Phantasm I-IV plot explanations **SPOILERS**

I do not know this Jason Downs person, but he sounds like he is on crack. Whoever the Tall Man works for, they believe in subcontracting. Too busy to conquer other worlds and dimensions themselves, they send hordes of dwarves and X-mas tree ornaments to do their work. Which, let's face it, if Reggie can defeat singlehandedly time after time, are not doing a bang up job so far. I think that the Tall Man is trying to find and train a better replacement. Maybe a really old undertaker who is blown up about three times in every movie is not the best guy to have on your front lines. Finally finding a kid with some psychic skills, he thinks he has his guy. The Civil War flashback was probably a combination of both a psychic vision of the Tall Man in the past and a prediction of what the Tall Man will do to Mike a little later in the movie.

Of course this is a trilogy in which the first movie was a dream sequence of Mike's that apparently Reggie can remember too. I remember, its a big tuning fork!

"He finally captures this Mike in Phantasm III and implants the ball into his head, beginning Mike's "transformation" " quote
Can you explain this further becouse it raises some questions for me.

1.The implanted ball in Mike's head, does it have his brain or someone else?
2.If it's somebody else's brain how can he have room enough for both brains?
3.If it is Mike's brain, how come his body wasn't shrunken along with his brain?
4.When did the ball implantation take place, at the scene when the tall man was operating on Mike or before?
5.If it was before how come then the tall man looked like he was tryin to remove the ball he implanted himself out of Mikes head at the operating scene?

I love the explanation that jason.downs gives. That is exactly how I was seeing the whole plot of these movies. It is very confusing and some people might not understand the gist of it at all. I beleive though that that explnation hits the nail right on the head. All of the metal poles (that transfer people into differant dimensions or whatever) that we see in the desert in number 4 shows how many differant dimensions or worlds there are, and I think that in each of these differant dimensions exists the same exact people as in each other dimension. So, like jason said, the tall man and Mike are connected throughout space and time and the tall man is just "chasing" Mike throughout these dimensions (space/time) because he needs a "successor" Wonderful explanation!

I think jason.downs is right on target with your analysis after having watched 2,3,and 4 in succession. But it's unclear, so when's part V coming out before these guys are so old they can't walk?

[deleted]

I love this series, and there is a lot to it, but I
think some of you are just reading way too much into
what's going on.

Having said that, I believe there are only 2 possibilities,
and I really don't know which one is true.

1. It's all a dream/delusion created by Mike to escape
the reality of his parents and brother dying. Other people have
pointed out the logic and evidence for this. It's a strong theory.
The ending of IV brings it full circle, ending the series in a neat
package.
I personally never like it when a movie/tv show pulls the "it's all a dream"
thing, so I'm always happy to look at the other possibility.

2. The Tall Man really is reanimating dead bodies for an inter-dimensional
(possibly inter-galactic) slave trade, and is pursuing Mike to be his
successor for reasons not completely revealed. In this case, I would
have to say that #1 was not a dream. Sometimes the director did have
people "dream" things, which makes it more confusing, but also goes
back to his desire to make it dreamlike. The Tall Man also employs
psychic powers and illusions, which muddles things up even more.
My personal take on this is that The Tall Man is an alien entity
which can possess a body that has "attuned" by passing through the
gates. He is pursuing Mike because of that. He allowed Reggie to
escape in #4 because, if Mike is able to resist, he'll be able to go
for him instead. Perhaps he took the Orb out of Mike because he realized
he would resist forever. He left, possibly knowing that Reggie would
follow... Do I have anything to support that idea? Not at all!
Just one possible way to make sense of it. Maybe The Tall Man is following
Mike because he saw him when he emerged from the gates the very first
time, after taking over Jebediah Morningside. He realized at that point
they were linked. It's easy to make up stuff to rationalize this movie.

Then again, who knows for sure except Coscarelli?

I actually believe that he ball was all 'in his head' so to speak. Nobody else seemed to see it so I believe that it was just a broad metaphor for the tallman's influence on Mike. Also, I kind of had a theory that Mike wasn't supposed to see the tall man lifting the casket in the original. Maybe the tall man cast some sort of illusion that Mike was able to see through (would explain the continuity burp that is having the tall man display such immense strength in broad daylight five seconds after the funeral is over). Maybe Mike is in Jebediah Morningside's bloodline...
It's hard to think of such a deep storyline subjectively when continuity seems to be ignored outright, but I think it adds to the charm. As it is said in one of the films, and I paraphrase: "it is important that we remember that we can't always believe what we see."

There is also the popular theory that Phantasm is a little boy's intricate fantasy, born out of denial towards death.

I believe that's Phantasm for you, though. It's kind of a 'make your own pizza' series.

The ball was always in Mike's head. Tall Man didnt implant it...at the end of III, he was trying to remove it. Mike was begining to transform. Maybe Mike is the cosmic RIVAL of the TALL MAN. Maybe he has more power, and is slowly transforming and the Tall Man doesnt want Mike's full powers to come to fruition. Either that or he IS a successor, but either way, the ball was there. At the end of Oblivion, we see Tall Man finally get to remove it and escape to the other dimension with Mike presumably powerless if not dead.