How I would have made Ravager

After viewing this movie, I feel that it strayed off the beaten path of familiar settings and tone that the series had going for it. The shifting realities didn't seem to work all that well narratively. Considering how small the budget was, I would have avoided doing many day scenes, filming mostly at night. It would have hidden the limitations far easier. I would have brought Mike in far earlier who would catch up to Reggie while driving around in the desert. The two would then meet up with Rocky, who they would drive through one of the portal gates and end up at the Morningside Mortuary, bringing them back to their home town. Reggie and Mike would walk around the dilapidated neighborhoods and reflect on how things used to be different. To achieve the ruins and the town, I would do small location shots of the first Phantasm location and overlap it with other scenery of some ghost towns to film a day of shooting in. That way no sets or sound studios would be needed for this. Cost effective.

I would ease up on the spheres and save them for the end, and have the gravers be the main force to attack the crew. The climax would be them entering the mortuary after gearing up, and entering into the red world like in the movie. From here however things would be different. Here the trio would stumble across an army of spheres and dwarves all preparing for a full scale invasion, not just in their world, but in thousands of other dimensions. What they had experienced up until this point was just scouts probing territories and sending information back. Some heavy use of CGI would be needed here, but it managed that fine in the movie.

Tall Man would reveal himself as using the hordes of dead bodies to not only build an army, but supply himself with an endless supply of replacements when he is damaged. The original gateway he made from Phantasm 4 would be the source of his power, sustaining all the other gateways. Rocky would go down fighting, being hit with multiple spheres, but would go down blowing him up in a suicide run much like the midget character, but more dramatic and shot at a close up so we can see Tall Man have a moment of fear and confusion.

Reggie and Mike would head for the master portal, with Tall Man re emerging from the gate offering Mike a chance to shape any reality he wants if he were to surrender and join him. Tall Man would throw Reggie back, with the dwarves descending upon him to rip him to shreds. Mike would say he would never live in a world without Reggie, and in a moment showing friendship triumphing over evil, Mike would pick up Reggie's shotgun and blast the Tall Man back as the two put one hand on the pillars. The other gates begin to close, and Tall Man begins to lose his strength. You see the world collapsing, and his body begin to crack and light pour out.

He shouts one last "BOOOOOOYYYYYYYYY" before everything explodes into light.
Cut back to 1979. Fade in on the deleted scene we saw from part 4 of Reggie driving his ice cream truck around as young Mike follows him and jumps on the back. Movie ends with him smiling, as the Phantasm theme triumphantly ends us.