Review, long, no spoilers
This is whittled down from a longer and more personal review I posted on another site. Was gonna submit in the reviews section but not sure whether IMDb claims ownership of submissions. Upshot for TLDRers: I loved it, allowing for the conditions behind its creation.
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“The American way of death”, that's what writer/director Don Coscarelli said he wanted to explore with Phantasm What we got was a movie about how it's sometimes scarier to be the one surviving. Young Mike lost his parents and now lives in terror of losing what little he has left of life: his older brother Jody loves him but aches to dump him with someone else and take off. Phantasm deals with the bonds of loyalty and abiding love between the brothers and their friend Reggie, an ice cream vendor. It's about the fear of abandonment, of being alone.
The trio have become entangled with the Tall Man, an alien in human form who empties cemeteries, re-animating the dead as slaves. The Tall Man proves to be their dissolution. Mike, Reggie, and Jody will spend the sequels trying to find each other. Phantasm: Ravager, the fifth film in the series, promoted as the one that will bring resolution.
Ravager picks up not long after the finale of Phantasm IV: Oblivion. As Oblivion ends, the Tall Man has taken Mike's mind (literally, encased in a metal orb). Reg sets off to rescue his friend.
Reg wanders the desert, still on Earth but maybe not his Earth. A couple of killer sphere drones aren't far behind him. In a nasty shock he suddenly finds himself in a wheelchair in the garden of a care facility. “They bring us here to die”, says a fellow patient with a familiar face. Mike is there too, coming to visit him. Mike knows nothing about tall men or aliens. What he knows is that his dear friend has been diagnosed with dementia.
Which life is real? Mike floats a theory of alternate realities. Reg may have gone Billy Pilgrim, unstuck between realms. I think there is more than one Reg, one for each alternate reality, and that as some hop back and forth their experiences are bleeding into the mind of yet another. As a theory this covers a number of discontinuities in previous films – there's more than one Mike and Jody, aware they are dealing with shifting realities and misaligned memories but not knowing why.
Ravager is Reg's story as he bounces back and forth between realities, either of which may be unreal. Reggie faces the loss of his own mind at the end of his life preceded by the loss of identity, dignity, autonomy, and sanity. Which is the more desirable existence, an ignominious decline and death as a nobody in an uncaring facility, or being the hero of a fantastical realm standing against impossible odds to defend friends? Which is more credible?
I love all of the films in this series, but II, III, and IV do not deal with issues as I and V do. This, I think, is what elevates Ravager above its low indie budget.
If you want solutions, this is not the film for you. Part of Phantasm's allure is that we are presented with facets of a mystery without explanation. Currently many phans are disputing the worth of Ravager for its nondisclosure. For myself, the last thing I wanted was an explanation which could only serve to make that realm a smaller one, amputating the possibilities hinted at. Simply, it's a richer universe in our imaginations than it could be if confined to the screen.
The closure promised is not of the plot points but of emotional bonds that have been straining to reunite since 1979.
One of the reasons I expect that there will never be another sequel is the recent passing of Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man. Mr. Scrimm was a versatile and much beloved character actor whose indelible, captivating, and intense portrayal of the Tall Man made an immediate impact. There could never be another Tall Man. Without him, the conflict of our protagonists has no center and no weight. I never had the pleasure of meeting Angus Scrimm but everyone who did attests that he was the kindest, most outgoing of souls. The audience I was with applauded loudly his first appearance in Ravager and the dedication to him in the closing credits. You played a good game, sir.
It's a delightful performance. Scrimm's Tall Man is an exercise in graceful menace as his face and vocal inflections dance from arrogance, amusement, frustration, curiosity all bubbling just underneath his unshakable poise.
Scrimm also gives us another glimpse of Jebediah Morningside, the human who first opened the doorway to the alien realm and whose body became the template for the entity known as the Tall Man. Morningside was a kind and decent man who wanted nothing but good for his fellow man. Jebediah is another resident in the care home. One quiet moment broke my heart: Jebediah crossing the hall and looking up at Reg, his body shockingly old and frail, taken by the ravages of time. The sad look in his eyes... “I'm afraid this body of mine is nearly finished.” It's an ironic note from Jebediah, an omen from the Tall Man, and an acknowledgment from Angus to us his many fans.
Noted above, the movie is limited in budget. That's putting it mildly, Ravager began as a series of webisodes involving the adventures of Reggie alone. These were the work of David Hartman, an animator at Disney who contributed to earlier Coscarelli films. These were done with Coscarelli's blessing, and together they modified the series into a feature film. Ravager was self-financed, Hartman directed. This results in some of the fx work not being up to par and the camerawork being subject to diminished means. Frankly, it looks a lot better than I'd feared. Working a coherent – and achievable - story from these shorts must have been challenging, We get new characters when it would have been more rewarding to see more of some of the series regular who appear too briefly.
The audience I was with applauded may times throughout.