Phantasm III, or, The Idea Of Rocky

Stronger people than I can keep up with a movie every day for October, as part of a blog-based Countdown to Halloween, but I can only commit to watching as many horror movies this month as I can. I’ve even got a Shudder subscription and everything! For my official first-movie-in-October entry, I chose to watch Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. The first Phantasm movie along with its sequel are pretty inexplicable. Both in that it’s near impossible to explain what actually happens in them in any kind of coherent way, but it’s also near impossible to explain how it all still works. I’ve heard people say that Phantasm III keeps the streak going, and in fact is their favorite in the series. That was definitely not my experience. For me, it just seemed like a movie series that was always more “interesting” and “charming” than actually good, but here is just running on fumes. It seems like the essential elements of a Phantasm movie have now been firmly established, and they’re all present…