Man, this only has a 6.6 and you\u2019re left wondering, were people watching the same movie that I was?\u00a0 Or were they too dimwitted to either get it or be ashamed that they didn\u2019t get it so they didn\u2019t give it as high of a rating?\u00a0 Once you accept that there isn\u2019t a ton to get and it\u2019s a crazy-ass fever dream, you should just be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I regret popping popcorn, or do I?\u00a0 I\u2019m excited.\u00a0 It\u2019s been 2 years since I last saw this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start Film<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This movie starts right off with 2 people having sex in Morningside cemetery. We see some titties, Tommy is happy, and the girl takes out a dagger, stabs him, and then turns into Angus Scrimm. What a start!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We meet Jody and Reggie, they both knew Tommy.\u00a0 This funeral parlor is so nice and fancy.\u00a0 Oh, and what do I hear?\u00a0 Per closed captioning, I hear Warbling.\u00a0 This place feels like something straight out of a Kubrick movie, and I feel like Malcolm McDowell should be in this.\u00a0 We meet Mike outside, on his dirt bike.\u00a0 He is Jody\u2019s younger brother.\u00a0 He also hears warbling, and there are creatures hiding in the cemetery.\u00a0 The Tall Man informs Jody that the funeral is about to begin.\u00a0 He has such a great voice. Mike is spying on the procession from afar.\u00a0 Jody and Reggie leave, but Mike witnesses the Tall Man lift up the casket by himself and put it in the hearse.\u00a0 Paul Bearer would be impressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike visits a fortune teller. He\u2019s worried about Jody leaving again. The 2 brothers have the time covered in fashion, Jody in a leather jacket and Mike is Denim Dan. We find out that Mike and Jody\u2019s parents have been dead for 2 years, and Jody is gonna have Mike live with his aunt, and he ain\u2019t gonna like it. Back to the scene with Mike spying on Tall Man, and he goes to leave on his bike but it appears that Tall Man can make Mike fall. At the fortune teller\u2019s, the blonde girl Sally, tells him to put his hand in this box that hurts him, but it was supposedly just fear. Mike leaves and the blonde and grandma have an awkward laugh that kinda lasts longer than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reggie is in his Ice Cream Man outfit with the truck.\u00a0 Reggie is a series favorite.\u00a0 Time for him and Mike to just randomly jam out on guitar. Sally is at the funeral home.\u00a0 Jody Goes to a bar, and Mike is still following him.\u00a0 Jody sees the girl in lavender and talks to her and they go outside. Alllllright.\u00a0 They go to the cemetery.\u00a0 What could go wrong? She wants to do the one fun thing in this town.\u00a0 So Jody\u2019s dick is the one fun thing in this town?\u00a0 Hello titties, again.\u00a0 We missed you.\u00a0 Mike is watching and there is some serious warbling.\u00a0 Mike, do you like watching your bro pound meat?\u00a0 A little Jawa-looking mother fucker chases Mike.\u00a0 Jody has a witty comment. Jody isn\u2019t happy but gives Mike the keys and tells him to go home.\u00a0 Now get back to Miss Lavender.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike has a dream with the Tall Man standing over him and 2 dead bodies pop up out of graves to attack him.\u00a0 The actual music in this is really solid.\u00a0 The next day, Mike is in town.\u00a0 Reggie is loading the ice cream cooler, and Tall Man walks by and drinks it all in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At night, Mike is working on Jody’s car but is interrupted by warbling and movement.\u00a0 The car falls off the jacks, and Jody is there and this seems perfectly normal.\u00a0 I feel like there should have been more to that scene or no scene at all.\u00a0 Plus Mike hammers Jody\u2019s foot with very little consequences.\u00a0 Mike goes to Morningside at night, alone.\u00a0 Smart!\u00a0 Mike kicks out a window so he can break in.\u00a0 Smarter!\u00a0 I love how the mannequin’s head falls, Mike catches it, and couldn\u2019t be calmer. A dude enters so Mike hides in a casket. Tall Man is here too.\u00a0 Now Mike is snooping around in the mausoleum.\u00a0 This is the smartest move yet.\u00a0 He hears snarling and runs away but a silver ball that flies gives chase.\u00a0 The first guy catches him, but Mike frees himself and the silver ball has blades, a drill, and a bloody exit hole to kill this dude.\u00a0 These balls are referred to as Sentinels. I thought they were called cuisinarts. Tall Man sees the dead Caretaker and Mike.\u00a0 They approach each other and then Mike runs away and escapes, but the Tall man\u2019s hand is caught in the door.\u00a0 Mike just cuts his fingers off and the fingers move and there is yellow blood.\u00a0 The jawas chase Mikle but he escapes.\u00a0 Mike comes home and sleeps on the stairs with a shotty and a wooden box with a finger and yellow mustard blood.