Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) Before a fifth Phantasm film popped up in 2016, it looked as if the series ended its haphazard twenty-year run with the disappointing Phantasm IV: Oblivion, a film that kept most of the icons of the series but seemed intent on not maximizing any of its strengths. The first and most fatal misstep of the film was to break apart the team that had served it so well: for almost all of the movie, both unlikely comic hero Reggie and series protagonist Mike are on separate journeys of markedly different tones. The road movie template feels emptier when the protagonists are apart, and the overall glum tone (especially compared to its droll preceding instalment) doesn’t help matters in any way. What is special about this fourth film, however, is the extensive use of footage cut from the first film as emotional flashbacks—the use of authentic footage shot twenty years earlier goes give Oblivion a deep history and fans a treat. Bits and pieces of series writer-director Don Coscarelli do shine through: among other things, the film travels through time to a benevolent 1860s Angus Scrimm in an effort to expand the series’ mythology. Still, that’s not quite sufficient to elevate it from the various issues caused by its very low budget and chaotic approach to filmmaking—the film feels like the prelude-to-something-else that never was, and stood for fifteen years as a most unsatisfying finale to a series that rarely provided closure. Even after watching the divisive fifth entry, Oblivion remains my least favourite of the series—an overly dull, split, joyless entry.