While the Cap'n was out of town last weekend, Mr. Veal was kind enough to give me a region free dvd player, which has been all kinds of fun. I watched the first episode of Life on Mars (the UK version, which looks to be much better), tried to suss out the German commentary of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, and will eventually look at the extras on a French copy of Lost Highway.
The most exciting viewing experience, however, had to be Phantasm II. It's never been available on dvd in the United States because of conflicting rights (Anchor Bay owns I, III, and IV while Universal owns II), and I've never actually seen it. For those of you who didn't know, I'm a big fan of the series, and for a long time I've had to do without the second chapter and sort of work around its absence. Since every Phantasm film picks up where the last one left off, you can kinda piece together how I gets to III from the dvds, but it was nice to finally bridge the gap.
Phantasm II is an improvement on the first film in every way but one (I'll get to that in a moment). Don Coscarelli is working with a major studio, so he has a bigger budget, more time to set up shots, and can set up more elaborate camera work. This is going to sound snarky, but the easiest way you can tell the budget is bigger is there are two explosions in the first fifteen minutes, and another one an hour in.
Unfortunately for Reg (Reggie Bannister), the first two are houses he owns and the third one is his car. The guy just can't get a break when you couple this with the beginning of his "coitus interruptus" that become a running joke through III and IV. Phantasm II does explain how Reg gets his 4-barreled shotgun, even if there's a puzzling plot hole between the second and third movie.
The gore is also pretty gnarly in Phantasm II: not only do the balls do more, but there's some pretty nasty prosthetics work, including a Freddy Krueger-esque Tall Man puppet that comes out of someone's back. The dwarves look cooler and the Tall Man's death scene (by hydrochloric acid) is also impressive.
In fact, most of the film is more impressive. Phantasm suffered from some logic gaps because of footage that was never shot or couldn't be used, but Coscarelli rectifies this by keeping Phantasm II concise and coherent throughout, even during the dream sequences. Where it lacks the dreamlike imagery of its predecessor and sequels, Phantasm II makes up for it by moving forward the story of Michael, Reg, and the Tall Man in interesting and expanding ways.
The sense of scope expands in the Tall Man's plot to steal the dead, paving a way for the next two movies, even if they can't quite convey the post-apocalyptic nature. I love the crane shot of Reg and Michael walking through a graveyard with nothing but empty plots, and there are some nice editing tricks to tie Elizabeth (Paula Irvine)'s story into Michael's.
The only problem I have with Phantasm II is a critical one: Michael isn't Michael. Instead of casting Michael Baldwin to reprise his role from the original, Universal forced Coscarelli to cast James LeGros in the lead, along with insisting that Paula Irvine and Samantha Phillips were added as "love interests." While Elizabeth and Alchemy don't really detract from the movie, James LeGros sticks out like a sore thumb. He looks like any generic "male lead" shoehorned into a genre film, and while LeGros doesn't do anything wrong per se, his presence is distracting in the scope of all four films.
Because I had remembered seeing the four barreled shotgun in Phantasm III (and Reg's car), I was a little surprised to see the car explode and the gun be tossed aside before part II ended. There's absolutely no explanation at the beginning of III why Michael has the shotgun or how Reg gets the exact same car back, but then again maybe I'm asking too much of the Phantasm series. They are both iconic parts of the series, after all...
All things considered, I still enjoyed Phantasm II quite a bit. While there's at least one nice reference to Sam Raimi, I wonder how many people caught the "chainsaw battle" reference to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. I laughed anyway. I've heard that Universal is finally releasing Phantasm II stateside (the one I watched was from the UK) so everyone else can watch the movie soon. I have no idea if the disc will have the same extras my copy has (they resemble the other Anchor Bay releases with a commentary track, making of, a trailer, and photo gallery) but it would be nice to have a copy that played anywhere. Keep an eye out.
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