Mortuary and then Liz injects the Tall Man with the yellow ichor. The Tall Man collapses and Reg torches the mortuary. Outside they climb into the hearse and speed off.

A new Tall Man emerges from the gate and tosses his old, damaged corpse back into his own world. Alchemy reveals her true nature to Reggie and the hearse weaves across the road. Mike and Liz struggle to get out and the hearse comes to a stop. Reggie tumbles out of the cab and then collapses on the road. Reggie watches the hearse set off again. It rounds the corner and explodes. Reggie runs to help but Liz is dead and a dwarf is devouring her face. The dwarf chases Reg and he trips over Mike's prone body. He picks up the shotgun at Mike's side and blows the creature away.

Reggie tries to wake Mike as he reloads. Then he sees more dwarves climbing through the trees overhead. He picks up Mike and they run a little way. Then Reggie fires into the tree above. Three dwarves fall dead. But they are surrounded by dwarves and the Tall Man appears. A dwarf hands Liz's severed head to him. He holds it to his face and grins. Reggie pulls a grenade from his pocket and pulls the pin. The Tall Man decides he can wait to take Mike. He walks away with his shrunken servants. Reggie disarms the weapon.

Reggie takes the comatose Mike to hospital. The doctor tells Reggie that there has been no change. The sphere in the Tall Man's hand opens to reveal a small pulsating brain within. A nurse (Irene Roseen) checks Mike's chart as he twitches in his sleep. She mops his brow and tells him to follow to the light he sees up ahead. He follows other figures toward the light and then a figure moves toward him. It's Jody (Bill Thornbury). He says he will take care of Mike and show him the way. He tells Mike to go back and stay away from the light but Mike walks on. Then Mike sees the Tall Man waiting ahead of him and he wakes from his sleep.

The nurse turns to Mike with a demented look and a kind of surgical drill in her hand. Mike fights her off and stabs her in the neck with his drip. Reggie arrives and the nurse collapses in his arms, spraying yellow blood on him. A sphere emerges from the top of her head. It flies around the room and then extends an eye to peer at Mike. The sphere then crashes out through the window.

Mike and Reggie leave the hospital and drive away in Reggie's Cuda. Mike sees Jody standing at the side of the road and leaps out of the car. But Jody is gone and Reggie tells him that Jody has been dead for ten years.

Reggie is in the garage loading the car to make their escape when the lights go out. Armed with a shotgun, Reggie and Mike go upstairs to find Jody sitting in the lounge. He tells Mike not to touch him because he hasn't the power to stay for long and they need to leave immediately. The window implodes and Jody apologises for leading the Tall Man to them. Jody morphs into a sphere and flies around the room. Reggie tries to take aim with his shotgun but Mike can hear Jody's voice in his head. As the Tall Man emerges from a glowing light in the hallway, Jody tells Mike to stay behind him. Reggie aims at the Tall Man but is tossed against the wall by telekinetic force. The Jody sphere flies at the Tall Man but then glows red and is thrown to the wall blackened. Before he passes out, Reggie sees the Tall Man draw Mike through a gate with him.

When Reggie awakes the next day, the gate has gone but the blackened sphere remains. Jody tells Reg to go to Holtsville. He sets off taking the sphere with him. At a gas station, the attendant (Robert Beecher) tells Reg not to go to Holtsville. He says there was a toxic spill a couple of years earlier. When he gets to Holtsville, Reg finds that the town sign has been altered to state that the population is zero. He draws up in front of a parade of derelict shops and spots a young woman Edna (Cindy Ambuehl) looting an abandoned car. She produces a pistol and starts firing it off at random. She lets Reg take the gun but her boyfriend Rufus (Brooks Gardner) floors him with a length of wood. Rufus and Henry (John Davis Chandler) put Reg in the trunk of his 'Cuda and drive him out of town to kill him.

The looters pull up at an imposing house to look for more spoils. Rufus and Edna take the front door while Henry goes around the back. In the front yard, there are graves. Peering through the window, they see two figures with long grey hair in rocking chairs. They break in through the door and blast one in the head. It is a mannequin. A door slides shut behind them locking them in. A puppet's head tells them: "You're in trouble." As he begins to climb the stairs a clown mannequin swings at him from the ceiling armed with knives. Rufus jumps clear and it impales the door. Edna spots a masked boy at the top of the stairs as he vanishes through a trapdoor. The boy emerges from under the stairs and Henry grabs him, pulling off the mask. Rufus is determined the boy will never grow up. The boy produces a hatchet from his bag and hacks at Henry's leg. Rufus aims his pistol at the boy but he throws the hatchet. Rufus ducks and it kills Edna. The men chase the boy out of the house. He shouts at them to stop or he will throw a pink frisbee. Rufus aims at the boy and he throws the disc. They watch it fly in an arc and then it slashes Rufus' throat. He drops dead. Henry reaches for the pistol but the boy also has a gun. As Henry stumbles forward he topples into a pit and the boy kills him.

