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| Phantasm II | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Credits | |
| Title: | Phantasm II |
| Directed by: | Don Coscarelli |
| Written by: | Don Coscarelli |
| Produced by: | Dac Coscarelli; Roberto A. Quezada; Robert Del Valle |
| Music by: | Fred Myrow; Christopher L. Stone |
| Cinematography: | Daryn Okada |
| Edited by: | Peter Teschner |
| Production | |
| Distributors: | Universal Pictures Starway International, Inc. Spacegate Productions |
| Released: | July 8th, 1988 |
| Rating: | R |
| Running time: | 97 min. |
| Country: | USA |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $3,000,000 [1] |
| Gross: | $5,667,120 [2] |
| Navigation | |
| Previous: | Phantasm |
| Next: | Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead |
Phantasm II is an American feature film of the horror genre. It is the first sequel of the 1979 cult classic, Phantasm, and was once again written and directed by franchise creator Don Coscarelli. The film was produced by Starway International, Inc. and Spacegate Productions and distributed through Universal Pictures. It premiered in Los Angeles, California on July 8th, 1988. The film stars James LeGros in the lead role of Mike, replacing Michael Baldwin from the first film. Reggie Bannister returns as Reggie with Angus Scrimm once again assuming the role of the mysterious Tall Man. It is seven years after the first Phantasm. Mike is now an adult and still having visions of the Tall Man. His old pal Reggie and he jump in their muscle car and track the Tall Man to Perigore, Oregon. The dwarves are back, and this time their balls are bigger than ever!
Plot[]
Liz has got stuff on her mind.
A young woman named Liz Murphy reads through her diary. Liz apparently has acute visions that most other people can’t seem to perceive. She dreams of a Tall Man who robs graves for their dead. She knows that her grandfather will pass away soon and that he will become a victim of the tall mortician. She also dreams of a man named Mike Pearson.
Cut to a flashback from seven years prior. Mike is thirteen years old and has just discovered that everything he had experienced with the Tall Man had just been a delusional dream. He goes up to his room only to be attacked by the Tall Man's dwarf slaves. His guardian Reggie hears a noise and goes to investigate. A robed dwarf leaps from a cupboard and attacks the older man. Reggie beats him down with the butt of a shotgun and runs upstairs to rescue Mike. After grabbing Mike, he opens up all the gas valves in the house and the home explodes soon after. Burnt dwarves are found everywhere. Reggie seemingly has no knowledge of this event however, and it appears to be nothing more than an aspect of Mike's dreamscape.
In the present, Mike Pearson is a patient at the Morningside Psychiatric Clinic. He is about to be released after having been a patient since his first encounter with the Tall Man. Mike is still a little unstable, but he convinces the doctor into believing that he is cured of his delusions.
No sooner does he get out of the hospital than he is found at a cemetery digging up a grave. His old pal Reggie happens upon him and inquires as to what he is doing. Mike explains that the Tall Man is at it again and shows Reggie how all of the graves at the cemetery are empty. Reggie still has no knowledge of the Tall Man or his dwarves.
Reggie takes him in his car and they go to Reggie's house. Mike has a flash vision of Reggie’s house exploding and he tries to warn him. As soon as they pull into the driveway, Mike;s vision comes to pass, and Reggie's entire family dies in the exploding house.
Ash, eat your heart out!
They attend a quick memorial service the following day and Reggie now believes Mike's story. Easily getting over the loss of his family, Reggie agrees to join Mike in his crusade to hunt down the Tall Man.
They break into a hardware store and steal a cache of supplies. They take chainsaws, bal peen hammers, shotguns, shovels, pistols and flamethrowers. Reggie fashions himself a four-barrel shotgun made up of multiple weapon components.
WTF????
