Don Coscarelli

  • Phantasm: Ravager (2016)

    Phantasm: Ravager (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) Considering the incredible patched-up story of the super-low-budget Phantasm franchise from 1978 to 2016, it’s amazing that we even got a fifth instalment at all. In light of those incredibly long odds, for Phantasm: Ravager to make any sense at all is a minor miracle. Phantasm, after all, has always been about a quasi-oneiric experience made even more disjointed by seat-of-the-pants no-budget filmmaking and curious editing choices. Ravager, to its credit, certainly circles around the same themes as the previous films in the series, and maybe even with a vengeance: it’s not enough for unlikely series hero Reggie to make his way through the southwestern desert with his double shotgun and his beloved 1971 Hemicuda—the film jumps to a reality in which he’s in an old-age hospice being told that he’s been imagining it all since the first film. Don’t expect any definitive resolution other than acknowledging that fans would hate a psychotic conclusion—the film is happy to jump back and forth between at least four different universes/eras. The usually cheap special effects of the series benefit from the CGI revolution that took place in between the fourth and fifth instalments: the digital special effects are cheap and nasty, but they’re plentiful, and there’s a sense that, thanks to them, the film can reasonably claim to portray those fantastic concepts that were always half-realized in analog times. The film also manages the impressive trick of bringing back no less than five of the actors of the first film—when Kathy Lester signed up to play a minor role “The Lady in Lavender” back in the late 1970s, I don’t think anyone would have imagined her reprising the role in 2016! In absolute terms, Ravager is a bit of a dull horror film, without much narrative continuity, substandard effects and character moments (and even mid-credit cameos!) that don’t work without knowledge of previous instalments. But Ravager will seldom be seen by anyone who’s not familiar with previous film: this is a by-the-fans-for-the-fans film—despite the direction being handled by David Hartman rather than series creator Don Coscarelli (who does co-sign the script), it’s very much made for those who have stuck with the series through the decades. Series icon Angus Scrimm (the “Tall Man”) died shortly after production, ensuring that this is most likely the final film of the original cycle. I expect some kind of reboot within the next ten years, though: As much as I don’t think the series ever met the expectations it set for itself, the base concept is solid enough to warrant taking another kick at the can at some point. In the meantime, Ravager wraps things up in a way that’s both satisfying and enigmatic—probably the best-case scenario in the series’ own continuity.

  • Phantasmagoria (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) Most long-running horror series have a documentary or two to explain their creative origins, laborious making-of and fannish appeal. The Phantasm series was only four films long when Phantasmagoria was released (a fifth film has since joined the series), but you could argue that it needed an accompanying documentary more than most. Deliberately shrouded in mystery, changes of direction, budget-related compromises and visual kicks taking over a haphazard sense of storytelling, the Phantasm series leaves more than most to the viewer’s interpretation. An authorized documentary may not solve much, but at least it gives viewers the chance to hear the filmmakers (the most important being the series’ writer-director Don Coscarelli himself) a chance to explain some of their intentions. Phantasm, to be fair, remains a series with more potential than satisfaction: For all of the exhilarating weirdness of its blend between horror, Science Fiction, coolness and not enough humour, the Phantasm series doesn’t quite know where it’s heading, nor how to maximize the possibilities of its ideas. Usually executed with too-low budgets, the series has energy but no discipline and the result always under-delivers. With Phantasmagoria, at least we get to hear the reality behind the results: Seat-of-the-pants independent filmmaking, studio interference during the second film, no coherent overall plan and various ideas popping up during production are only some of the shifting winds affecting the movies. At least the films sound fun to make most of the time (the second film once again being an exception), as the actors and crew share memories of their good-and-rough times during shooting, explain some of the series’ most amusing or mystifying moments, and help resolve the puzzle of plot pieces being pushed from one film to another, with the fourth making extensive use of the extensive footage shot for the first film but then left on the cutting room floor. Absurdly enough, the way Phantasmagoria goes instalment by instalment helps act as a primer/explainer for the series as a whole, with a coherent vision straightening some of the creative intent behind it all. It’s quite an enjoyable documentary for fans of the series, and it may actually help ambivalent viewers such as myself become more sympathetic to what Coscarelli and his merry band of underpaid cast and crew were trying to accomplish.

  • Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

    Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (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.

  • Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

    Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) Don’t tell anyone—especially not rabid Phantasm series fans—but I’m particularly fond of Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. Much of this has to do with it being the series’ most overly comedic instalment. Horror comedy is a tough genre to pull off (bad ones end up feeling like repulsive examples of pure sociopathy) but when it’s executed well, you can end up with classics à la Evil Dead II, which probably influenced Phantasm III in some ways. To be clear, it’s not an end-to-end laugh fest: The focus here remains on the overweight, ponytailed, balding Reggie (once again, unlikely star Reggie Bannister) helping his younger friend Mike (Michael Baldwin, back in the lead after being recast in the second film) fight against the creepy spooky alien monster The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm, great as usual) and assorted metal spheres. Part of the film’s slide into comedy probably has to do with how familiar and self-aware it was at that point. The Hemicuda muscle car, quadruple-barrelled shotgun, metal spheres and Tall Man are iconic by this instalment, a looseness translating into a film that represents the series’ cruising altitude, making appropriate use of its limited budget and seat-of-the-pants filmmaking. Director Don Coscarelli remains better in set-pieces than overall narrative coherency, but he gets to feature the best female leads of the series here—I would have enjoyed more screen time for Sarah Scott Davis, but Gloria Lynne Henry’s character Rocky is a clear highlight of the series, so much so that she was brought back for a cameo in the fifth film’s mid-credit scene. Those bits and pieces (including a rather successful mausoleum fight in a series that has many of them) are reasons why I consider Phantasm III to be perhaps the most comfortable entry of the series: not the best, not the one with the better story, not the one with the most satisfying special effects, nor the most coherent—but perhaps the most all-around enjoyable one, firmly aware of its strengths and weaknesses in trying to make fans happy.

  • Phantasm II (1988)

    Phantasm II (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) In the grand fannish mythology surrounding the Phantasm series, Phantasm II is the misguided big-budget one. Writer-director Don Coscarelli convinced a studio to finance a follow-up to the 1979 original film, but the money came with restrictions: the studio insisted on recasting the lead character, and placed demands on the narrative that made the sequel a somewhat more coherent affair. Shifting from a small-town horror story to a road movie narrative, Phantasm II also codified much of what would become iconic in subsequent instalments. The Hemicuda was already present in the original, but it becomes a fetishistic object here. A very cool quadruple-barrelled shotgun is introduced, as are new golden spheres. More significantly, the focus of the film shifts a bit toward having unlikely heroic figure Reggie Bannister plays the lead, introducing some comedic elements that weren’t necessarily in the first instalment. The ending perhaps counts as one of the most interesting in the series, with a white-walled climactic location providing a rare victory for the heroes (one immediately nullified by a coda setting up further sequels). Despite the strengthened narrative (which endears me to this instalment), there is still plenty of weirdness and lack of adherence to a coherent set of rules—the Phantasm series, true to its title, is about being onboard for a ride that may not be under anyone’s control. In this regard, I see this maligned sequel as stronger in some aspects, weaker in others but still consistent with the series’ more-ambitious-than-successful nature.

  • Phantasm (1979)

    Phantasm (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hoopla Streaming, April 2020) The biggest surprise of Phantasm is that (especially with its new restoration) it looks just slightly newer than its 1979 release year—had I not known, I would have pegged the film as one of those imaginative mid-1980s horror movies with big ideas and no budget. The plot doesn’t quite make sense (a lot would be explained in the sequels), but as long as we stick to the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), the sci-fi gadgets and weird imagination of writer-director Don Coscarelli, then we’re in good hands. The amateurish no-budget constraints of the film do grate, however, especially when the film’s high concepts can’t be delivered effectively: this is a film where these are clear differences between what’s being said and what’s shown on-screen. Still, imagination is a great asset, and the film is often effective in its impact. I just wish that there had been stronger attention paid at the higher level: Even after five films, I feel as if the Phantasm series has only scratched the surface of what it could achieve.

