Phantasm II
Encyclopedia
Phantasm II, also known as Phantasm II: The Ball is Back! is the 1988 sequel to Phantasm
. It was written and directed by Don Coscarelli
, starring Angus Scrimm
, James LeGros
and Reggie Bannister
. To date the other films in this series are Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
, and Phantasm IV: Oblivion
.
and his minions attempt to take Mike (James LeGros
), but Reggie (Reggie Bannister
) manages to save him after turning on the gas while the fireplace was on, blowing up the house.
Six years later, the film introduces Liz Reynolds (Paula Irvine
), a young woman with a psychic bond to Mike Pearson and the Tall Man that manifests in the form of prophetic nightmares. After she awakens from one, she looks at her dream journal, which includes drawings detailing characters and events from the first film; during this, she recalls a vision that picks up immediately where the first film ended: after the Tall Man's minions attacked Mike through his bedroom mirror, Reggie heard the commotion and ran upstairs to his aid. He tried to get a shotgun, but was attacked by Lurkers and had to flee, although he managed to surreptitiously snuff the pilot lights on the stove. Once upstairs, he dodged the Tall Man and rescued Mike, and the two dove out of the bedroom window to escape as the gas fumes reached the living room fireplace and destroyed the house. Following this, Liz pleads for Mike to find her, as she fears that when her grandfather dies, the Tall Man will take him.
Having been institutionalized as delusional since the first film, Mike feels he can no longer ignore Liz's dream pleas, and fakes his recovery to obtain a doctor's release. At night, he returns to Morningside Cemetery to exhume bodies and is interrupted by Reggie who tells him that the attack at the beginning of the film never occurred. Mike reveals that the coffins he dug up are empty and urges Reggie to help him hunt the Tall Man down. En route to Reggie's house, Mike receives a vision of an impending gas explosion, and frantically tries to warn Reggie seconds before his house is consumed in an explosion, killing his wife Celeste, daughter Bonnie, and Aunt Marta. Mike's futile warning convinces Reggie that he is telling the truth and agrees to accompany Mike on his quest.
They break into a hardware store at night and stock up on an abundance of supplies and tools to build weapons. They then travel the country roads, encountering abandoned towns and pillaged graveyards, as well as a few traps and apparitions the Tall Man has left. One of them is an apparition of a fully nude deceased young woman. The clues lead them to Perigord, Oregon.
Meanwhile, Liz's grandfather has died and she accompanies her grandmother to the funeral with her sister Jeri, who leaves prematurely and mysteriously vanishes. While searching for her, Liz explores the mortuary and discovers an exhumed coffin, but before she can open it, the Tall Man surprises her and she runs away. The presiding priest Father Meyers (Kenneth Tigar) maddened with fear and alcohol withdrawal, desecrates the grandfather's body with a knife in a desperate attempt to thwart the mysterious occurrences he has witnessed. That evening, during a bout of drinking, the reanimated grandfather surprises him at his door and then spirits into the grandmother's bed before absconding with her. In the morning, Liz finds the empty bed and a funeral pin; the Tall Man psychically tells her to return at night if she wants to rescue her grandmother.
Prior to their arrival in Perigord, Mike awakens to find that Reggie has picked up a hitchhiker named Alchemy (Samantha Phillips) who eerily resembles the nude apparition. They find Perigord deserted and decrepit, and stop in an abandoned bed & breakfast before venturing out to the cemetery. Liz arrives at the mortuary to search for her grandmother, but is confronted by Father Meyers, who tries to rally her to escape with him but he is killed by a flying sphere. She encounters the Tall Man and discovers that her grandmother is now one of his Lurkers. As she escapes, she and Mike meet in the cemetery and return to the bed & breakfast, where they try to sleep. When a tripped alarm distracts them downstairs, the Tall Man captures Liz, knocks her unconscious and drives her away in his hearse. Mike and Reggie chase him in Mike's deceased brother Jody's car, but the Tall Man runs them off the road and the car explodes.
