Way back at the end of the 1970s, as teenagers we were captivated and somewhat bemused by Don Coscarelli's little indie horror that introduced us to The Tall Man, the Lady In Lavender and the silver spheres. Now, the long-promised fifth and final chapter of the Phantasm saga arrives after a wait of nearly two decades, without its series director in the big chair, and it is quite a disappointment. This micro-budget effort - originally conceived as webisodes, and it clearly shows - simply lacks the resources to put on screen a satisfactory ending to the franchise. Although the Phantasm series is famous for its dream-logic and loose grip on reality and coherence, even by its own standards RaVager has some very weakly-written and unnecessary scenes. What does work to a large extent is Reggie's framing dementia storyline, which allows for occasionally effective intercutting between 'realities' and leads to a surprisingly emotional ending to his story, but even then this is undermined by an unnecessary tacked-on coda. To its credit, all the major players return, with the late Angus Scrimm still effective as The Tall Man in his limited final appearance. There are some nice fan-pleasing moments - the film even manages to find a couple of new twists on the flying spheres - but overall it is a great shame that RaVager is largely underwritten, underpowered, underfunded and not very satisfying.
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