In the small town of Perigord, Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), is performing a real selection on the inhabitants: after killing them he uses their bodies as automatons and imprisons some brains inside creepy (and feral) metal spheres...
Reggie and Mike, accompanied by a young girl endowed with telekinetic powers, set out on the trail of the ferocious gravedigger, not without first having to clash with monstrous creatures and tremendous flying orbs (some developed to the function of spy probes)...
Second installment of a decidedly convoluted series, but visually effective and strong with a soundtrack comparable to those of the better-known Exorcist or Deep Red...
The film depicts a whole series of original visual effects (most notably that of an orb penetrating inside a body and spilling out of its mouth) and is distinguished by a "far-fetched" and hallucinatory atmosphere, well contoured by the characterization of Angus Scrimm (a very tall man with a disturbing face, particularly suited to the role)...
A few references (in an ironic key) to Don't Open That Door (the duel between Reggie and a Tall Man, performed with a chainsaw), moments of pure delirium (the midgets infiltrating, nightly, Mike's room) and incredible sequences of pure graphic violence (the foreheads dripping blood, after the drilling of the mini-drill of the spheres) make Phantasm 2 a reference point for all fans of the genre...
Angus Scrimm also appears in the unfortunate Fatal Frames (here, too, he lurks as a menacing shadow inside a cemetery), following Al Festa's intended homage to Coscarelli's cycle...
A pure escapist film that entertains and remains indelibly etched in the memory...
Review by Undying1
