Was it necessary to continue “Fantasm” (and generally turn a chic horror into a long franchise)? By the way, between the first two paintings there is a big time difference of 10 years. The sequel appeared in the summer of 1988. The question is actually very difficult. Someone will support, someone will shake their head negatively.
Coscarelli still decided on an adventure and again sat in the director's chair. Did I like the second part? Put your hand on your heart, yes! Some moviegoers even write that the sequel managed to jump over the original. This is something I strongly disagree with. There is a completely different atmosphere and presentation of material.
Coscarelli moved away from the mysterious horror, made a bet on entertainment. I'm serious. Fantasm 2 looks more like a non-flash action movie than a fantastic horror movie. That doesn’t mean the movie is bad. No, it's just different. A lot has changed. I will go through the main points.
The first is that the Tall Man had his henchmen (some other gravediggers), although the monsters of small stature from the original remained in place (Coscarreli now boldly shows their mutilated pussies). Second, the scale increased (this is quite logical for the sequel). Tall Man captures small towns one by one.
The third is the most important (and at the same time aspirational), since Coscarreli worked for Universal Studios, the producers put their actor on the role of Mike. Instead of Baldwin, we now have LeGross. There is another version - Baldwin personally refused. In any case, LeGross loses to Baldwin. I think he’s pretty cute, I guess.
On the other hand, 10 years, how Baldwin would look, I don't know. Fourth, Coscarelli added a storyline of a girl with telepathic abilities. For horror franchises, that's a banality. She's driving "Fantasm 2." After all, Mike and Reggie are trying to find this citizen and kill the Tall Man. Quite controversial (love notes pulled by the ears, again).
“Fantasm” is absolutely limitless, I would try to screw the plot of the second film to Jodie (Mike’s older brother). Yeah, yeah, I know Coscarelli will remember him in the triquel, but you could have been here. Jodie is very much missing, one of the downsides of the sequel, subjectively.
To sum up, it’s a fun sequel with damningly lush bloody moments (chainsaw battle is present). The silver sphere in the mouth was especially deadly, it was cool. Angus Scrimm? Still handsome! I highly recommend it, no fun.
P.S.
The 71st minute of the movie that it says on the package, Mr. Sam Raimi, a-hee-hee. Wow, Coscarelli handed greetings to a friend in the workshop.
7 out of 10
Again we hear the hoarse "Boo!"
Long with his horde.
It's making your filthy crap:
A dwarf in a barrel, the coffin is empty.
+++
Is this a dream or am I drunk?
Mike isn't that kind of guy.
House in Ruins, Reggie the Evil
The road to Perigor is not easy.
+++
Come on, you fucking gray!
Come out and fight honestly,
Let your green pus go.
Quad-gun disaster!
(d13mon, 2016)
"Or is it just painful nonsense?" (SUBIC, 2016)
Buddy, you are right, painful nonsense is the most appropriate interpretation of events, where the bodies of the deceased are stolen by the ritual mafia of aliens (unfortunately, Spielberg fans are not from space), and brilliant charrollets deftly suck the insides of the head of overly curious comrades. But it is also true that the authors of such a dashing mix skillfully visualized fears associated with the theme of the funeral and the corresponding service sector. Elegant cemetery facades, shiny coffins and hearses, protocol-dressed mourners, bizarre rituals and mechanisms – Western traditions have many strange aspects that can forever shock an impressionable American child. No other dimension. Probably one of these poor guys was Don Coscarelli, who later wrote the script “Fantasma”, where he splashed on paper everything that caused him irreparable psychological trauma. However, the problems of the sheriff of the Indians do not worry, because we, the audience, only benefited from these remarkable consequences.
After the success of the first part of the old Don did not stop there and decided to finish off the few remaining mentally healthy spectators and brought down on them all that he had in the closet of the brain. Hordes of handsome dwarfs, sexy corpses in the morgue, picturesque murders, a pretty hunchback in the crematorium and, of course, the entire spectrum of charm Angus Scrimm, who without much makeup looks better than Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger combined. Alas, the composition of Long henchmen did not significantly expand, although a hefty gravedigger with a chainsaw and a gas mask was chic. But pleased with the development of the theme of two-faced “nightmers” – the most dangerous weapon of the High. Cunning guys masquerade as friendly acquaintances, rub into trust, become friends, and meanwhile spy in favor of supostats, plot plot, and try to stick a knife in the back of the lost hero. It's just a nightmare!
