The third film continues where the second one left off. Reggie and Mike (Michael Baldwin reprising the role once more) are still living on the road, cruising down one long and lonely highway after the other in Reggie's Cuda in search of the Tall Man and in hopes of putting a stop to him once and for all.

Our heroes are able to follow his trail pretty easily, as he leaves rather large calling cards in his wake, namely complete and utter destruction. The towns he has made his way through are nothing more than empty husks, ghost towns even, and not a single living soul is left save for one small boy living alone in the house where he and his parents once lived before the Tall Man took them from him. Much like Mike in the first film, this tough little guy knows how to fend for himself and he too wants to make the Tall Man pay for what he did. Throw a sassy black lady named Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry who pops up briefly in The Devil's Advocate) with a penchant for beating her opponents into submission with her nunchaku and you've got yourself quite a team.

This time out, Coscarelli concentrates as much on the horror as he does on the action and the results are a stronger storyline that continues more along the lines of the tradition setup in the first movie than in the second. There's still plenty of action in here and more than a few characters who show up to serve as nothing more than cannon fodder for the Tall Man and his spheres. The last half of the film and the abundance of supernatural elements bring this one to a much more surreal playing field than the second movie and it falls somewhere in between the first and the second film in terms of quality and in terms of scares.

Plenty of gore and make up effects keep things interesting and a few atmospheric touches, such as the kid in the clown mask roaming the secret passage ways of his empty home guarding it from intruders, make this an interesting watch. Bannister is in fine form here, bringing a bit more personality to his character and giving us a bit more character development to chew on as the movie plays out. Another 'Reggie Bannister Love Scene' (a film phenomena equaled only by the patented 'Don The Dragon' Wilson Love Scene' in that it's completely ridiculous and more than a little too long and it features a man who would never score with a lady of this caliber outside of the movies!) adds some humor which he handles well but he's also quite at home in the action scenes here.

Bringing Michael Baldwin back to support him was a wise casting choice – he's the real Mike in the Phantasm films and having him back in the role he made only helps the film in the end. The highlights of the film are, of course, those in which Scrimm is given opportunity to shine in his signature role. While the script and some of the supporting performances aren't going to make any new friends, Scrimm is as strong as always as the Tall Man and whenever he's on screen the movie shines. Throw in a few good gore set pieces and plenty of flying sphere drill thing action and you've got a decent time killer with some fun moments and enjoyably disturbing murder set pieces.

Video:

Anchor Bay presents Phantasm III in a nice 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. It is a little bit soft in some scenes but the film has always looked this way so it's likely always going to. Color reproduction is quite strong and the black levels stay consistent and rich throughout. Detail levels in both the foreground and the background of the image are nice and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts and only some mild edge enhancement proves distracting. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and for the most part this region one DVD looks quite good.