It's rare that the same creative team are still around 4 films into a series, and even rarer that a 4th film has anything new to add, so this makes a refreshing change.
The tone is a little uneven, with Coscarelli seeming torn between delivering the slapstick gore and laughs of the previous 2 sequels and going for the darker more surreal approach of the first movie, so a lot of Reggie's scenes seem like they could have been pasted in from a different movie. Speaking of which large chunks are made up of deleted scenes from "Phantasm", which, while suggesting money problems during development, actually works very well in bookending the events so far.
It also goes some way to filling in the gaps, giving the Tall Man a proper origin story and answering a few questions while still leaving enough up in the air to justify the 5th film which is apparently in production currently.
That said, even if a 5th film never materialises, this makes a nicely apocalyptic ending to a series that has actually come to life in it's sequels. There's still plenty of laughs, but there's a very downbeat tone and some nicely creepy touches, making this a very enjoyable, if slightly schizophrenic addition to a fun series.
The tone is a little uneven, with Coscarelli seeming torn between delivering the slapstick gore and laughs of the previous 2 sequels and going for the darker more surreal approach of the first movie, so a lot of Reggie's scenes seem like they could have been pasted in from a different movie. Speaking of which large chunks are made up of deleted scenes from "Phantasm", which, while suggesting money problems during development, actually works very well in bookending the events so far.
It also goes some way to filling in the gaps, giving the Tall Man a proper origin story and answering a few questions while still leaving enough up in the air to justify the 5th film which is apparently in production currently.
That said, even if a 5th film never materialises, this makes a nicely apocalyptic ending to a series that has actually come to life in it's sequels. There's still plenty of laughs, but there's a very downbeat tone and some nicely creepy touches, making this a very enjoyable, if slightly schizophrenic addition to a fun series.