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) This is my second time having a gander at the horror/Science Fiction cult classic Phantasm, and I still don’t have a good handle on what’s going on. That’s by design: writer/director Don Coscarelli was labouring under severe budgetary constraints and a lack of narrative direction when he put together Phantasm (some of the hour-long amount of footage cut from the film would be revived as part of the fourth film in the series) and the emphasis is clearly on the high concepts, the uncanny visuals and the dreamlike atmosphere. The result is not uninteresting—and it’s a great deal more original than the slasher craze that was burgeoning at the time!—but those who crave a strong narrative will not necessarily have a good time. Of course, having a second look informed by the rest of the series helps in backfilling creative explanations that did not exist at the time: the sequels do a lot in providing context and pointing at the way some initially secondary characters would become the series’ focus over nearly thirty years. Angus Scrimm obviously remains the series’ most distinctive actor (his death in 2016 marked the definitive end of the original series more than any creative exhaustion or narrative conclusion), but who could have guessed that Reggie Bannister would become the series’ most valuable player? The ambitions of the film are constantly defeated by the low budget and the haphazard narrative, but there’s some undeniable power to the silver spheres, the mixture of horror and science fiction (which Coscarelli would later execute to a superlative degree in John Dies at the End) and the dreamlike atmosphere that emerged from heroic low-end filmmaking. It’s not clear to me if any of the sequels are better despite better production values, special effects and a better idea of where the narrative is meant to go: there is a rough filmmaking power to Phantasm that, at least, explains why it led to four follow-ups over the following thirty years.

  • Silver Bullet (1985)

    Silver Bullet (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) I’ve been rediscovering a few surprisingly good Stephen King movie adaptations lately, but Silver Bullet won’t be one of them. At best, it’s a middle-of-the-road adaptation, compensating for a familiar premise with a few quirky details, occasional good moments and a fun performance by a crowd-favourite actor. Another take on the well-worn werewolf mythos, Silver Bullet tells us about a pair of teenagers and their quirky uncle taking on a deadly threat stalking their small town. As the bodies pile up, we’re quite obviously stuck in a 1980s horror film aimed at teenagers—the blood flows, the scares can be silly, and the overall atmosphere is more comforting than any kind of horrifying. Werewolf or not, the structure of the film—with its escalating death count and final confrontation—won’t surprise anyone who’s seen any other horror movie before. Still, a few things do save Silver Bullet from all-out mediocrity. The somewhat sympathetic portrait of a teenage protagonist in a wheelchair (played by Corey Haim) may have been intended as exploitative but ends up interesting in its own way. Having Gary Busey step in as an eccentric, alcoholic uncle isn’t played for laughs as much as you’d think (even the film acknowledge that the guy has issues) but remains distinctive due to Busey himself. Finally, there is some good directing here and there, whether it’s a foggy sequence, or the clever revelation of the human identity of the werewolf—although it’s unclear whether these touches come from credited director Dan Attias or the film’s first director Don Coscarelli. In other words, expect a standard werewolf movie and you just might be mildly satisfied.

  • John Dies at the End (2012)

    John Dies at the End (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2013) The beauty with quasi-cult films aimed at specific audience is that once in a while you are the target audience.  So it is that John Dies at the End blends science-fiction/horror influences with an irreverent lack of respect for otherworldly terrors, two very sympathetic protagonists and a dynamic blend of quick pacing and terrific direction.  Writer/director Don Coscarelli nails the quirky tone of David Wong’s source novel and delivers a near-unclassifiable film that nonetheless plays beautifully to genre audiences.  Often crude and unsubtle, John Dies at the End is nonetheless fairly sophisticated in the way it dares audiences to follow along a dense thicket of ideas, plot developments, dramatic turns and throwaway jokes.  It’s a film that moves quickly and doesn’t stop for people to catch up.  The first half is a dizzying accumulation of strangeness, while the second gets down to the sometimes fastidious task of explaining the plot and tying up loose ends.  Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes are good choices for the lead roles, but Paul Giamatti is near-perfect at the skeptical journalist hearing their story.  Best of all, perhaps, for fans of the novel is how the film is only a partial adaptation: the second half of the book is nearly missing from the film, an important half of the plot having been skillfully amputated.  This gives enough space for an already-madcap accumulation of details in the film, and leaves a pleasant surprise to fans of the film wishing to read the book.