At the crematorium, Liz slowly regains consciousness while being taken into the furnace room by the Tall Man's mortician assistants. She fakes unconsciousness by allowing the assistant to partially undress her and take her crucifix. She manages to fight off the mortician by sending him into an active furnace and escapes. Mike and Reggie break into the mortuary and venture into the embalming room. As Reggie pours hydrochloric acid into a tank of embalming fluid, Mike discovers that the Tall Man, having learned from his mistakes, has hidden his transdimensional portal (Spacegate) behind a heavy steel door. In lieu of a handle, there is a large round "keyhole" in the wall and Mike realizes that they must capture a sphere in order to access the room. They then split up to find Liz.
Reggie searches the basement where he is attacked by a Graver, then four Lurkers. Mike saves Liz from a silver sphere but they are both attacked by the other mortician, who is defeated when the silver sphere pins his hand to a door and cuts off the hand in an attempt to escape another sphere. A golden sphere pursues Mike and Liz but instead kills the second mortician as he tries to catch them.
Reuniting with Reggie, the three pry the mortician's severed hand off the door and carry the embedded silver sphere to the embalming room, where they insert it into the "keyhole" and open the metal door to the white room containing the portal. Reggie ignites the flamethrower to burn the building down, but the Tall Man surprises them, knocking Reggie down, throwing Mike into the portal, and carrying Liz to the embalming table. Reggie helps Mike climb back out, while the Tall Man prepares to embalm Liz alive with a giant probe; Mike pulls the silver sphere from the keyhole and attacks the Tall Man with it unsuccessfully. Liz gets free and stabs the Tall Man with the probe, and Reggie quickly activates the embalming machine, pumping the acid-contaminated fluid into him, causing him to melt. Reggie sets fire to the room and hallways and the trio are greeted at the back entrance by Alchemy, who has procured an abandoned hearse.
They ride off with Mike and Liz in the rear compartment and Reggie and Alchemy in the driver's cabin. Reggie thanks Alchemy for coming back for them and tries to flirt with her until she gently plucks a section of hair and flesh from her head, revealing that she is not human. As Reggie screams, the hearse swerves wildly and Mike and Liz try to get out; the hearse stops and a bloody and battered Reggie hits the window before falling to the ground. As the hearse begins to drive away, Mike and Liz tell each other "this is just a dream" but the slot to the driver's cabin opens, revealing the Tall Man who tells them "No, it's not."
Hands break the rear window and pull Mike and Liz through it, mirroring the ending of the first film.
The casting of James LeGros has had a conflicted effect on the cast members. LeGros reportedly enjoyed his time on the production and got along very well with the cast and crew; even 20 years later, Coscarelli, Scrimm, and Bannister speak glowingly of their experience with him. A. Michael Baldwin, however, appears to remain bitter about the incident: in the audio commentary for Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, he twice referred to Phantasm II as "the film which shan't be named."
The budget of this film is reported as $3,000,000.00, the largest of all the Phantasm films, but allegedly the lowest of any Universal production in the 1980s.
There is a slight ret-con at the beginning of the film: footage from the first film originally showed Reggie and Mike at Mike's house. In Phantasm II, these scenes take place in Reggie's house. A new set that has some distinct differences from the original film is utilized. The new set recreates the fireplace, gun-rack, bedroom and hallway (now upstairs) seen in Phantasm, but there are some obvious changes to create the impression that we are now in a different location. This creates a continuity error when Mike runs up the spiral staircase to the right of the fireplace. After the footage from the first film ends, the spiral staircase has vanished and been replaced by a mini-bar. This requires Reggie to run up a different flight of steps to get to Mike. It is not clear why director Coscarelli chose to include the shots of the spiral staircase, since this represents an obvious error in continuity.
The US television edit of Phantasm II is sought after by fans because of its inclusion of alternate shots and slightly altered sequences from the theatrical cut and a slightly different narrative.
In the scene in the mortuary the mortician pounds the bones after a cremation and places them in a plastic bag. The name on the bag is Sam Raimi
, which appears to be a reference to the movie director of the same name.
Phantasm (film)
Phantasm is a low-budget "cult classic" horror film produced in 1977 and released in 1979. The film was directed, written, photographed, co-produced and edited by Don Coscarelli...
