I loved "Phantasm" of 1979, and i liked the first sequel "Phantasm II" of 1988 a lot. "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead" of 1994 was quite poor in comparison, but i was still entertained. This third sequel, "Phantasm IV: Oblivion", however, has hardly any positive aspects. This film's only qualities are Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man and Reggie Bannister as Reggie. These two actors still deliver good performances as the Phantasm series' two memorable characters. Even those two characters have become a lot weaker though. The film tells a lot about the Tall Man's background, which takes a lot of this wonderful Horror villain's creepiness away. The character of Reggie also becomes less likable, since director Coscarelli obviously found it necessary for this formerly very cool character to annoy with 'hip' one-liners. Still, it is Bannister and Scrim who are responsible for the only few good moments in this film.<br /><br />Other than these two, the movie delivers one disappointment after another. Due to the total lack of new ideas, Coscarelli just decided to put in several scenes that were cut out from the great 1979 original. These recycled scenes basically serve as flashbacks - as flashbacks that don't make any sense and seem extremely out of place. The main purpose of "Phantasm IV" seems to be to recycle ideas from its predecessors. Even worse, the film destroys a lot of what the previous movies had built up. Even the super-creepy Tall Man's creepiness is destroyed by an idiotic story about his background. Not only is "Phantasm IV: Oblivion" an unworthy sequel to the brilliant first, and cool second part, it is not even a worthy sequel to the, already poor, "Lord Of The Dead". Another sequel is scheduled for 2008, and now that I've seen all other parts of the series, I'll give it a try (It can't be worse than part 4). To those who enjoyed the first 3 "Phantasm" films, and haven't seen number 4 yet, I recommend to skip this sorry attempt of a sequel, since all it does is destroy some of the magic of is predecessors.