What's the story? The creators of the horror saga rightly continued the theme of the dream, but for some reason seasoned the sequel with unhealthy telepathy in the style of “Star Wars” (well, you remember: “Lyuyuk!” – “Father!”). However, as an excuse for changing the scene, this line looks at least original. Having slightly frightened the youth at the start, and remembering what was in the previous 381-th series (joke), the kulibins of horrors immediately take a course for action. If you carefully look at a number of uncharacteristic for the classic horror moments, more suitable for a cocktail of genres like “Evil Dead 3”, then some legendary “Commando” will surely pop up in memory, from which not only the scene of the Schwartz purchase, but also the idea of a four-barreled Uber gun safely migrated to “Phantasm 2”. Coincidence? Hell no! As well as periodic stylization under the “Mad Max”, only with the replacement of the “Interceptor” roaming through post-apocalyptic wastelands with a black maslcar. And closes the hit parade of borrowings the reincarnation of the handsome boy Mike from the first part in the boogie with the face of a young Brian Thompson, with a flamethrower at the top of the gloomy lairs of Verzila - a faithful parody of "Aliens" Cameron. Anyway, as a result of grandiose genre experiments it turned out ... good old "Fantasm". This is someone who can dream!
Epilogue. The main brainchild of Don Coscarelli is not just a horror movie for entertaining undemanding youth, but a stylish and exciting game without rules, where both a mix of genres and the lack of sound logic are appropriate. An exquisite piece of madness that you want to taste is at the service of the viewer and visual aesthetics, and sophisticated camera work, and divine grave music. Even strange humor (most importantly, do not overdo it as in the triquel) here does not look superfluous. In the world of Fantasma, anything can happen to anyone, old Don. After all, even in the first part it became clear that the meaning of what was happening was invented in the course of the play, so it does not matter what exactly Verzila kvassits in their banks, under what press the excavated corpses are pressed and into what hole you need to shove an iron ball to comprehend the secrets of the universe. Secondary and the probability of the heroes to immerse themselves in their own dreams. The permanent designer of the franchise here is king and god, he can submit an idea and in the next part unobtrusively pick up, forget, score. Only the quiet roar of a black hearse, confidently cutting through the light of headlights impenetrable dusk, enveloping the road going into the distance, remains unchanged. Isn't it hell?
After watching the first part of Phantasm, I was sure that I would not get acquainted with the sequel. Reluctantly including Part 2, I was pleasantly surprised and changed my attitude for the better.
The first “Fantasm” envelopes us with an old-school atmosphere, naive special effects, the actors have not yet felt the roles and characters of the characters. Grimm was more tempted than frightened.
The second part is different from the previous one. Don Coscarelli brought a new wave of life to this project, taking into account modern special effects and approach to the cast.
The second and subsequent installments focus on Mike and Reggie's fight against the dangerous Tall Man and his army of zombie dwarfs.
I do not want to join the number of people who rejected LeGros as Mike, everything is not as bad as it seems, and appearance has nothing to do with it! The composition of the actors remained the same, and clearly visible qualitative leap in the game of actors and it is very happy. Angus Scrimm is always excellent, I can't imagine anyone else in his place. Reggie Bannister has developed a character, now he is not just an ice creamer but a brave warrior with evil spirits!
Special effects added credibility to the film, the killer balls really began to look scary.
Rarely does a sequel get better than the first one. " Fantasm was not just an experimental project, it got a chance for a more elaborate plot and universe.
For fans of atmospheric horror films, the film is recommended for viewing.
