This final PHANTASM film is very much about Reggie (Reggie Bannister). He's first seen in the desert, after having disappeared for years in the other dimension, and he's still searching for his friend Mike (Michael Baldwin), who is the only person who has been through everything he's been through. At first he doesn't find Mike but he does find his old car, which he had left behind. After being chased by some high speed spheres he soon comes upon a stranded young woman whose car broke down and offers to take her to her secluded house in the mountains. She inherited it from her deceased parents and there's one worker there. Reggie tries to put the moves on her but she's a bit too young for him (though she does have second thoughts-and finds him asleep on the couch), so that never happens. However, the spheres have tracked him-and end up killing these two bystanders.
Then, weird things start to happen. Reggie wakes up suddenly in a care facility where Mike is visiting him and he's told that he has dementia and that all those memories he has about The Tall Man is not real. As soon as we're convinced this is the true "reality" the viewer is whisked back into the another story, where Reggie meets a different version of Mike and a world in which The Tall Man has taken over. Yeah, I've seen this done before (like on TV's SLIDERS), but it works.
Most of the special effects are good, particularly the spheres and the dwarves, but it gets a little too much like the graphics of a video game in some parts. I did like the new characters, especially the good dwarf and the return of a pivotal character Reggie worked with from PHANTASM III. Plus, there are some unexpected emotional scenes that pack a wallop. RAVAGER is a great send-off for the series, answering nearly all of the unanswered questions from the previous movies. You could not ask more from a sequel. Highly recommended.
This final PHANTASM film is very much about Reggie (Reggie Bannister). He's first seen in the desert, after having disappeared for years in the other dimension, and he's still searching for his friend Mike (Michael Baldwin), who is the only person who has been through everything he's been through. At first he doesn't find Mike but he does find his old car, which he had left behind. After being chased by some high speed spheres he soon comes upon a stranded young woman whose car broke down and offers to take her to her secluded house in the mountains. She inherited it from her deceased parents and there's one worker there. Reggie tries to put the moves on her but she's a bit too young for him (though she does have second thoughts-and finds him asleep on the couch), so that never happens. However, the spheres have tracked him-and end up killing these two bystanders.
