Transparent Affections: Phantasm III - Lord of the Dead (1994)
My dear readers, as our most dedicated audience members will surely recall, I made mention of a family of bats residing in our belfry that I thought would be such a jolly addition to the household. After all, much of the fiction of my youth included serendipitous creature encounters, animals whose appearance marked the beginning of a warm and lengthly friendship. Sadly, I fear they have become quite disagreeable tenants. Their pained shrieking and territorial micturition have made their company a most difficult business. What’s more, the large albino one seems to have mastered the rudiments of the English language and let me tell you, his vocabulary is coarse enough to singe the whiskers right off a seaman. I have concocted many a scheme so far to dislodge them, some of which I thought were quite imaginative. But regrettably, no matter how inspired my solutions may be, the bats always find a way to best me.
The ball budget has expanded
Reggie (Reggie Bannister) has some experience with stubborn adversaries himself, as his tumbles with the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) have reached trilogy status. I assume knowing viewers have abandoned the very idea of a story by this point in Don Coscarelli’s wondrously strange vision but, for the sake of formality, let us discuss the events of the film. Buttressed by an increasingly surreal series of flashbacks to previous installments, we see how the film’s leggy baddie, having just met his demise in the previous film, remerges fresh as can be from a dimensional portal, ready to resume his quasi-apocalyptic hold on the American landscape.
And so, without any sort of employment for what appears to be several decades, Reggie shuffles off on another well-funded road trip, one that requires a new cast of passengers as Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), his previously dependable companion, spends the bulk of the film either prostrate or captive. Instead, Reggie is joined by Tim (Kevin Connors), a plucky and precocious child and Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry), a capable survivalist. The trio gets wind of the fact that the Tall Man is harvesting brains to pilot his iconic flying death balls and do their best to foil this sinister plot. Before the day is over, the audience is treated to spheres in eyeballs, spheres for eyeballs, brains in spheres and, marvel of marvels, golden spheres.
An unflattering reflection
Despite all the lively innovations and mythos additions, I feel what is most remarkable about the third Phantasm film is not so much the changes as what has remained the same. As in the previous chapter, we are treated to a fair share of Reggie’s romantic misadventures. Once more, Reggie attempts to court women well out of his “league,” as the sporting metaphor goes. His cheeky attempts to secure a room with a single bed are strangely endearing and he presents himself not as a sleazy opportunist but rather a dreamer, firmly bound to earth but groping for the stars all the same.
Each Phantasm sequel occurred nearly a decade apart and was financed by a different outfit, a suggestion that neither the public nor the professionals were clamoring for more of the same. And yet, despite the improbability of its continuance, Don Coscarelli and his team of fantasists put forth yet another episode. Like the series itself, the unsolicited nature of his presence and the unlikelihood of him succeeding never stalls Reggie’s transparent affections. If I were equally tenacious, I might have a belfry free of bats.
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead runs 91 minutes and is rated R for violence, gore, language and sexuality.