They take off cross-country following the Tall Man's trail. They end up in a small ghost town completely devoid of life. The two investigate Marius Cemetery and find an old mortuary. Mike investigates the lower levels and finds an attractive, young, naked corpse lying on an embalming table. They also find a terrified blonde girl cowering in the corner with a sheet draped around her. This is Liz Murphy. Liz has the same psychic abilities as Mike, and the two are aware of one another due to their shared visions. Suddenly, a grotesque creature begins ripping out of Liz's back and it bears the face of the Tall Man. The Tall Man tells Mike to "Go east!" if he wants to find him. Reggie roasts him with his flamethrower, but this turns out to merely be one of Mike's visions.
Meanwhile in Perigord Oregon, the actual Liz Murphy attends the funeral of her grandfather. After the funeral, the attending priest, Father Meyers,who has the same talents as Liz and Mike, stabs the corpse with a large pin. The corpse however still rises from the dead and returns to his old home to kidnap his wife.
The Tall Man is DYING to meet you!
Mike and Reggie pick up a hitchhiker named Alchemy. Mike recalls seeing a corpse resembling Alchemy at the Marius Mortuary in his dream/vision. He thinks that she may spell trouble. Reggie doesn't really care, owing largely to his increasing libido. Alchemy takes them into Perigord where they stay at an old bed & breakfast owned by her uncle. They set up booby traps all over the building in case the Tall Man sends any of his slaves after them.
Meanwhile, Liz discovers that her grandmother has been kidnapped by the Tall Man. She races down to Perigord Mortuary to see what she can find out. She finds the priest, Father Meyers, who warns her that they must stop the Tall Man before he can steal anybody else's corpse. The Tall Man finds Meyers and begins to strangle him with his own rosary beads. The priest escapes and runs down the corridor. The Tall Man releases one of the silver Sentinel spheres and it races after Meyers, slicing off one of his ears. The sphere turns, and races back to bury itself into his forehead. While the Tall Man is busy with Meyers, Liz turns the corner and finds that her grandmother has been transformed into one of the robed dwarves. She smashes her grandmother across the face with an urn and then leaves the mortuary.
Father Meyers has a splitting headache!
Mike and Reg then go down to the cemetery to try and find traces of the Tall Man. Mike finally meets Liz and they take her back to the Perigord Bed & Breakfast. Later that night, Reggie takes Alchemy up into the bedroom to have sex. Shortly thereafter, he hears an explosion. The Tall Man has tripped the booby traps and succeeded in kidnapping Liz.
Liz is taken back to the mortuary where an embalmer straps her down to a table that feeds into the crematorium. She escapes and manages to shove him into the flames himself. Mike and Reg finally trace her back to the mortuary. Reggie replaces the mortician's embalming fluid tanks with Hydrochloric acid. Mike and Liz race down a corridor where they encounter another mortician as well as one of the flying spheres. They dodge the racing orb and it pins the mortician's hand to the wall. Another sphere appears. This one is a gold ball with whirring circular blades. Not being a weapon of great discrimination, it hunts down the easiest target, namely the man that is nailed to the wall. The mortician is forced to hack his own hand off with a hatchet in order to escape. The gold ball eventually burrows into the man's stomach and burrows its way up through his face.
"Heeeeere's Reggie!"
Meanwhile, Reggie is in a downstairs basement where he faces off with a gravedigger wearing a gas mask. The two get into a chainsaw duel with one another and Reg ultimately comes out on top when he brings his saw blade up through his opponent's crotch. Before heading upstairs he is cornered by four of the dwarf slaves. Firing just a single shot from his four-barrel shotgun, Reggie takes down every dwarf.
Reg eventually meets up again with Liz and Mike, who have discovered the secret chamber that leads into the Tall Man's home dimension. The Tall Man attacks them and smacks Reggie across the floor.
"Well, at least I still have five fingers".
Mike grabs one of the silver spheres and sends it into the Tall Man's forehead. A gout of yellow fluid erupts from the back of the device at it slurps out all of the Tall Man's brain matter. He removes the sphere from his head and crushes it in his hand. A strange insect pincer comes out from the head wound and tries to lunge at Mike. While the Tall Man concentrates his attention on Mike, Liz attacks him from behind. She plants one of the embalming tubes into his neck and feeds him the Hydrochloric acid that Reg had dumped in there earlier. The Tall Man screams in agony as the acid burns through him, turning him into a large bubbling pile of burning slime.
