DipitySkillful
an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Jemima
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Wmpyr Dumont
I was browsing through the Walmart DVD section and when I found this a while back, I was super excited, since I've been a fan of the franchise. When I first saw this film I was a bit disappointed even though I was still happy to own it as part of the legacy.Upon second viewing, I was able to enjoy it much more. Some people said this is like a fan film, and I think they mean that in a bad way. While I can see some of what they are saying, no fan flick is like this. You have the original actors, the car is here, the weapons are here, the bad guys, inter-dimensional travel, and the spheres. The trademark theme music is here, some people can argue that the mood setting is lacking in this one, and I can agree to that, but that doesn't break it for me. This one may feel lower budget than the other titles in the franchise, but once again that doesn't break it for me. I'm just glad they made it. The time traveling is a bit hard to follow, but instead of analyzing it, just take it as Reggie's mental state imploding and it all leading to his rescue. A little bit like when they rescued Neo from The Matrix. So we know this is a never ending battle between the Tall Man and our heroes. And some of this film takes place in a post apocalyptic future where the Tall Man has taken over the world. You see an invasion. It's very ambitious and the thought is very interesting. Large spheres that resemble a mother ship hovering over skyscrapers and taking them down with a single laser blast! What an image! To me this doesn't mess up the story, it leaves room for more, I really don't have any complaints, I look forward to watching it again and again.
MartinHafer
A very, very long time has passed since the first Phantasm film...and even since the last movie in the franchise. Now Reggie is 71 and The Tall Man is almost 90!! I am surprised that at this advanced age they'd come back for yet another film together. And, despite Angus Scrimm dying around the time this movie debuted, I STILL wouldn't be surprised to see another installment one day...perhaps when Reggie is 90!!When the film begins, Reggie is wandering around the Western part of the US--where is is mostly desert and scrub. How long he's been doing this is anyone's guess. What follows is a very, very confusing plot...one involving Mike in a few scenes, The Tall Man, a woman named Dawn who dies and then didn't die, possible dementia on Reg's part, an invasion by aliens, a super-virus and a lot of other things...all of which feel less like a plot and more like a lot of plot ideas tossed together haphazardly. Little of it made much sense and the film just bounced all over the place in time as well as plot. After a while, I just gave up trying to keep up with it. As far as the ending goes, I have no idea WHAT the heck even happened!!So is it any good? Not particularly. As I said, it's a bit of a mess plot-wise and all you have left are the usual killings, blood and gore. For some, that might just be enough...for me, it wasn't. The film should have stuck with a single, coherent plot. Instead, it looks like they tried filming a lot of different scripts and then tried to piece them together in post-production. The notion of all this being explained by Reg's dementia just seemed awfully contrived and silly. I now have seen all five films. I'd give the First and Third one an 8--very creative and well done. The Second (5), Fourth (3)and Fifth was all disappointments...with the Fifth being the worst and least necessary. I think a score of 2 is clearly warranted, though I even considered giving it a 1...it was often that bad. The only reason I didn't was that Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) made a cameo in this one....and she was one of the reasons I loved "Phantasm III"! It's fair to say this was the last...and the least of the series.By the way, in addition to Reg often being the most impossibly good shot ever in the history of cinema in this film, he never once seemed to have to reload!! Truly amazing seeing him use his pistol to knock out those spheres with incredible ease and never running out of bullets!!
amnesiac12001
PHANTASM: RAVAGER is perhaps the most disappointing and horrifically executed follow-up in a film series since TROLL 2, a declaration I only wish was hyperbolic. It almost single-handedly unravels all the value and merit gathered from the previous installments and it does so with almost neolithic incompetence.While we all knew that RAVAGER was the least-capitalized of the series, it's shocking at how poorly made it is, especially considering what Don Coscarelli was able to do with a comparable budget 37 years earlier. The film has all the production value of a SyFy Channel Asylum monster movie (complete with unprocessed production audio), and with even less narrative cohesion. The script is cringe-inducingly bad, with little-to-no plot or agenda beyond wanting the viewer to question how much of Reggie's reality is real, and the dialogue is almost a parody of bad movies done without irony. The actors, many of whom have had decades of experience under their belt, behave as if they're in their first student film, and every performance looks so horrifically under-rehearsed that it feels like they're reading their lines off of cue cards taped to the other actors' heads.It's also the least consistent with the style of the rest of the series, and the film opens with a recap introduction that was so inept that I thought it was tacked on by an executive producer. And so many stretches of the movie involve the characters wandering around a desert simply to pad time with a free location. To put it another way: I've waited 18 years to see this film and I actually fast-forwarded through certain scenes simply to see if they were going somewhere or to bypass the sheer ineptitude of the filmmaking. That's how bad this film can be. I have seen fan films on YouTube made for pocket change that showed more talent, creativity, and cinematography than this.I suspect that all this may have been done on purpose to ensure that no one would ask for another film (rendered moot since Angus Scrimm has now passed on), as Coscarelli has expressed a desire to move on from PHANTASM films. It would have been better for all if Coscarelli had simply loaned out the film to screenwriters who wanted to take a whack at it instead of wasting decades until he came up with an idea. As it is, we've now lost so many potential sequels and have to suffer the indignity of this entry as its finale. The lack of any talent on display in this film is almost an insult to fans of what was one of the most unique and beloved horror film series of the century.RAVAGER is for completists only, and even then...I pity them for what they have to endure.
Alessandro Bachscia
Essentially a glorified fan film, Phantasm: Ravager brings all key cast members together with underwhelming results. Don Coscarelli's assured touch is sorely missed here, with veteran actors badly in need of direction. Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury in particular appear lost and unmotivated. Reggie Bannister gives an enthusiastic performance and still has a lot of charisma, but that's not enough when pitted against woefully poor dialogue and amateurish mise-en-scène. Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man talks way too much (he even unashamedly bargains with Reggie at one point) and fails to project much menace. Kathy Lester's cameo as Lady in Lavender serves no purpose. One wishes Gloria Lynn Henry had stepped in earlier on in the film. Dawn Cody, Daniel Roebuck and Daniel Schweiger barely register in their roles. Only Steven Jutras (Chunk) makes an impression, but his thinly-written character, essentially a mean parody of an 80's action hero, is given awful dialogue and remains unlikable. The Phantasm saga was never known for its plot coherence, relying on atmosphere, dream logic and assaulting the viewer with stylish visuals instead. Ravager has neither the visual splendor nor the suggestive, subliminal creepiness of the previous films. The story is a mere series of vignettes, with the befuddled Reggie zipping from one less-than-photogenic location to another. With its extremely erratic framing and frenetic editing Ravager doesn't fit stylistically with the previous films at all. The sound design is threadbare and new rendition of the classic Fred Myrow/Malcolm Seagrave theme is embarrassingly bad. The machismo, muscle car worship and bad language have taken place of eerie poetic minimalism that made the 1979 film a genre classic. Embarrassingly short on meaning, chock full of bad CGI (the lethal flying spheres have never looked so laughable), mismatched stock footage, shaky camera work and choppily-edited action scenes, Ravager is a chore to sit through. There's no journey for the original characters and the new characters are too sketchy to make them interesting. Phantasm:Ravager is bound to disappoint most Phans. It's unfortunate that Don Coscarelli has authorized this atrocity to be made and released. The low-key Phantasm:Oblivion was a more fitting final installment of the much-loved Phantasm saga.