The not-too-sharp beginning of this film led me to the completely wrong conclusions. It seemed that the whole corporate aesthetic of the first film was lost somewhere, leaving us only an ordinary exploitation of a successful theme. But soon you get involved and realize that Coscarelli just slightly changed the main message of what is happening. Instead of a little boy living in constant fear of the Tall Man and all his manifestations and deeds, we meet a young boy. Filled with testosterone, he simply cannot accept that some old man ruined his life. As a true warrior, he is looking for his Valhalla and is on a decisive offensive. Desperate rebellion young remote moves to the edge of the world, the room is much harder to enter than to leave. It is no coincidence that the Tall Man wants to kill a young and beautiful girl. The thing is that Coscarelli again immerses us in the game of symbols. Eid in Mike fights parental inhibitions (Super Ego and Tall Man). The manifestation of sexual desire is just the pulling force that helps the hero. In fact, every person on the way to maturity must overcome more than one prohibition.
So, this riot will erupt in the film with a fire gunfight. The aesthetics of the western will be beautifully complemented by a battle on chainsaws and a duel with the Silver Spheres. All this together will be quite pleasant and tough psychological horror, filled with action.
8 out of 10
Ten years after the success of the cult horror “Fantasm”, under the guidance of the same Don Coscarelli, but with a significantly larger budget, the second film of the series comes out, which began at the very moment where the original ended. Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm, who performed their key roles in the first film, are again returning to their usual roles, but Michael Baldwin, who played Mike in the first part, was replaced by James Le Gros, due to the whim of studio bosses who considered the young actor promising and attractive to the audience.
Unfortunately, the new actor, on whom the producers had such great hopes, did not cope very well with the role, because he was completely different from the boy from the first part, and also played a character almost in the opposite image of the frightened child who faced fears unknown to him in the first film. New Mike, succumbing to the fashion of the time, tries that there are forces to imitate Bruce Campbell with his unique on-screen incarnation of the infidelity hunter Ash, releasing a bunch of flat jokes that automatically changes the very mood of the film, making it more like a postmodern buffoon that absolutely does not work in the right direction. In addition, in the sequel to the once frightening and mesmerizing horror, we are offered to admire the idiotic and absolutely out of the narrative, Reggie’s comedy fight on chainsaws with some big guy, as well as the firing of terrible brain spheres with funny blue lasers, hulkingly drawn with pencils, and also Reggie has a four-barreled shotgun. Delusion...
It is worth noting that filmed in the era of "Nightmare on Elm Street" "Fantasm 2" uses the theme of dreams, which does not benefit him. Angus Scrimm has aged, although he looks so much worse! But unfortunately, along with this, the character of Verzila has almost lost all its mystery: he talks too much throughout the tape, and at the end he grows tentacles, as if in a low-grade thrashack. Very pleased with his minions, well-made Silver Spheres (in the first part they were laughably curved), the Golden Sphere pleases the eye, although it is not quite clear why such a design was made. Visually, the second film looks more creepy, but still does not reach the top five. The picture is very lacking the courage not to succumb to the influence of the then fashion and not to follow the lead of the studio management, who sees nothing in the art of cinematography but shameful metal.
4 out of 10
“The main thing is always to be honest with yourself,” I thought, watching the movie “Fantasm 2”. I just want to say the following. First, over the past ten years since the release of the original film, the author of this “fable”, Don Coscarelli, has added skill – outwardly the cinema turned out to be more watchable. Secondly, the scale has become wider. Separately, I note that the second “Phantasm” is no longer a story about the eternal night, because about half of the film falls on daylight hours.
But... all these differences from the original immediately catch your eye: the film is completely different. And well, the differences would end there – so no: the changes also touched the atmosphere of the first film! The original "Fantasm" was characterized by a special mysteriously alluring atmosphere: everything that happened on the screen was taken seriously, there was a feeling that all your childhood fears suddenly came to life and received a second life, but you are watching them from the outside.
What is the sequel to "Fantasma"? I always advocate that the plot in sequels does not contradict what was shown and said in earlier films – that there remain logical connections between the films of the same franchise (the brightest anti-example of this is the Evil Dead franchise). Zasim is pleased that Don Coscarelli continued the already known story of the boy Mike and his guardian Reggie, retaining all the key links with the first “Fantasm”.