Mike, Reggie and Liz leave the mortuary, confident that they have ended the Tall Man's menace for good. Alchemy is waiting outside with a hearse that she hot-wired earlier. As they drive away, Alchemy reveals herself to be an agent of the Tall Man and seemingly kills Reggie. Mike and Liz are pulled out the back window of the hearse by a bunch of dwarves.
Did all of this really happen? Or is it all just another dreamlike phantasm?
Cast[]
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| James LeGros | Mike Pearson |
| Reggie Bannister | Reggie |
| Angus Scrimm | The Tall Man |
| Paula Irvine | Liz Murphy |
| Samantha Phillips | Alchemy |
| Kenneth Tigar | Father Meyers |
| Ruth C. Engel | Grandma |
| Mark Anthony Major | Mortician |
| Rubin Kushner | Grandpa |
| Stacey Travis | Jeri |
| J. Patrick McNamara | Psychologist |
| Michael Baldwin | Young Mike |
| Amanda Gray | Background player |
| Elizabeth Quezada | Background player |
| Lauren Gray | Background player |
| June Jordan | Background player |
| Megan Gibbons | Background player |
| Craig Murkey | Background player |
| Amanda Gibbons | Background player |
| Troy Fromin | Background player |
| Georgeanna Valdez | Background player |
| Guy Alford | Background player |
| Irene Korman | Background player |
| Ricky Murkey | Background player |
| Katie Carlin | Background player |
| Delia Ortega | Background player |
| Lee Craig | Background player |
| Ramona Ortega | Background player |
| Richard F. Berry | Background player |
| Patrick W. Allen | Background player |
Notes & Trivia[]
- Copyright holder: © 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII), Spacegate Corporation.
- Phantasm II (1988) redirects to this page.
- The tagline for this film is, "For ten years the secret of Perigord Cemetery has remained a mystery. Now the ultimate evil is about to be revealed". Other taglines use variations of the word "ball", such as "The ball is back!", "After ten years... the ball is back!", and "This summer, have a ball!"
- Production on Phantasm II began on December 9th, 1987.
- Phantasm II was filmed in Los Angeles, California. [3]
- Phantasm II was released as a collector's edition Blu-ray by Shout Factory on March 26th, 2013.
- Actor James Le Gros is credited as James LeGros in this film.
- Actor A. Michael Baldwin is credited as Michael Baldwin in this film.
- Actor Phil Fondacaro plays one of the hooded dwarves in Phantasm II. He is uncredited for his participation in this film.
- Actor Ed Gale plays one of the hooded dwarves in Phantasm II. He is uncredited for his participation in this film.
- This is Don Coscarelli's fifth film as both a director and a writer. It is his second horror film, the first being the original Phantasm.
- Executive producer Dac Coscarelli is the father of director and writer Don Coscarelli.
- This is the first, and to date, only known film work for Elizabeth Quezada.
- Editor Peter Teschner also worked on the 1990 film Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, which also featured Reggie Bannister in the cast.
Recommendations[]
- Bubba Ho-Tep - Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Masters of Horror: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road - Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Phantasm - Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead - Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Phantasm IV: Oblivion - Directed by Don Coscarelli
If you like films that begin with the letter "P", which were also released in 1988, then check out:
See also[]
External Links[]
References[]
- ↑ IMDB; Phantasm II (1988); Box office & business.
- ↑ Box Office Mojo; Phantasm II (1988); Domestic Total Gross.
- ↑ IMDB; Phantasm II (1988); Filming locations.
Keywords[]
Axe | Burn victims | Chainsaw | Coffin | Crucifix | Disintegration | Dwarves | Evisceration | Eye injury | Flamethrower | Funeral home | Head injury | Power tools | Shotgun
 This article relates to the films within the Phantasm franchise. This template will categorize articles that include it into the Phantasm films category. |