r/moviecritic • u/DarkBehindTheStars • 1d ago

Phantasm Series (And Ranking)

Not sure how many Horror fans are here and am wondering how many fans of this series are here. Always been one of my very favorite Horror series if not my outright favorite, mainly purely based off of the first two although I also think the third and fourth ones were pretty good as well (and also quite impressive despite their small budgets). The first two always see regular rotation from me every October as part of my Halloween playlist and the season never feels complete without them. The Tall Man is definitely among the more unique of the Horror icons and he was played to perfection by the late, great Angus Scrimm throughout all five. The series is such a great blend of surrealism and mind-bending Horror with some fun Action elements sprinkled throughout. And who doesn't love the iconic flying death spheres.

May as well rank them while I'm at it. For other fans, how would you rank them? Mine goes:

  • Phantasm II
  • Phantasm
  • Phantasm IV: Oblivion
  • Phantasm III: Lord Of The Dead
  • Phantasm V: Ravager

2 has always very easily been my favorite of the series. It's literally not only my favorite Horror film, but one of my favorite movies in general. With the bigger budget you can tell so much more was able to be accomplished. It's like a vintage Survival Horror video game from the 90s as a movie. I have a lot of love and respect for the original as well, but it's always hard not to look at 2 as being the definitive entry.

The first two are classics, 3 and 4 are very good, but the fifth was sadly clearly held back by the very low budget. You can tell they tried their best but the budget and means just weren't there to do it justice. Still, I'm glad we finally got a fifth and final movie, and in light of Reggie Bannister's recent passing, it definitely hits much harder. Still so sad by his passing :(

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u/Corrosive-Knights 7h ago

This is obviously IMHO, but the Phantasm series for me goes best to least in order of release…!

So, yeah, Pantasm is my favorite, followed by Phantasm II, then III, then IV, and finally V. The final film is the one that really makes me scratch my head because it started pretty well and actually seemed to be going into interesting new story territory but then fell apart as it went along, alas.

Btw, I saw the original Phantasm in/around the time it was originally released (cough-old-fart-cough) and at the time I was roughly the age of the movie’s protagonist which made the whole thing all that much more interesting and relevant to me. Sure the movie was rough around the edges but when the silver ball first appeared, and what it did, I was literally trembling in my seat and could barely stand watching more…!

Incredibly, that same year Alien was released and I had a very similar reaction to certain scenes in that film! A great year for horror!

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u/nyee 4h ago

i agree with your ranking, 2 is kind of the peak of the series. In my opinion this particular series of movies is really under rated, there's a lot of series that get way more attention. But its such a surreal and amazing series