. It was written and directed by Don Coscarelli
Don Coscarelli
Don Coscarelli is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for horror films. His credits include the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep.-Biography:...
, starring Angus Scrimm
Angus Scrimm
Angus Scrimm is an American actor, best known for playing the Tall Man in the 1979 horror movie Phantasm and its sequels.-Life and career:...
, James LeGros
James LeGros
James LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
and Reggie Bannister
Reggie Bannister
Reginald Horace "Reggie" Bannister is an American musician, actor, producer, writer, and activist. He is often referred to as "The Hardest Working Man in Horror".-Biography:...
. To date the other films in this series are Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead is a 1994 horror film sequel to Phantasm II written and directed by Don Coscarelli. The film starred Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man, Reggie Bannister and A. Michael Baldwin. Filming wrapped up in mid-1993 but the film sat unreleased for over a year before being released...
, and Phantasm IV: Oblivion
Phantasm IV: OblIVion
Phantasm IV Oblivion is a 1998 horror film, a sequel to the Phantasm film series written and directed by Don Coscarelli, starring A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm....
.
Plot
Picking up where the first movie left off, the Tall ManTall Man (Phantasm)
The Tall Man is a fictional character and main antagonist of the Phantasm series of horror films. The Tall Man first appeared in the first Phantasm in 1979, and last appeared in Phantasm IV Oblivion in 1998. In all of his appearances; the Tall Man has been portrayed by Angus Scrimm.-Fictional...
and his minions attempt to take Mike (James LeGros
James LeGros
James LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
), but Reggie (Reggie Bannister
Reggie Bannister
Reginald Horace "Reggie" Bannister is an American musician, actor, producer, writer, and activist. He is often referred to as "The Hardest Working Man in Horror".-Biography:...
) manages to save him after turning on the gas while the fireplace was on, blowing up the house.
Six years later, the film introduces Liz Reynolds (Paula Irvine
Paula Irvine
Paula Irvine is an American actress. Irvine began acting in 1987 by making guest appearances. In 1988 she starred in Phantasm II playing Liz Reynolds, and in 1990 she also appeared on Beverly Hills, 90210 during the first season as Sheryl and on Growing Pains as Lori McNeil...
), a young woman with a psychic bond to Mike Pearson and the Tall Man that manifests in the form of prophetic nightmares. After she awakens from one, she looks at her dream journal, which includes drawings detailing characters and events from the first film; during this, she recalls a vision that picks up immediately where the first film ended: after the Tall Man's minions attacked Mike through his bedroom mirror, Reggie heard the commotion and ran upstairs to his aid. He tried to get a shotgun, but was attacked by Lurkers and had to flee, although he managed to surreptitiously snuff the pilot lights on the stove. Once upstairs, he dodged the Tall Man and rescued Mike, and the two dove out of the bedroom window to escape as the gas fumes reached the living room fireplace and destroyed the house. Following this, Liz pleads for Mike to find her, as she fears that when her grandfather dies, the Tall Man will take him.
Having been institutionalized as delusional since the first film, Mike feels he can no longer ignore Liz's dream pleas, and fakes his recovery to obtain a doctor's release. At night, he returns to Morningside Cemetery to exhume bodies and is interrupted by Reggie who tells him that the attack at the beginning of the film never occurred. Mike reveals that the coffins he dug up are empty and urges Reggie to help him hunt the Tall Man down. En route to Reggie's house, Mike receives a vision of an impending gas explosion, and frantically tries to warn Reggie seconds before his house is consumed in an explosion, killing his wife Celeste, daughter Bonnie, and Aunt Marta. Mike's futile warning convinces Reggie that he is telling the truth and agrees to accompany Mike on his quest.
They break into a hardware store at night and stock up on an abundance of supplies and tools to build weapons. They then travel the country roads, encountering abandoned towns and pillaged graveyards, as well as a few traps and apparitions the Tall Man has left. One of them is an apparition of a fully nude deceased young woman. The clues lead them to Perigord, Oregon.