Reggie hears the shots and cries out for help. The boy releases Reg from the trunk of the 'Cuda, covering him with the revolver all the while. Reg thanks him and they bury the looters in the yard. The boy introduces himself as Tim (Kevin Connors) and explains that the Tall Man had taken his family: the other graves are those of scavengers. As sundown approaches, Tim recommends they get inside before the lurkers come out.

That evening, Tim tells Reggie his story. His father was the town sheriff and one of the first to be taken. At his funeral, the coffin was not covered immediately so Tim waited until dark. Tim's mother (Claire Benedek) arrived to take him home and together they saw the Tall Man arrive to load the coffin into the hearse. When Tim's mother confronted the Tall Man, the coffin opened and her husband pulled her in. As the hearse drove off, Tim climbed into the rear and opened the coffin to see his dead mother in the arms of his undead father. Shocked, he leapt through the rear screen to escape. The Tall Man then took the rest of the townsfolk, leaving Tim to live alone.

In the morning, Reggie and Tim find that the bodies of the three looters have been dug up and their pink Cadillac hearse is gone. Tim reckons that the lurkers had taken them. They set off together to find the Tall Man, although Reggie is reluctant to take a little kid along. They come upon a house where orphaned children from Holtsville live and Reggie gives the woman (Wendy Way) there some money to take Tim. But as Reg sets off, Tim hides in the boot of the 'Cuda.

Reg arrives at Holtsville cemetery and searches the mortuary. He finds a door and is about to enter when a sphere appears and hurtles towards him. Reg opens the door in its path and it ricochets across the corridor and wobbles over the floor dazed. He is about to blast the orb when he is grabbed from behind and manhandled to the floor. Reg is gagged and handcuffed by two young women dressed in combat gear: Tanesha (Sarah Scott Davis) and Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry). Reg warns them that they have to get out but it is too late. The sphere recovers and kills Tanesha.

As Reg struggles to unlock his cuffs, Rocky faces off against the sphere with her flail weapon or nunchaku. She hits the sphere but breaks her weapon. As the sphere makes another run at her, Tim shoots it out of the air with his pistol. Rocky explains that her family had vanished and the rest of the town was "eighty-sixed". Reggie and Tim decide to move on but Rocky stays to take care of unfinished business. Reggie lets Tim drive the 'Cuda.

They come to a junction and Reggie is unsure of which road to take. Tim asks the Jody sphere and it pulls his hand to the right. They take the right turn. The next day they come upon Rocky sitting at the side of the road. She joins their "search and destroy mission". As they drive east towards Boulton, Reg and Tim fill her in about the Tall Man.

They stop at a motel and Reggie gets a double room. The motel owner (Duane Tucker) tells him that Boulton is a ghost town since an outbreak of anthrax. Reg and Rocky take the room while Tim sleeps in the car. But Rocky rejects Reggie's amorous advances and cuffs him to the bed when he persists.

The next day, they get lost on the way to Boulton but then see a convoy of hearses and follow them. They find a dozen hearses parked in the town but then gravers break into the 'Cuda through the side windows. They fight them off and speed away.

They camp out that night and as they sleep the Jody sphere floats over to Reggie. Reg is dreaming that he and Rocky are making love when Jody interrupts. Reg follows Jody through a door and finds himself on a dry lake bed. Reverting to a sphere, Jody emits a laser and opens a gate. They pass through and watch the Tall Man. He has Mike imprisoned in a small cell. Jody uses the laser to cut open the cell and Reggie helps Mike to climb out. The Tall Man reappears and Jody is wracked with pain. His sphere drops to the ground. Mike picks up the orb and they run with the Tall Man in close pursuit. Reggie wakes from his dream.

Jody opens another gate and Mike emerges from it. But Jody is then unable to shut the gate: the Tall Man has locked on to him. Reggie places his hands on the poles just as the Tall Man reaches through. The gate is shut but the Tall Man's hands have been severed. Tim finds only the skin from the hands. He sees something scurry into a knapsack and goes to investigate.

