Notable Cast: Reggie
Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Dawn Cody, Angus Scrimm, Kathy
Lester, Daniel Roebuck, Solly Duran, Daniel Schweiger, Gloria Lynne Henry
At this point, I feel like I’ve lost all sense of time when
it came to Phantasm V. It was almost
like living in the nightmare logic of the film series as the fifth entry had
been rumored for what seemed to be eternity with promises and whispers on the
wind that it was coming. Truthfully, I had resigned myself that this film would
remain as rumors and never come to light. Even when the first trailer dropped a
little while ago, I was almost hesitant to get my hopes up until I saw the film
for myself. Now that Phantasm V is
released, under the title Phantasm:
Ravager, I’m kind of glad I never really got my expectations up for it.
While this horror film series has almost always been a part my favorite ones,
this fifth entry is…well, it’s kind of shitty. As a longtime fan, this latest
picture feels more or less along the lines of a fan film versus one that
officially sits as part of the Phantasm
canon and it’s horrendously low budget and messy narrative hurts it
exponentially as a film that could sit on its own. For those long time
fans, there are some bits and pieces in the film that will make them smile, but
the rest of it just feels like a mess and it can’t even use the series’
nightmare logic to overcome its issues.