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day Mike explains what happened. They\u2019re gonna go to the police. Mike goes to get the box, but something isn\u2019t right. The finger is now a giant unruly fly that the boys cover with Mike\u2019s denim jacket. They put it in the garbage disposal. Then Reggie shows up. The Fly is still alive and attacks. They get it back down the sink with Jody being Captain Stabbin\u2019. Reggie is confused. Jody gives Mike great advice on only shooting his gun to kill. He is actually going to leave Mike home alone at night. What the fuck did you do during the day? It\u2019s as if the timing is very peculiar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jody enters through the broken window and is assaulted by a Jawa, that he shoots. As he runs away, the hearse lights come on and try to run over Jody.\u00a0 He fires but misses.\u00a0 A few seconds later, Mike arrives in Jody\u2019s car, a black Plymouth Barracuda.\u00a0 The hearse gives chase.\u00a0 Yes, a car chase!\u00a0 Jody shoots up the hearse.\u00a0 It goes off the side of the road.\u00a0 Time to inspect.\u00a0 It was a Jawa driving!\u00a0 The Jawa is Tommy, but smaller.\u00a0 What a tweest!!! Jody calls Reggie to come help them out. \u00a0 They put Tommy in with the ice cream and go home.\u00a0 Reggie is very cautious, lingering behind.\u00a0 Then he is startled by Myrtle.\u00a0 Who the fuck is this middle-aged black lady? Reggie takes Mike to Sally\u2019s.\u00a0 But seriously, who is Myrtle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike is with Sally and Sue at this antique store. Mike finds old pictures and there he sees the Tall Man on like a wagon with horses. Mike insists that Sally brings him home. Reggie hears some weird noises in his ice cream truck. Jody dreams of being in the mausoleum with the Tall Man and getting dragged into one of those storage sections on the wall where they keep the bodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike and the girls see Reggie\u2019s truck on its side. Mike investigates. Uh oh, the padlock on the back is broken. Will Tommy still be in there? There is yellow goo blood. Time to leave quickly. Mike tells them to hurry up and leave. Nope, girls gotta talk, Sally is attacked by a Jawa. This scene is fantastically absurd. I think Sue is a looker. Mike gets pushed out the back window into the road and the girls drive off. The fuck? Jody just has this thousand-mile stare. Mike makes it home. Where are the girls? Mike tells Jody that They got Sally, Susie, and Reggie. Jody insists on Mike staying there, Mike fights him and loses. Jody locks Mike in his room and wedges in a screwdriver. At least he still has a shotgun shell. And a hammer. And a thumbtack. Mike has ideas. He pushes the tack into the shell. Then he tapes that to the hammer head and then bangs it on the door and that worked. Would that really work? I know nothing about guns or ammunition. I\u2019m a machete man. Mike gets to the front door, and there\u2019s the Tall Man. He\u2019s been waiting for Mike. He tosses him into the hearse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They all end up back at Morningside. Mike shoots out the back window and a tire then leaps out of the vehicle unscathed and the car hits a pole and explodes. That seems just as reasonable as the hammer trick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jody opens up a casket but doesn\u2019t look inside.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, Mike is in and a sentinel is on the prowl.\u00a0 I think Mike goes to the same casket. Oh, he has one small cut on his face.\u00a0 Mike opens it up and screams, but nothing is in there.\u00a0 It\u2019s sentinel time\u2026..nope Jody shot it.\u00a0 They go to this door and Reggie shows up from behind.\u00a0 He found Sally, Sue, and some other girls.\u00a0 He led them to a window and they scattered.\u00a0 That is a brilliant way to cut a lot of screen time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside this room are a bunch of black barrels or containers and each one has a Jawa, or dwarf as Jody says.\u00a0 Oh yeah, there\u2019s also a weird invisible portal in the room that Mike wants to keep sticking his hand into, until he is pulled in, kinda.\u00a0 It\u2019s a red world full of Jawas doing work.\u00a0 Fortunately, Jody and Reggie snagged Mike.\u00a0 The dwarves are slaves.\u00a0 The bright room goes dark, but thankfully Mike has a lighter.\u00a0 And a Jawa attacks.\u00a0 But then calmness and then they all split up\u2026..I guess.\u00a0 Jody is outside looking for Mike, and Reggie is still in the portal room, apparently not scared of Jawas.\u00a0 Outside, Lavender girl has a knife and is behind Jody.\u00a0 Reggie is getting slowly sucked into the portal for some unknown reason. \u00a0 Barrels are falling as if Donkey Kong was there.\u00a0 Reggie crawls out the door.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike is outside and looking for Jody, but it is super windy.\u00a0 Reggie makes it outside.\u00a0 Reggie finds Lavender and goes to save her because he\u2019s the ladies’ man.\u00a0 She just stabbed him in the belly, of course.\u00a0 I was probably upset at that the first time I saw this, but come to find out, Reggie is cloaked in plot armor.\u00a0 He sees Lavender and Tall Man and they keep switching.\u00a0 Mike and Jody leave and the house has a weird glow to it, yellow to red to blue.