One of the reasons I broke away from the stranglehold of my friend Twiddle on our old H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. site was so I could review THIS movie! BY FAR, my favorite installment of the series, it takes place some 8 years after the first. Starting with a short recap in the beginning to tell us what happened when we last left Mike and Reggie, under attack from the Tall Man and his legion of angry dwarves! After Reg swipes Mike (who's face is conveniently hidden!) from the bad guys, he then blows his own house up to escape! So, 8 years later, Mike has managed to fake his way into release from the asylum he was checked into, and it's all happening again as the local graveyard is being plundered! But, it's not until Reg's new house and family are blown all to shit, that he finally agrees to join Mike in his hunt for the Tally and his balls of steel. Reg, Mike, and their bitchin hot rod are on the warpath again, as Tally is somehow mentally beaming messages into Mike's skull, as if he wants the duo to find him! Raiding a hardware store for "supplies", we are treated for the first time to Reggie's now legendary FOUR barreled shotgun! Following Tally's trail, the guys visit backwater town after backwater town in their search, until finally they find one of Tally's "calling cards" in one town... quite gut wrenching, yet humorous in it's own way! Then it's off to Perigore, where Tally is again setting up shop, and hometown to Liz: a girl Mike is somehow mentally connected to. On the way, they pick up Alchemy: a girl that Mike has been seeing dead in his visions (the only visions Reg has of her are wet ones heh heh). Lucky for Reg, Al (Alchemy) also has a fetish for bald men! WAHOO! Meanwhile, Tally hangs a priest with his own rosary beads (YEAH!)... boy, if he hadn't sealed it already, Tally's goin to Hell for that move! If that weren't enough, he then sticks his balls in the poor guy's face! Tsk Tsk. When Mike and Liz do finally meet, they've locked lips before ending their first sentence! Well, Mike and Liz are of course in love (gotta give the ladies something) and Reg gets laid before they go out and drag race with Tally and his hearse! The heroes lose though, wrecking their 'Cuda and losing Liz (who later *THWAK*s her captor and cremates him)... boy, just don't pay to be a good guy... In their rescue mission, Reg duels a Digger (the dudes in the gas masks) with chainsaws (one of the greatest chainsaw duels in cinematic history!) while one of Tally's "normal" henchmen makes a wrong move and get's one of Tally's balls busted in his skull! Reg wins the duel with a low blow (with the chainsaw of course... *cringe*) and after a quick visit to Tally's dimension again, they stick him with one of his own balls (hmmm, salty) which he crushes with a whim! So they embalm him with hydrochloric acid in one last ditch effort to destroy him for good! They then torch the place and ride off into the sunset... till Reg pulls off a chunk of Al's scalp, gets his ass beat, and is left on the side of the road as Tally and his minions run off with Liz and Mike! You know what this means? SEQUEL! It's good to be a God!

Sequels: PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD, PHANTASM: OBLIVION

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: EVIL DEAD 2 or RE-ANIMATOR