Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

Strong and Moving!

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Just watched this series of movies for the first time, and was very disappointed at the ending of Oblivion, there was so much promise in the story and characters, even tho it was getting pretty silly. In the end they just "dropped the ball" on everything, so to speak..I strongly recommend these movies to any horror/action movie fan, but its a huge shame the last movie was so.. just overall crappy. In lack of a better way of describing it. All the suspense and mystery was totally gone towards the end, and replaced with confusion and despair, as the movie suffered towards its inevitable credits text, leaving the viewer feeling sad and empty, almost betrayed.I struggled to give this movie a 4 rating.

Not in the least bit thrilling, or scary, or funny, or full of action. Any one of which could make for a decent horror film. I found myself yawning throughout most of it.The last few weeks I've been catching up on the sequels to Phantasm after having just become aware of them. I didn't like II very much for its randomness, and lack of Michael Baldwin. III was entertaining and over-the-top, but even though Michael Baldwin returned, we didn't get to see much of him during that flick.And then we get this one, where we see him a lot. In extreme close-up. And I mean, a LOT. Perhaps they were trying to make up for his lack of screen time in the previous one. Or perhaps because they only had about six characters in the whole movie. MB was a nice-looking kid, but as a thirtysomething adult a few more medium shots might have worked better.The biggest fault of this movie is that it's BORING. Lots of reaction shots, plot points that come out of nowhere, plot points that go nowhere. Literally, the middle of nowhere, which is where Michael spends half the movie. In the desert by himself.Only one or two memorable scenes in the whole movie (notably the motel surprise). I actually enjoyed the flashback sequences more and wish they'd used some more of that rediscovered film, or even worked in the deleted scenes from the first one.

The fourth part of the Phantasm series is, as all before it, the continuation of the previous film, almost 20 years from the first. Mike Baldwin again is Mike, Reggie Bannister again is Reggie and Bill Thornbury is... well, Jody. Sort of. An attempt of explaining what happened is made, why The Tall Man seems so indomitable and yet he never gets the hero, with many self referential jokes and an origin story.This was funny at times, spooky most of the time, but mainly because of the music and the seriousness of Mike. The Tall Man speaks more and makes his evil faces. There are more chicks that Reggie can't bone and more scenes where the huge four barrel shotgun is completely useless. The story makes a little more sense than in the other three films, but not by much. In many ways, it showed the way the film could have gone, maybe with a little more focus on the characters and story and with a grimmer feel. The ending felt pretty disappointing, though.

No, I didn't hate this movie and I actually think it is one of the more watchable ones within its series. It however still remains a very messy movie and a poorly done and told one.You would think that director Don Coscarelli after 4 movies would really have lots of love for all of its characters and stories but none of this can be seen back on the screen really. Hardly any effort seems to be put in its story and it's just a mess of random occurring stuff. After 4 movies I still haven't really got a clue what the the story is all about. It doesn't help that they keep adding stuff, such as time traveling and Jedi powers, which only all adds up to the confusion of the story.The series has been much liked for it's mixture of horror and comedy but I just think neither of those two elements ever work out strong enough, in neither of the 4 movies actually. It's why I'm just not a big fan at all of the series.To be honest, the movie started out quite promising for me but it soon took a turn for the worse. It seems to be a trend with all the 4 movies that the second half is so messy and uninteresting, as if they were running out of ideas every time they were making these movies.But like I mentioned, it still is one of the more watchable movies out of its series. Things flow more pleasantly and the movie seemed to be full with plenty of potentially good ideas but none of them ever gets executed really well enough. It's a movie filled with missed opportunities and it's as if just a little bit more effort was put into its script, this could had actually been a decent, entertaining movie. So I'm not too sad about it that this movie (at this moment) remains the last one of the series. It also became painfully obviously in this movie how old all of the actors were starting to get. The first movie "Phantasm" got released in 1979, so almost 20 years had passed between the first movie and this one. The kid actors from the first one are all adults now and around their 40's. Reggie Bannister also suddenly started to look very old in this and it should be a law that a person who has lost already 70% of his hair just can't wear a ponytail. But even more shockingly old was Angus Scrimm as the tall man. He always looked old, in all of the movies but in this one he suddenly looks ancient. But in fact he only was in his early 70's at the time of this movie and he actually is still alive and working as well now days, which can't be said for most of the other actors within this movie. But fact remains they were starting to look too old in this movie to still convincingly work out an action like battle between good and evil. I prefer to watch "The Expendables" instead then, thank you very much!It's almost the best out of the series but that really isn't saying much.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/