Phantasm II

Movie Information

In Brief: In honor of the late Angus Scrimm, best known for playing "The Tall Man" in this series, the Thursday Horror Picture Show is running Don Coscarelli's Phantasm II. This is one of those rare sequels that's as good as — in some ways better than — the original. In fact, the only thing it lacks is the freshness of the first film, that air of surprise at finding a kind of drive-in movie that is everything you hope such a film will be (but almost never is). The original delivered, and its sequel does a good job of doing likewise. How? Well, largely by repeating a successful formula and ramping it up. In other words, it's still creepy aliens (headed by Mr. Scrimm) sending compacted dead folks to another realm for purposes of labor. And it still involves those flying chrome spheres that "juice" victims' heads, etc. But there's more of everything and it's actually better acted and more solidly made.
Score:

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror
Director: Don Coscarelli
Starring: James LeGros, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Paua Irvine, Samantha Phillips
Rated: R

The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen Phantasm II Thursday, Feb. 4, at 8 p.m. in Theater Six at The Carolina Asheville, hosted by Xpress movie critics Ken Hanke and Scott Douglas.

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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