The most important thing that I learned from Phantasm IV, is that being an ice cream man is a trade. Whatever you have to tell yourself, Reggie.
Phantasm IV picks up at the end of part 3. Reggie was being held up in the air by dozens of spheres by the Tall Man. The Tall Man releases him, telling him that there is a final game to play. We get some flashbacks as Mike is driving somewhere and as Reggie is driving somewhere. Jody (Mike’s dead/alive/sphere brother) shows up and tells Reggie that he is going to get Mike. Reggie doesn’t want to have anything to do with this, and even tells Jody that he is done with the whole thing. In his defense, I would be tired of it too, having just come out of part 3. After an encounter with an undead cop, Reggie decides to take Jody’s advice and head south west. Mike ends up in Death Valley and wanders through time trying to find out where the Tall Man came from and how he can stop him. You’ll be happy to know that Reggie still manages to find a lone woman that he can try to bang, as he did in the other films.
So, the good thing about this movie, is that it has very little comic elements to it compared to the last one, and that right there is keeping it from being categorized as “crap.” It actually was somewhat reminiscent of the first. Part of this may be due to the fact that while making this film, apparently a large amount of unused footage from the first one was found. Thus, the flashbacks and dream sequences were literally flashbacks. I really liked that. The action in this however was rather slow, and that coupled with the apparent inability of everyone in these movies to improve as actors caused me to be bored a lot. The writing was a lot better. One of my favorite lines in the film came from the Tall Man, “No you may not take your own life. That is my domain exclusively.” This film purposely ends on a vague note, leaving the viewer wondering if the entire series was a dream, a hallucination, did it really happen and did we just travel through various points in time? Whatever the answer is, that is up to you. This is where the use of the old footage from the first film was awesome. You sort of get lost with the characters as they dream (or whatever they are doing). I kind of almost wish that parts 2 and 3 never existed, and that the 1st and the 4th ones were the only ones that were made.
So at least the franchise did not end that badly. It redeemed itself somewhat. Apparently, there was a 5th one that was in the works, but it may have been shelved. I think that was the better decision. This film wraps the series up very nicely, by letting you decide what the hell happened, not just in this installment, but in the series all together.
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