Rather than, as has become customary for the series, picking up straight at the end of Phantasm IV: Oblivion, writer Roger Avery decides to take a leap straight into a post-apocalyptic future in his unproduced screenplay, Phantasm 2013 A.D.
As the film opens, an unidentified, but heavily disfigured man is running through a wasteland. Plagued by disturbing visions, disembodied voices and sounds, he eventually makes his way towards a gigantic wall in the desert. Behind him waits the series' iconic villain, the Tall Man, and a group of his ferocious midget servants.
Ignoring the grave warnings of guards stationed on the wall, the man forges forward and finds himself obliterated by heavy gunfire... and then burned to a crisp via flamethrower as an extra measure.
Welcome to the future of America.
Since we last left Mike, Reggie and co. back in Phantasm IV, things have gotten grave for humanity. Thanks to the machinations of the Tall Man, the middle of the United States is now the Plague Zone – walled off from the rest of the country and infested with a deadly disease known as the Bag Plague. Those infected are referred to as 'Baggers' – poor sods whose heads have swollen and mutated to resemble throbbing pumpkins. Driven mad by pain and horrific visions, Baggers stumble around the Plague Zone simultaneously seeking assistance and victims. You see, due to the nature of the virus, when a Bagger gets close to an uninfected human, the resulting rush of emotion and stress that they experience is enough to literally make their head explode, firing infected pus and bone shards in every direction with enough force to puncture a car door.
Heading into the zone on a very special mission is Colonel Heckleman and his badass crew known as the 'S-Squad'. Carrying a special, one-of-a-kind bomb designed to destroy an entire universe in seconds, the guys and gal of S-Squad are tasked with getting the bomb to the Tall Man's lair – a giant Mausoleum smack bang in the center of the Plague Zone – and through the dimensional portal to his home planet.
Thankfully for fans of the series so far, a more recognizable character soon returns to the fray: Reggie is back, and he's going into the Zone in search of Mike. You may remember that previously, Mike had a ball removed from his head by the Tall Man and was whisked away through a dimensional gate. Now, he's been sending holographic messages – Princess Leia style – to Reggie through a captive sphere, telling him that he is trapped in the Tall Man's dimension and needs Reggie's help to escape.
Tooled up with weapons, a steel-plated Plymouth Barracuda and a friendly monkey named Titi (yeah, that's "teetee", not "titty"... perv), Reggie shoots off into the Plague Zone and, of course, crosses paths with S-Squad, eventually joining forces in their attempt to get rid of the Tall Man once and for all.
Obviously a fan of the series, and well versed in its (fractured) mythology, Avery keeps the Tall Man firmly seated at the background of the proceedings for the first two acts of Phantasm 2013 A.D., with the bulk of the middle section focusing more on Reggie and S-Squad's encounters with Baggers in the Zone. The events that see the protagonists come together to join forces are thrilling and bombastic, but feel much more like a film adaptation of videogame The Last of Us than an actual Phantasm film – save for a few ill-conceived appearances by the Tall Man; an example of which sees a severed head morph into the Tall Man's visage and proclaim "Don't mind me. Just trying to get ahead in this world."
This kind of punning is common throughout Avery's script, most notably when it comes to the big villain himself, and it just feels... odd. Sure, it's fine – and expected – to have Reggie throwing smartass quips around, but the Tall Man? Nah, not buying it. Thankfully, once Reggie and the remaining soldiers have made it to the mausoleum, the Tall Man steps fully into the picture and becomes his usual grim, intimidating self.
There's plenty of action taking place inside the dimensional portal and some really, really cool silver sphere mayhem going on in the final act – but things take a turn for the confusingly weird in a late revelation featuring a portal powered by a disembodied, spider-legged Tall Man head (named 'Tall Mankind', here) and an ending that feels hell-bent on remaining as obtuse and bizarre as any in the series that have come before. An earlier dialogue exchange hints at there simply being no opportunity for a positive outcome for anybody in Phantasm's universe, so a downer ending feels like a given... but the series-usual mirror-grab doesn't feel like the apt way to do it.
Still... is Phantasm 2013 A.D. any good? Yes, it is. It's very good – and had it been brought to screens it would have made a large number of Phantasm fans very, very happy. There's enough thrilling set-pieces, tense horror, gory deaths and Reggie, Reggie, Reggie to make for a really fun time at the movies, and some much-needed (if grim) closure when it comes to the fates of Mike and Jody. Dial down the Tall Man wisecracks and re-jig the ending, and this would be a Phantasm film to be proud of.
Heck, even the damned helper monkey, though trite, isn't annoying.
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