Phantasm 4: Oblivion
Mike: "God damn you to hell."
Tall Man: "Not possible."
release year: 1998
genre: horror
viewing setting: home DVD 3/30/23
synopsis: The unexplainable, meandering encounters with the Tall Man and his minions continues.
impressions: This one picks up right after the last one, and does a good, quick recap of past events. The problem is, since those events didn't always make sense, neither did the recap. I also suspect some of these particular flashback scenes contained unused footage from the first movie. Anyhow, there at last seemed to be some clear direction, and there was also a basic origin given for the bad guy...but the plot holes and unexplained things continued to happen. Why would the one guy suddenly not want to help his friend who he's been helping for the last three movies? Why would the one brother think help was coming when he fled from his allies before and told them not to follow him? We also have the continuing problem of a villain who can't be killed...he's been stabbed, drained of brain fluid, emblamed with acid, frozen...and those are just the apparent death blows that I can remember! This movie continues the trend of inconsistency...why would an evil-controlled car NOT take the victim to where the evil guy wanted him to be? Why and how did one character develop some sort of powers? What's the deal with the constantly lost/returning older brother? It's like the director has some grand vision in each of these movies, but isn't able to translate that into a finished product that anyone other then him can understand.
acting: The "main four" (two brothers, ice-cream-man-turned-fighter Reg, and the evil Tall Man) all return, and that's about all there is here other than a short-lived woman who Reg encounters.
final word: The latest (and mostly incoherent) piece of a larger 5-part series.
back to the main review page