\u00a0 The brothers make it home. Jody wants to lure the Tall Man to some local mineshaft that he doesn\u2019t quite know where it is.\u00a0 Jody tells Mike to stay in the house, alone, again.\u00a0 I feel like this is like the 4th or 5th time in this movie that he\u2019s done this. \u00a0 But Mike is actually listening for once.\u00a0 And then the Tall Man breaks through a window as if he were the Kool-Aid Man, OHYEAH!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike is walking slowly and gingerly to not make noise. Tall Man just blows open a door and says his famous \u201cBoooy\u201d.\u00a0 The Phantasm music hits and Tall Man gives chase.\u00a0 Mike decides to have no fear, but then some hands grab him in the mud.\u00a0 There\u2019s Lavender, but Mike ain\u2019t f\u2019ing around.\u00a0 She has her knife and he has his.\u00a0 She just stands there with a smirk and he runs off.\u00a0 Mike stands for a second and he runs to the mineshaft.\u00a0 Tall Man is on his ass.\u00a0 Mike jumps the hole but the Tall Man falls.\u00a0 We see \u201cboulders start rolling down into this fake fabric-ridden mineshaft.\u00a0 It looked so fake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back home, Mike tells Reggie that those rocks won\u2019t hold the Tall Man. Mike talks about how the Tall Man took his parents away and took away Jody. Mike has just woke up from a dream and is having this conversation with Reggie, apparently. Did he sleep by the fire? Did he wake up and Reggie was just there? Jody died in a car wreck, apparently. Mike simply had a bad dream. Reggie is gonna take care of Mike. Reggie wants to hit the road for a few weeks. But who is gonna sell ice cream? He tells Mike to pack some shit and get going. He plays his guitar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike is up in his room and has a picture of Jody. He moves his closet door and in the mirror reflection, there\u2019s the Tall Man. \u201cBoooy\u201d and then arms grab Mike and pull him through the mirror. It looked better than what they did to Nancy\u2019s mom in Nightmare on Elm Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
End Film<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just to be clear, I know this film is confusing, this franchise is confusing. Aside from the last few minutes, this was all just a dream of Mike\u2019s as a way to cope with Jody\u2019s death. But how do you explain the Tall Man at the end, and Mike\u2019s apparent capture? Hell if I know. You\u2019re gonna have to check out the sequel for those answers. I think I had Sally and Susie mixed up based on the end credits. Oh well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not everyone loves the idea of \u201cit was all just a dream\u201d, but this was the fever dreams that nightmare fuel is made out of.\u00a0 Not some lame-ass ending to a TV series, not Shutter Island, not Identity.\u00a0 Without this film, we don\u2019t get those movies, or even something like Braid.\u00a0 The thing is, I can go back to the tried and true Twilight Zone for an earlier version of this dream story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that being said, the dream aspect allowed for everything to not make sense, look bad, the timeframes not working, and lots of logistic problems. Let\u2019s be real, that one thing allowed them to make this film on a lower budget, thankfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t sit here and tell you that this is a masterpiece on the same level as The Shining<\/a>, The Ring<\/a>, or The Exorcist<\/a>.\u00a0 What I can say is that if those are A-level, no refuse to participate in S-level bullshit, then this movie is a high B-level.\u00a0 There are a lot of great movies on this level.\u00a0 This was very inventive, moody, grim at times, and had tits.\u00a0 It gave the traditional viewer what they were looking for in the zaniest of ways.\u00a0 I know this got a 6.6 on IMDB, and I\u2019m not going to go overboard here, but I think it is a bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Final Rating – 7.7 – I almost went with a lower score, but the music in this is absolutely fantastic.\u00a0 Some of the most overlooked music in the horror genre.\u00a0 Hell, I failed to give it its due when we did the music\/soundtrack podcast. The settings are great, a house, cemetery, mausoleum, bar, and a few other locales.\u00a0 But a lot of it feels like anything could happen. I highly recommend this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Please go find a copy and support the creators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Man, this only has a 6.6 and you\u2019re left wondering, were people watching the same movie that I was?\u00a0 Or were they too dimwitted to either get it or be ashamed that they didn\u2019t get it so they didn\u2019t give it as high of a rating?\u00a0 Once you accept that there isn\u2019t a ton to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[361,362],"tags":[6835,6833,6836,4055,6834,6832],"class_list":["post-18182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-reviews","category-horror","tag-a-michael-baldwin","tag-angus-scrimm","tag-don-coscarelli","tag-phantasm","tag-reggie-bannister","tag-tall-man"],"yoast_head":"\n\n