Meanwhile, Liz's grandfather has died and she accompanies her grandmother to the funeral with her sister Jeri, who leaves prematurely and mysteriously vanishes. While searching for her, Liz explores the mortuary and discovers an exhumed coffin, but before she can open it, the Tall Man surprises her and she runs away. The presiding priest Father Meyers (Kenneth Tigar) maddened with fear and alcohol withdrawal, desecrates the grandfather's body with a knife in a desperate attempt to thwart the mysterious occurrences he has witnessed. That evening, during a bout of drinking, the reanimated grandfather surprises him at his door and then spirits into the grandmother's bed before absconding with her. In the morning, Liz finds the empty bed and a funeral pin; the Tall Man psychically tells her to return at night if she wants to rescue her grandmother.
Prior to their arrival in Perigord, Mike awakens to find that Reggie has picked up a hitchhiker named Alchemy (Samantha Phillips) who eerily resembles the nude apparition. They find Perigord deserted and decrepit, and stop in an abandoned bed & breakfast before venturing out to the cemetery. Liz arrives at the mortuary to search for her grandmother, but is confronted by Father Meyers, who tries to rally her to escape with him but he is killed by a flying sphere. She encounters the Tall Man and discovers that her grandmother is now one of his Lurkers. As she escapes, she and Mike meet in the cemetery and return to the bed & breakfast, where they try to sleep. When a tripped alarm distracts them downstairs, the Tall Man captures Liz, knocks her unconscious and drives her away in his hearse. Mike and Reggie chase him in Mike's deceased brother Jody's car, but the Tall Man runs them off the road and the car explodes.
At the crematorium, Liz slowly regains consciousness while being taken into the furnace room by the Tall Man's mortician assistants. She fakes unconsciousness by allowing the assistant to partially undress her and take her crucifix. She manages to fight off the mortician by sending him into an active furnace and escapes. Mike and Reggie break into the mortuary and venture into the embalming room. As Reggie pours hydrochloric acid into a tank of embalming fluid, Mike discovers that the Tall Man, having learned from his mistakes, has hidden his transdimensional portal (Spacegate) behind a heavy steel door. In lieu of a handle, there is a large round "keyhole" in the wall and Mike realizes that they must capture a sphere in order to access the room. They then split up to find Liz.
Reggie searches the basement where he is attacked by a Graver, then four Lurkers. Mike saves Liz from a silver sphere but they are both attacked by the other mortician, who is defeated when the silver sphere pins his hand to a door and cuts off the hand in an attempt to escape another sphere. A golden sphere pursues Mike and Liz but instead kills the second mortician as he tries to catch them.
Reuniting with Reggie, the three pry the mortician's severed hand off the door and carry the embedded silver sphere to the embalming room, where they insert it into the "keyhole" and open the metal door to the white room containing the portal. Reggie ignites the flamethrower to burn the building down, but the Tall Man surprises them, knocking Reggie down, throwing Mike into the portal, and carrying Liz to the embalming table. Reggie helps Mike climb back out, while the Tall Man prepares to embalm Liz alive with a giant probe; Mike pulls the silver sphere from the keyhole and attacks the Tall Man with it unsuccessfully. Liz gets free and stabs the Tall Man with the probe, and Reggie quickly activates the embalming machine, pumping the acid-contaminated fluid into him, causing him to melt. Reggie sets fire to the room and hallways and the trio are greeted at the back entrance by Alchemy, who has procured an abandoned hearse.
They ride off with Mike and Liz in the rear compartment and Reggie and Alchemy in the driver's cabin. Reggie thanks Alchemy for coming back for them and tries to flirt with her until she gently plucks a section of hair and flesh from her head, revealing that she is not human. As Reggie screams, the hearse swerves wildly and Mike and Liz try to get out; the hearse stops and a bloody and battered Reggie hits the window before falling to the ground. As the hearse begins to drive away, Mike and Liz tell each other "this is just a dream" but the slot to the driver's cabin opens, revealing the Tall Man who tells them "No, it's not."
Hands break the rear window and pull Mike and Liz through it, mirroring the ending of the first film.
