Reggie Bannister was one of the first horror protagonists I ever latched onto. The Phantasm series in general was one of the first horror series I started following, back when I was slowly drifting away from science fiction and toward the darker regions of horror. I discovered the series in the best kind of way: In our local VHS rental store, Video King.
Because I discovered the series around 1999, I got to watch all four movies in one frenzied clip…and then learned there weren’t any plans anytime soon to complete the series (of course, the fifth installment of the series, RaVager, finally came to life in 2016 - a little on that film in a bit).
It’s hard to put into words my love for the series, especially the first film. I’m not going to bore anyone with a ham-fisted critique of each installment; rather, this is an appreciation post for the series and Reggie as a whole. The first movie I find myself watching over and over because I just can’t shake its simple surreal quality. It’s like a slow fever-dream that unwinds almost casually, if that makes any sense. It shows us small-town Americana, and for whatever reason, every actor and every character and everything in that movie fits together like a well-constructed puzzle, and it runs like a simple, no-nonsense, well-oiled machine. It’s just solid, man, and it hits for me, every time. And the soundtrack, that theme song! A simplicity that’s beautiful, to me.
I’ve always loved Reggie’s growth into the main character. I wonder if that’s what Don Coscarelli initially envisioned; I wonder if that happened because Universal didn’t want to cast A. Michael Baldwin for the second film, and the focus then shifted to Reggie? Was that a conscious choice, or just the way it happened? I know in my mind, despite Michael being an integral and obviously central character, over the years, I’ve come to associate most with Reggie. He’s the quintessential “average guy whose life is forever upended by the supernatural” and he’s just doing his best to stay alive. That, and he loves Mike like a brother and will follow him into hell, if he has to.
The final installment in the series, Phantasm: RaVager, is poignant in many ways. It doesn’t have the same quality as the first film, because IMHO, as fine and enjoyable as the following films are, there’s just something in that first film which can’t be reproduced. But the storyline of RaVager is intriguing and heartfelt. It offers fans a choice: is Reggie dying of dementia and all his adventures and his battles with the Tall Man are merely products of his dementia, OR is he slipping between realities? One in which he and the Tall Man are BOTH in convalescence homes dying of dementia, one reality which is more closely tied to the original timeline, and one in which the Tall Man has decimated the Earth, and humans are left resorting to guerilla tactics to survive?
In true Phantasm fashion, Don Coscarelli leaves it rather open-ended. For me, I like the idea that Reggie got to choose which reality he was going to live in, and even though it’s the war-decimated one: All his friends are there, even Rocky from Phantasm III. Jody is still alive, the ‘Cuda has been transformed into a Battle Cuda straight out of Mad Max, and they are riding off into an epic - and maybe final - battle together. It seems like a fitting end.
In any case - I’ll be starting a Phantasm marathon to honor Reggie’s memory. Here’s hoping that somehow, somewhere, he finally gets the Tall Man once and for all.
That’s all for now!
Works in Progress:
The Horror We Keep - nonfiction
The Man Who Made Heads - short fiction
Counting Macros - short fiction
Horror Hotel - movie novelization
The Dream Witch - novel
Sold:
Down in the Dark - Short Story
Books I’m Reading:
Movies Currently Watching:
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