When we last saw Mike and Reggie the Tall Man had cornered them on a lonely highway and seemed to have gained the upper hand. For some reason, he's interested in kidnapping Mike for his own evil purposes. Reg threatens to blow them all up unless the Tall Man backs offs. He agrees, but threatens to strike again in the near future.

Badly concussed, Mike falls into a coma where he has a vision of his dead brother Jody telling him that he must choose to live in order for the cryptic game plan of the Tall Man's to work out. At that moment Mike wakes to find a demonic nurse about to drill a hole in his head and sentinel sphere buzzing around in the hospital. Reg intrudes on the scene saves him, but not without getting a mouthful of puss, and they hide out in his desert base where they can come up with a plan before the Tall Man's next strike.

But before you can say 'boooooooooooy!!!' he's back and spirits Mike away to another dimension, leaving Reg knocked out on the floor. Not knowing where he is or what happened Reg takes off across country with the burned-out sphere from the hospital as his only clue. It appears that the Tall Man has harvested the dead from dozens of towns across the Pacific Northwest, leaving entire counties to crumble. He teams up with a resourceful kid and an ex-army chick to find Mike and continue his hunt for the Tall Man while dwarfs, sentinel spheres, gravediggers and zombies are all on their trail.

The following hokum will seem very familiar as it's almost exactly what happened in Phantasm II, so while it's certainly not original in this respect I still found it to be loads of fun as the pace just doesn't let up and new characters and locations keep popping up to keep things interesting. Don Coscarelli answers some questions we've been literally dying to ask but there seems to be a conspiracy going on and the Tall Man is keeping his mouth shut. We know there's more story developing that what is obvious but good luck trying to figure it out.

The mystical, foreboding nature of Phantasm is a bit stronger here than it was in the first sequel. Unfortunately, so is the humor. The distinct lack of anything funny is what gave the original film such a weird edge and the series' increasing tendency to be an Evil Dead gorefest isn't entirely appropriate. The gore is gruesome and plentiful but not exactly chilling. I don't feel that Don Coscarelli has found the perfect mix of action, sci-fi and horror with this film to best suit the series, but it is entertaining. It seems like he's pushing his luck just a little bit in trying to cram out another film without developing too many ideas. Unimaginative is certainly not a word you could use to describe the Phantasm franchise, but this film does seem like a lot of recycled scenarios from Phantasm II.

On the plus side, A. Michael Baldwin (the original actor) returns as Mike as well as Jodie so we now have the entire original cast back. Reg is just plain brilliant and while he may not be up to the wacky standards of Ash he's still a hoot to watch and seems to balance the serious and the jokey very well. But, as always, Angus Scrimm scores the most points as the Tall Man. He's cool, he's evil and his mysterious nature makes him all the more scarier.

Unforgiving horror fans may not like it very much as it does kind of follow the typical path of other horror franchises but there's still enough energy and weirdness to keep Phantasm fans happy and it does move very fast. All I'm going to say is that Don Coscarelli better come up with some new and shocking ideas to keep Phantasm IV fresh.

Emerging from a coma after the events of the last film, Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) reunites with pal Reggie (Reggie Bannister), but only briefly, as he's whisked off to another dimension by the sinister Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). Reggie then sets out to try and find and rescue Mike, aided by 11-year-old orphan Tim (Kevin Connors), and ex-soldier Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry). Also featuring Bill Thornbury, Cindy Ambuehl, Brooks Gardner, and John Davis Chandler.

Universal ordered yet another sequel despite the poor box office of the second Phantasm film, and while Coscarelli was given greater creative control (he was allowed to bring Baldwin back from the first film as Mike), the budget was smaller. Unfortunately there's not much inspiration to the proceedings this time around. A lengthy segment featuring new kid Connors battling criminals in his home comes across as a dumb, R-rated take-off on Home Alone. The mythology of the storyline is greatly expanded , with names given to the flying spheres (Sentinels) and hooded dwarf servants (Lurkers), as well as completely explaining the Tall Man's purposes and use of the corpses he harvests. Some revelations about Mike, as well as his brother Jody (a returning Bill Thornbury), will come as a surprise. The movie was completed in 1993, but Universal kept it on the shelf for over a year, finally opening it in a couple of theaters in 1994 before eventually dumping it virtually direct-to-video in 1995. It's lost the novelty of the first film and lacks the production value polish of the second and gives you just too many characters to care about. (5/10)

A demon child joins the mix with the tall guy, flinging around a Frisbee that slices throats and his own version of the death ball. Actually, he's the sheriff's son, out for revenge against the tall man. He just has the same type of tools as the tall man. Michael and Jody, either comatose or dead, do make appearances, and yet are basically nothing more than shadows of their old selves from the first two films, the second of which should have been the conclusion. Released by an unknown independent film studio, this seems like a straight to video movie that didn't deserve to waste electricity in even one or two theaters of major markets.

Yes there is one more film after this, but I'm done as far as the series is concerned. The third film is a messy pointless disaster, forcing elements to try to keep the franchise going and once again overplaying the dramatic theme from the first film. The story makes no sense, and tossing in humorous elements every time someone gets killed just goes too far. I did laugh though at the early scene where someone fires a gun into trees where the Demonic dwarves are hiding and with one shot brings down three. But one bit of a humorous moment doesn't make the rest of the movie even worth watching, and I have to refer to this one as a phantasmess.