Cast
- James LeGrosJames LeGrosJames LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
as Mike Pearson - Reggie BannisterReggie BannisterReginald Horace "Reggie" Bannister is an American musician, actor, producer, writer, and activist. He is often referred to as "The Hardest Working Man in Horror".-Biography:...
as Reggie - Angus ScrimmAngus ScrimmAngus Scrimm is an American actor, best known for playing the Tall Man in the 1979 horror movie Phantasm and its sequels.-Life and career:...
as The Tall ManTall Man (Phantasm)The Tall Man is a fictional character and main antagonist of the Phantasm series of horror films. The Tall Man first appeared in the first Phantasm in 1979, and last appeared in Phantasm IV Oblivion in 1998. In all of his appearances; the Tall Man has been portrayed by Angus Scrimm.-Fictional... - Paula IrvinePaula IrvinePaula Irvine is an American actress. Irvine began acting in 1987 by making guest appearances. In 1988 she starred in Phantasm II playing Liz Reynolds, and in 1990 she also appeared on Beverly Hills, 90210 during the first season as Sheryl and on Growing Pains as Lori McNeil...
as Liz Reynolds - Samantha Phillips as Alchemy
- Kenneth Tigar as Father Meyers
- Rubin Kushner as Grandpa Alex Murphy
- Ruth C. Engel as Grandma Murphy
- Stacey TravisStacey TravisStacey Travis is an American actress whose films include Earth Girls Are Easy , Hardware , The Super , Traffic , and Ghost World . Travis starred on the comedy TV series Just Say Julie from 1989–1992 where she played a variety of characters...
as Jeri Reynolds - A. Michael BaldwinA. Michael BaldwinA. Michael Baldwin is an American actor, producer, and screenwriter.He is the son of animator Gerard Baldwin, who worked on classic shows such as The Jetsons, Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle and many more. Michael Baldwin began acting in his teens and was also a member of the Teenage...
as Young Mike - J. Patrick McNamara as Psychologist
- Mark Anthony Major as Mortician
Production
This is the only installment in the Phantasm series that does not include the entire original main cast (Bill Thornbury and his character did not appear in this film), and the only one to replace a main character with another actor. After acquiring the greenlight to make the film, Universal executives insisted on replacing the two main characters of Mike and Reggie with recognizable actors instead of the original ones. Don Coscarelli resisted their efforts and was forced to audition A. Michael Baldwin and Reggie Bannister for the opportunity to reprise their roles. His efforts won him a concession: he was allowed to keep one of the two, but had to replace the other; Coscarelli chose to keep Reggie Bannister, and cast James LeGros in Baldwin's place. This is why Mike's face is never shown in the flashback scenes shot for this film as Baldwin was not cast, and thus, a stuntwoman stood in his place.The casting of James LeGros has had a conflicted effect on the cast members. LeGros reportedly enjoyed his time on the production and got along very well with the cast and crew; even 20 years later, Coscarelli, Scrimm, and Bannister speak glowingly of their experience with him. A. Michael Baldwin, however, appears to remain bitter about the incident: in the audio commentary for Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, he twice referred to Phantasm II as "the film which shan't be named."
The budget of this film is reported as $3,000,000.00, the largest of all the Phantasm films, but allegedly the lowest of any Universal production in the 1980s.
There is a slight ret-con at the beginning of the film: footage from the first film originally showed Reggie and Mike at Mike's house. In Phantasm II, these scenes take place in Reggie's house. A new set that has some distinct differences from the original film is utilized. The new set recreates the fireplace, gun-rack, bedroom and hallway (now upstairs) seen in Phantasm, but there are some obvious changes to create the impression that we are now in a different location. This creates a continuity error when Mike runs up the spiral staircase to the right of the fireplace. After the footage from the first film ends, the spiral staircase has vanished and been replaced by a mini-bar. This requires Reggie to run up a different flight of steps to get to Mike. It is not clear why director Coscarelli chose to include the shots of the spiral staircase, since this represents an obvious error in continuity.
The US television edit of Phantasm II is sought after by fans because of its inclusion of alternate shots and slightly altered sequences from the theatrical cut and a slightly different narrative.
In the scene in the mortuary the mortician pounds the bones after a cremation and places them in a plastic bag. The name on the bag is Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
, which appears to be a reference to the movie director of the same name.