Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Don Coscarelli

Starring: Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Gloria Lynne Henry, Bill Thornbury, Angus Scrimm

From: Starway International, Inc.

One of those movies that has a personal backstory attached to it. This is also one of those reviews where it will be a few paragraphs before the film itself is discussed. In the past, the first two pictures in the franchise were reviewed; neither was the first I saw a part of. In 1996 during 8th grade back when I still lived in Illinois, my school offered an educational field trip to Washington, D.C. My parents paid for it as many historical places would be visited.

It was a lot of fun; a dominant memory of that trip since March of ’96 wasn’t the plane ride there and back or any specific building we toured. Rather, one night me and three other boys assigned to a hotel room watched Lord of the Dead. We were boys in a hotel room w/ at least one premium cable station, of course a horror film would be seen because it was on. Well, it wasn’t watched from the beginning and none of us had seen any of the Phantasm movies. We were all baffled as to what in the world was going on! 

There’s no good explanation as to why it took this long to finally view the third installment-especially after tackling the second film in 2019-but that wrong has finally been righted. The first film is a bizarre, dream-logic sort of captivating journey, featuring a lovable trio of leads & iconic elements such as The Tall Man and the flying spheres. The second film had studio interference, thus explaining the relatively straightforward plot and the recasting of Mike. I still liked the film; after all, there are TWO massive house explosions in the first 15 minutes. This third installment… it’s as baffling IN context.

Returning is A. Michael Baldwin as Michael, but he’s kidnapped early on… there are a pair of new sidekicks: an ex-military Black woman who Reggie is HORNY for (yes, due to our age all us boys found that funny at the time) and a young boy who somehow survived a long time on his own in an abandoned town… also, Bill Thornbury returns as Jody. I’ll spoil this to give one example of this movie’s insanity. He’s in the afterlife, but his spirit is stuck in a sphere that The Tall Man turns black-long story-but he can still appear in dreams and sometimes he’s in human form IRL, because reasons… you can understand why 8th grade boys w/ no foreknowledge of the series would be utterly perplexed by what was going on.

Most of the film was long-forgotten due to the passage of so much time. Henceforth, there was enjoyment in discovering what wild pivots, what unexpected moments would happen next. The plot was of the wacky sort you’d only get w/ an independent production but I was also quite entertained. I was also entertained by Reggie Bannister, this time the obvious lead. It’s a shame that he’s been in rather poor health this year. For those that were disappointed that The Tall Man did not appear that often in II, III remedied that criticism. In addition, there’s more spheres, further expanding of the lore, gruesome horror moments and bizarre bits.

It shouldn’t have taken nearly 30 years but I’m glad this loop was finally closed after such a long passage of time. The fourth and fifth films in the series are evidently worse than the first three. I’m OK with stopping here if that’s the case. Phantasms 1 through 3 are a wild trilogy, wholly different from one another yet they still work as a trio; I envy those who saw all three in their youth, which in hindsight I wish that opportunity would have been taken.