"Phantasm II" is as good a sequel to Don Coscarellis' original shocker as one could hope for. Essentially, it's to its predecessor what "Aliens" was to "Alien": a genre crossing movie that puts the accent on action, and lots of it. It's exciting, gleefully macabre stuff that has a real fun factor going for it.
It gets down to business fairly quickly, picking up where the first film left off and then fast forwarding to several years later when Mike (James Le Gros) is being released from a mental hospital. Mike is still determined to battle the nefarious Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and convinces his good buddy Reg (Reggie Bannister) to join him in the fight. They track their nemesis down to a small Oregon town (named Perigrod) and find that he's still up to his old tricks.
One has to take some bad with the good considering that this was a major studio sequel to an independently made classic. The budget allows for greater scope and super-duper effects, but Universal flexed its muscle and made sure that this was a more linear and less surreal movie than "Phantasm" one. They also made Bannister and A. Michael Baldwin audition for their old roles, and in the end would only let Coscarelli keep one of them. It was also their idea to give Mike a love interest, a sweet gal named Liz (Paula Irvine) to whom Mike is psychically connected.
What's truly a delight here is seeing the affable Bannister ascend to the role of a badass hero. He and Le Gros make a good team as they vow to fight evil. Their impromptu shopping trip calls to mind a similar sequence with Arnold in the action favourite "Commando". Scrimm gets barely any screen time, but in this case a little does go a long way; we always look forward to his next appearance. Samantha Phillips adds some sex appeal as hitchhiker Alchemy, busy character actor Kenneth Tigar does alright as a frightened priest, and Stacey Travis ("Hardware") has a brief part as Liz's sister. The atmosphere is still good (one of the most successful aspects to the film is seeing the damage wrought by the Tall Man and his minions, as Mike and Reg pass through towns that have become forlorn wastelands) and Daryn Okadas' cinematography is excellent. The infamous spheres are back and the makeup effects and gore (supervised by Mark Shostrom) are fun to watch - and not as "unrelenting" as Leonard Maltins' paperback review would have you believe. The music by Fred Myrow and Christopher L. Stone is the icing on the cake; that theme still has the power to chill.
Overall, "Phantasm II" is a must for horror and action fans and holds up as prime '80s entertainment.
Eight out of 10.