It would seem that everything is fine: before us a direct sequel to the original “Fantasm”, which continues the story of familiar and beloved characters, a little more reveals the universe invented by Don Cascarelli, but the film has one big problem: it is not interesting to watch! And the thing, probably, as I already managed to say, in the absence of that inviting atmosphere, characteristic of the first film. There is no intrigue, the presence of a big mystery: the plot, although new, is generally secondary in its essence - to scare the audience somehow in a different way, Don has not learned over the years, and to follow immediately after the first film how he tries to scare us by the already seen ways is boring.
There are horror franchises that are enjoyable to watch thanks to a plot that continues the narrative in a familiar universe. In such franchises, there are many references to previous films, the real details are gradually clarified. An example is the franchise “Transers” or here “Saw”, a modern psychological slasher. But I went aside, and I have only one thing to say: “Fantasm” is not a movie that you watch for the sake of the plot, and since the sequel does not have the atmosphere and serious intrigue of the first film, then it simply does not make sense. But I'm not going to drown the movie. At the beginning of the review, I said, “The main thing is always to be honest with yourself.” The sequel “Fantasma” turned out to be an average film, and therefore such an assessment should be received from me.
The verdict. A senseless continuation of the amazing horror phenomenon of the late 70s.
6 out of 10
The first part of the famous franchise ended in a gloomy half-word. The struggle of 14-year-old Mike against the High ended in nothing, and continued after 10 years. Mike is lucky that Reggie is next to him - after hearing a strange noise upstairs, he goes upstairs and discovers an army of dwarfs who are abducting Mike. Blowing up the house, along with the monsters, Reggie and the boy go on the run, and Tall looks at the burning house, and then leaves in his hearse.
It was a prologue, and now the main action. It takes 10 years. Liz sees her dreams of Mike and Tall and realizes that they are somehow connected. The girl dreams of an adult hero, and he, along with Reggie, decide to find her, and then deal with the army of the High and himself. But it's not that simple.
Ten years of calm did not pass for the series in vain - Phantasm 2 became newer, more colorful, more dynamic, but lost a little atmosphere and inexplicable horror. There were cemeteries, more drive, better special effects, more gunfights, faster and more deadly spheres than ever before, and more humor and violence. It looks good, with interest.
To somehow adjust the atmosphere, Coscarelli introduces the girl Liz into the game. While the heroes, armed with guns and flamethrowers, clear one crypt after another, Liz becomes a witness as her relatives are kidnapped. The dead come for the living, Tall gets closer and closer to heroin, and no one knows what he wants. She is afraid of him, the dead are becoming more and more. It is interesting, even very, but if not for one “but”: Phantasm is Phantasmagoria, this is when inexplicable events occur in your hometown, the nightmare becomes a reality. Alas, the first part is built on this, when the second one turned into an ordinary youth horror movie, which looks good. But the gloom inherent in the original - no.
What else pleases in the sequels is the High, in the performances of Angus Scrimm. In this part, he has more phrases, and is just as mysterious and gloomy, but he is not as frightening as in the first part. Well, you can not even think about it when you see such an original character on the screen.
The hero playing Mike in the first part is replaced by James Le Gros. Good because he plays as well as Mike Baldwin. Too bad he's not the Mike that was in the first one. Hero Le Gros looks almost like a superhero without special abilities, while Baldun created the image of a naive boy who knows that danger is on his heels. Reggie Bennister got a sense of humor that only got better.
So, the continuation of Phantasm has become much better than the first part, and looks also with interest, but Coscarelli’s mistake is that he replaced the gloomy, frightening atmosphere with entertainment. No, there's a lot of scary scenes here, but where's the mystery, where's the frightening persecution? It’s certainly good that Phantasm 2 is spectacular, but it does little harm to the series. Not as bad as a failed third. It is recommended to watch.
Verdict: A great sequel, winning the first part in entertainment, but losing in an atmosphere of inexplicable horror.
