"The ball is back!"20 years ago those four words heralded the continuation of Don Coscarelli's mind-blowing PHANTASM series and probably could have saved me a lot of time had I paid more attention to my gut.
While walking through Philly with a girl I'd just started dating she started telling me about a movie she and her friend had seen that weekend and called it "the worst movie ever". I'd seen the same movie, with its ponytailed hero, flying orbs, yellow goo and head-scratching logic, and thought it was, uh, like "the best movie ever".
Had I read the obvious signs I could have saved myself about four years of grief and a couple friendships, but let's just say we don't always think with our heads.
Since that time the only way to see PHANTASM II in this country was via the out-of-print VHS release, a grey-market bootleg, an overseas DVD or – like I did this past fall – on the big screen. That will all change this fall with the first official DVD release of the film.
Which means that I'll have little to bitch about once this and Fred Dekker's amazing NIGHT OF THE CREEPS hit video later this year. No word on if the disc will feature anything more than the flick's theatrical cut but that'll be enough for me.
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