He opens the bag to find that the hand has morphed into a toothy monster. It leaps and grips Reggie's forehead. Rocky cuts a leg off it and it scurries away. Tim shoots its remaining legs off and then Reg blasts it to bits. Then Rocky spots the other hand creature. It runs up Reggie's trouser leg and Rocky stabs it. She tosses it onto the fire and Mike throws on an oil lamp to add fuel to the flames.

As they are driving, a pink hearse pulls alongside. The looters Rufus, Edna and Henry are in the cab. They try to drive the 'Cuda off the road. Reggie releases the 'Cuda's soft top while Tim and Mike shoot at the undead looters. Edna jumps across and grabs hold of Reg. Mike blasts her with Reggie's shotgun and she falls under the wheels of the hearse. The hearse hits a boulder, flies into the air and explodes in flames. However the 'Cuda's front tires are ruined so the band continues on foot. Mike suggests they go to Boulton mortuary.

In the mortuary, they split into two groups to reconnoitre the place. All appears quiet and they find a cryonics facility. Mike remembers that the Tall Man does not like the cold. Tim sees heads floating in the liquid nitrogen. While the rest barricade themselves into the room, Reg watches from the roof.

Jody shows Mike that the Tall Man is amassing an army to conquer dimensions. The dwarf creatures he has created from the dead act on instinct. He has removed the sapient part of their brains to create the sentinel spheres. Thus their bodies become drones while their minds become killers.

Tim and Rocky use the mortuary furnace to heat a meal. Tim takes the rest of the food to the refrigerator to save it for the men. He sees the bodies hanging within and runs out. Reggie meanwhile is taking a nap when he is awoken by a pleasurable sensation and the smell of burning. He finds undead Edna with her face in the front of his pants. He screams and lets off a shot. Tim and Rocky are alerted and come running. Rufus is waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Tim fires at him but with little effect. Then Henry grabs Tim and drags him away. In Mike's dream, the Tall Man senses he is there and Jody tells him to leave. Mike falls to the floor and sees thousands of spheres floating near the ceiling. The Tall Man steps forward and reaches for Mike and he wakes from his dream. But the Tall Man is there and he grabs and subdues the Jody sphere. Mike is strapped to the table. The Tall Man tells him that his journey is complete.

Rocky struggles with Rufus and he throws her off a parapet. She stops her fall by wrapping her flail around a column. She slips and drops the flail and hangs by her fingers. Rufus and Henry wheel Tim in to the Tall Man on a trolley. The Tall Man tells Mike that he has lived too long in the flesh and must now return to him. He begins to cut open Mike's head. Reggie is still fighting with Edna. He runs along the corridor with her clinging to his back. Rocky bars the way and challenges Edna. They wrestle and Rocky kicks her over the parapet to the chapel floor below. Reggie hands Rocky's flail to her and they go to find Tim.

The Jody sphere severs Tim's bonds and he escapes but runs into Rufus and Henry again. He impales Rufus' head with the sphere and it twists his head off. Reggie blasts Henry in the face with his shotgun.

They arrive at the embalming room to see the Tall Man operating on Mike. Rocky dips a spear-like furnace tool into the liquid nitrogen and impales the Tall Man. When he grips the spear his flesh starts to melt. Reggie and Rocky force him into the refrigerator and Tim slams the door. The Tall Man appears to be rendered inert by the cold. Mike climbs from the table with yellow blood issuing from the wound in his head. Then a golden sphere breaks out of the Tall Man's head and crashes through the fridge window. It chases Tim through the corridors of the mausoleum until Rocky pulls him clear. Edna grabs Rocky but she ducks and the sphere burns through Edna's head.

Mike pulls up a flap of skin and, in a mirror, sees a golden sphere in his own head. He pushes the flap down to conceal it. The Tall Man sphere chases Reggie and he finds a sink plunger. He catches it but blades emerge and he is forced to the floor with the rotors spinning toward him. Tim and Rocky help him to immerse the sphere in the tank of liquid nitrogen and they slam the lid shut.

Mike appears, clearly not himself, and complains of the cold. Reggie chases Mike into the cemetery but Mike warns him to stay away. Jody walks after him. He tells Reg not to believe everything he sees. Understanding takes time. He promises that they will be in touch.

Rocky drives up in a hearse and says her farewells. Reggie and Tim go back into the mausoleum to look for clues to what had happened to Mike. Tim tells Reggie that Mike had told him there were "thousands of them". While they puzzle over the statement, above them on the ceiling, the spheres are waiting. In the next room, Tim finds the poles of a gate and the vat of liquid nitrogen overturned. He goes back to find Reggie pinned to the wall by spheres. Tim runs to get his gun as the Tall Man appears. Tim is pulled back through a window by a lurker.