8.0 out of 10
Don Coscarelli, like the director-screenwriter before, decided to shoot a continuation of his story about the mysterious Gateway to a certain world with dwarf slaves-zombies and Verzila with dangerous flying spheres, enlisted the support of the studio. Therefore, the picture acquired a more spacious scale of the video series. However, in the atmosphere, the work is very close to the formerly familiar spirit of the unspoken mystery of the bad dream that turned out to be real.
The concept, in principle, looks banal in its construction: a grown-up former boy Mikey with his uncle Reggie, enlisting a homemade set of various weapons (from firearms to tools) go on a journey in order to finally find the sworn enemy, stopping his experiments on the bodies of dead people and the supply of slaves to the other world. A good half of the timekeeping is a real road movie, painted with excellent camera angles of the endless freeway and the yellow-brown horizon, behind which a powerful evil lurked. The meeting is obligatory, it is inevitable. As in the original, Coscarelli demonstrates a virtuoso ability to impose sinister protracted melodies on the accompanying “picture”, showing a harmonious final effect, sculpting anxiety with discomfort in seemingly the simplest scenes of road life.
However, it is impossible to call the plot of this film pressing purely on the effect of the hitch, so to speak, so that the audience prepared emotions of fear for the final game. Here along the way fits the fate of another character - the girl Liz. She is forced by the will of fate to face the deeds of Verzila, and to fight his mystical obsessions of nightmares, both at night and in wakefulness. There will be no break in the two lines of narrative, with the author’s idea, young people (Mikey and Liz) are able to communicate in dreams, mentally enlisting a single goal.
At the same time, no matter how the movie is related to its predecessor, and it has changed somewhat in structure. First, humor has found a significant niche in frequency. Various verbal jokes and revealing gags are interspersed periodically with outright horror. The effect of the second indicator of the comedy picture does not violate, but it seems on the contrary, as it can not be convenient due to the peculiar direction “funny when scary”. And secondly, in terms of dynamics, history has risen several steps up: there will be shootings, car chases, “cleansing” desecrated funeral homes, and even a whole battle on chainsaws! Closer to the very apogee, the rhythm is getting faster and faster.
Visualization in special effects corresponds to its time, delighting with the full embodiment of original ideas. The flights of the spheres and their consequences are performed with dignity, replete with fake blood, as well as the fight with Verzila. The director balances on a candid display of the confrontation of people with physical enemies and beyond the edges of sleep. To some extent, because of such a successful combination, "Fantasm 2" can be easily compared with the brainchild of Craven "Nightmare on Elm Street", where the veil of reality and hallucinations is thin, but enveloping deadly.
Definitely, the modern viewer without any nostalgia for the old days of “scary” cinema cinema cinema will not seem so powerful in its mysteriously bloody effect, as it was for people who convulsively insert the cherished film cassette into a VCR, but I think that in any case, its author managed to give out the original original world of a horror film, which became a highlight in the genre. The indescribable motive of the uncertainty of the future, complete ignorance of the true guise of the enemy with his henchmen, the upcoming meeting with the inevitable, everywhere overpowering mysticism, all this forces you to plunge into the bowels of the funeral home with shiny ringing mechanisms-hunters, where graves are excavated in the district, open gates are buzzing nearby, and a tall man can appear behind your back at any moment and, squinting one eye, wheeze at your soul: “Ma-a-alchyshka”! .
The continuation of the cult horror Don Coscarelli appeared only 10 years after the release of the first tape. Having a more weighty budget and honed directing, "Fantasm 2" nevertheless retained the atmosphere of the first film.
However, fans of the first part did not like that Michael Baldwin, who played Mike, was replaced by James Le Gros, who brought a lot of his own to the image. In the second part, the viewer will learn more about the mythology of Verzila in the unchanging performance of Angus Skrimm. The director's fantasy in this part is fully disclosed, the frightening special effects are still striking (especially the brain-drilling balls, to which cars are now added steeper and scarier), and the bright cinematic manner of Darin Okada has become a real decoration of the picture.
In fact, the second part is more meaningful and more like a drama, in the center of which Mike, struggling with the real Evil in the person of Verzila - a demon woven with human fears and suffering.
“Fantasm 2” is a worthy continuation of the cult horror, which still looks very relevant.
10 out of 10