PHANTASM 3: LORD OF THE DEAD

Hot on the heels of their special release of the influential fear fest Phantasm, Anchor Bay surprises us with a new transfer of its less successful yet strangely enticing second sequel, Phantasm (3): Lord of the Dead. Revisiting key characters and motifs of the original, this surrealistic nightmare of mortality and tortured afterlife has been largely ignored by the genre community, but while lacking the fierce energy of the original, this addition to the ever-developing Tall Man mythology is a worthwhile story energized by unique scares, juicy effects, and dark humor. A campy ride carnival ride into a post-modern apocalypse of culpability and greed, this special edition DVD is the authoritative release, featuring the unrated version of the film with a handful of exciting extras.

Picking up immediately after the events of the first sequel, which was more of a remake, this uneven if visually rewarding feast of decadent imagery and bad one-liners preserves the weird menace and unearthly themes of the series while opening a whole new floodgate of questions. Ignoring elements of the darker second instalment, this plot features Mike, Liz, Alchemy, and Reggie who, after killing the Tall Man, leaves the Perigord cemetery in a hearse . . . until the Alchemy character (remember her?) pulls out a clump of her hair and attacks Reggie. The hearse pulls over, Reg falls out, and the hearse crashes. Reggie wakes to find Liz dead, Mike unconscious, and their psychic link null. Meanwhile, in a turn of nightmarish illogic, the Tall Man, who is dead, simply steps out of his dimensional gate, all fixed up. While he and his dwarves hunt for more prey, Mike and Reggie return home to find Jody, Mike's dead brother, having been transformed into one of the Tallman's deadly flying spheres. Kidnapping Mike, the Tall Man disappears, leaving Reggie to get hijacked by street sleaze until he meets up with a feisty boy with a penchant for survival. Together they look for Mike and pick up yet another member, the rather irritating 'tough girl' Tanesha. Throughout a mysterious game is played between Mike and his brother, and loyalties questioned. The Tall Man seeks to convince Mike that he may be connected to him in a horribly intimate manner, and more questions are asked than ever answered, making the film satisfying in its enigmatic mystery but agitating in its inability (or refusal?) to draw any of the various elements of this inconsistent mythology together. Despite this qualm, the film looks terrific, moves quickly, and evokes a malignant dread peppered with dark humor and amazing effects.

Phantasm (3) preserves a surprising amount of the series' individualistic attitude and eccentricity, feeling like a seventies film. The subtext remains as honest, grim, and socially conscious as before, showing the outsiders as heroes and the sleeping status quo as either bumbling idiots or as opportunistic criminals. Celebrating suggestion over blatant gore, the film's few scenes of violence are effective -- all the more so because they are offset and surrounded by carefully maintained narrative suspense and fantastical mood. Throughout the movie (and the series in general), fear is maintained not simply of death but, more importantly, the dread of not knowing who the Tall Man truly is or why he acts as he does. This is a pivotal point as Mike's character takes a surprising turn, implicated with the very monster he battles.

Anchor Bay releases this dark fantasy in a new transfer in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen. The image is much better than the previous DVD release, without the grain that marred that disc. Deep, vibrant colors retain their strangely foreboding beauty, and skin tones are believable. Audio is offered in both Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio tracks, both of which are clean and clearly distribute music and effects, while I found the later superior.

Extras for Phantasm (3): Lord of the Dead are impressive for a disk that until now has enjoyed little by way of supplements. The first and most worthwhile extra is the Audio Commentary by Michael Baldwin and Angus Scrimm, both of which are personable and exciting to hear from as they remember specific shooting incidents, their overall impression of this film and the series as a whole, and their experience of working with the director. Also enjoyable is "PHANTASM III: Behind the Scenes," a featurette that gives deeper insight into the atmosphere and mechanics of the production, and gives one the feeling of having attended the actual shoot. A Deleted Scene is next, followed by trailers for PHANTASM and PHANTASM III.

Review by William P. Simmons