General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Phantasm II

Phantasm II is a 1988 American horror film written and directed by Don Coscarelli and the sequel to Phantasm (1979). It was produced by Roberto A. Quezada for Spacegate Corporation and distributed theatrically by Universal Pictures, opening on July 8, 1988.¹ The film continues the story of Mike Pearson and his friend Reggie as they pursue the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), an evil mortician who reanimates the dead and attacks the living with flying silver spheres.²

Key fact	Detail
Release	July 8, 1988, on approximately 1,000 screens, after a preview on June 20, 1988 in North Hollywood, CA¹
Budget	$3,000,000 from Universal, about ten times the original film's budget³^•⁴
Box office	$7,282,851 domestic; opening weekend $3,012,285 in 1,227 theaters³
Cast	James LeGros (Mike), Reggie Bannister (Reggie), Angus Scrimm (the Tall Man), Paula Irvine (Liz), Samantha Phillips (Alchemy), Kenneth Tigar (Father Meyers)¹
Running time / rating	97 minutes, rated R¹
Critical score	Metascore 42 ("mixed or average") from 9 critics on Metacritic⁵
Follow-ups	Direct-to-video sequels Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) and Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)¹

Spoilers

Plot

The film picks up immediately after the ending of the original, then flashes forward seven years. Mike has been confined to the Morningside Psychiatric Clinic for paranoid delusions, but he shares a telepathic connection with Liz Reynolds of Perigord, Oregon, who has visions of the Tall Man appearing after her grandfather's death. Mike lies to his doctors to secure his release, and Reggie picks him up. When Reggie's house explodes and kills his wife and daughter, he joins Mike in pursuit of the Tall Man. The two arm themselves with firearms and flamethrowers and follow a trail of destroyed small towns and empty graveyards, while Liz sends Mike telepathic warnings from Perigord.¹⁰

Production history

A sequel was announced in 1980, a year after the original film's release, but it took nearly eight years to reach theaters.⁶ Coscarelli later said he could not figure out how to enter a sequel because the first film had ended with Mike's death and the Tall Man's victory; his solution was to start the new film a second after the original ended and simply not have Mike die.⁷ The project came together when Tom Pollock, a horror fan who had become head of Universal Studios, financed it; Coscarelli recalled that Universal described it as the lowest-budget film they had financed, while from his perspective they were "throwing money at us."⁷

Principal photography began on December 9, 1987 in Los Angeles.¹ The studio imposed conditions on the production. Universal would not let Coscarelli recast A. Michael Baldwin, who played Mike in the original, saying they wanted a "working" actor; James LeGros took the role instead.⁸ The producers also demanded a more linear, action-oriented, less dreamlike approach than the first film.⁴ Coscarelli later acknowledged that the road-movie structure made for a more straightforward story, but that requested test-screening changes diluted the intentional mystery that had marked the original.⁹

Special and makeup effects

The larger budget went largely to practical effects. Coscarelli described the film as "one hundred percent prosthetic effects" with "no digital effects whatsoever," and said the plan was to work with professional effects artists for the first time in the series.⁷ Mark Shostrom led the special makeup effects crew; his assistants included Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Everett Burrell, who went on to prominent careers in the field.⁷ Shostrom's behind-the-scenes photographs from the production's 30th anniversary show sculpted creature heads, a press-out sculpture for an eye-pop effect, and Angus Scrimm's makeup for the Tall Man's death scene, which used gelatin, yellow milk, yogurt, and chicken skin.¹¹ The Tall Man's messy death scene took days to film and required hours in the makeup chair each day.⁹

Reception

Critical response was mixed to negative. Metacritic assigned a metascore of 42 from nine critics, categorized as "mixed or average," with five negative, three mixed, and one positive review.⁵ Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film one star out of four, calling it "like an extended dream in which characters appear and disappear according to no logical timetable" and writing that it required no character development, logic, or subtlety from its audience.¹² The Chicago Tribune's Dave Kehr, in the review Metacritic scored most positively at 75, wrote that Coscarelli had captured "the texture of a disjointed, half-remembered nightmare."⁵ Several critics compared the sequel unfavorably with the original's dreamlike invention; the Los Angeles Times likened the difference to that between 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010.⁵

Commercially, the film opened at $3,012,285 from 1,227 theaters, 41.4 percent of its eventual $7,282,851 domestic gross, and returned 2.4 times its production budget.³ Released in the middle of the 1988 summer season against films including Die Hard, Coming to America, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was profitable but ended the theatrical franchise potential Universal had hoped for.¹³

Legacy

The film was followed by the direct-to-video titles Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) and Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998).¹ Among fans it is often discussed as the series' action-oriented entry: Reggie Bannister's character gains the quad-barrel shotgun introduced in this film, and comparisons to Evil Dead II and to Aliens as a franchise's louder second installment recur in retrospective commentary.¹³^•¹⁴ Universal holds the film's rights, and for years it had never received a United States home video release; Shout Factory issued a Blu-ray Collector's Edition in 2013 with a commentary, deleted scenes, and a featurette with Greg Nicotero.¹⁵^•⁹ A later limited collection, The PHANTASM Sphere Collection, includes an unrated cut of the film.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Horror and slasher series film entries › 1970s and 1980s releases

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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