Editorials
Let’s Try to Make Some Sense of ‘Phantasm: Ravager’
Was the whole franchise merely Reggie’s delusion?!
True to the franchise, brand new sequel Phantasm: Ravager is a convoluted mess that seems to make very little actual sense, so if you found yourself utterly confused by the whole damn thing, trust us when we say that you weren’t alone. The film begins with Reggie emerging from the desert some time after the events of Phantasm 4: Oblivion, but from there he time-hops into alternate realities that see him joining forces with Mike to fight the Tall Man in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and, alternately, battling dementia at a nursing home.
So what the hell was really going on?
As a word of warning, there will be spoilers below, so proceed with caution!
Let’s cut right to the chase. The ending. There are actually two endings to Phantasm: Ravager, the first of which sees Reggie dying in the aforementioned nursing home. With Mike and Jody by his side, Reggie shuffles off this mortal coil, and the film seems to suggest that everything we’ve ever seen in the Phantasm franchise was a delusion taking place inside his brain; at the very least, the events of Ravager did not happen. In the other ending, Reggie reunites with both Mike and Jody, and they drive off in a souped-up Cuda to bring the fight to the Tall Man one last time.
Which ending is the true ending? Well, the film is of course completely open to interpretation, but I thought it’d at least be fun to spitball a little bit together and try to figure this thing out. My own interpretation? Reggie died in the nursing home, and in death, the Tall Man gave him back what he wanted most: Mike and Jody. A benevolent act from the evil dimension-hopper? Well not exactly. Because though he gave Reggie what he wanted, he also gave himself what he needed.
Let me try to explain. This shit is BONKERS.
Phantasm: Ravager is built around the concept of the Tall Man making Reggie an offer: leave me be and let me take over the world, and you can have back your family. Reggie declines the offer, telling the Tall Man that he also wants Mike and Jody back. Tall Man, disgusted by Reggie’s loyalty, flat-out refuses, but by the end of the film, both Tall Man and Reggie seem to each get what they wanted out of the deal. With giant spheres hovering in the sky, the Earth has been turned into the Tall Man’s personal playground, and Reggie, if only in death, is once again riding around in that Plymouth Cuda with his best friends Mike and Jody. By distracting Reggie with trips into alternate realities (via that brain device he was strapped into for ten years), Tall Man was able to take over the world, and after doing so he was kind enough to gift Reggie with Mike and Jody.
But again, it wasn’t quite an act of benevolence.
As Reggie dies off in one brain-warped reality, he then jumps into the Tall Man’s preferred reality, where he, Mike, and Jody are doomed, as they have been throughout the franchise, to fight the Tall Man (and his many clones) FOREVER. And you know what? Though that may seem like an unsatisfying non-ending, that is actually the PERFECT ending to the Phantasm saga. The series, dating back to 1979, presented what can only be described as a never-ending story, so it only makes sense that the story, well, it doesn’t end. Nearly 40 years later, the fight continues, and for Reggie, Mike, and Jody, it will continue literally forever.
So why does the Tall Man give Jody and Mike back to Reggie? Because he needs them. He needs them in the way that Joker needs Batman. Many times throughout the series, the Tall Man could have easily killed each of his adversaries, but he never actually did. They are a huge part of his game, and without them, there really is no Tall Man. At the end of Ravager, they are forever trapped in his game. They completely belong to him now, if they didn’t already.
As the Tall Man said at the end of Phantasm 3, “It’s never over.”
A satisfying ending to the decades-long saga? It was the ONLY ending.
What did you make of Phantasm: Ravager? Let’s talk about it!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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