- Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Written by Don Coscarelli
- Stars Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu0a_XOxRlM
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
It’s better than the second film. It’s a good continuation of the series, and it ends in a much better place for further sequels. It explains a bit more about the Tall Man’s agenda, and adds some interesting new characters to the story.
Synopsis
We start with a shot of the Tall Man staring into his balls as he holds one of them in his hand. Mike, the boy from the first film, remembers the events from the previous two films. But somehow, the Tall Man just keeps coming back. “Nothing is ever as it seems.” Credits roll.
Then we take up right where the second movie left off. Reggie is thrown out of the Hearse, which soon explodes with Mike and the girls from the second movie inside. Mike is thrown clear. Reggie shoots an evil dwarf and rescues Mike. Not really, as the Tall Man and more dwarves arrive. Reggie threatens to blow himself and Mike up with a grenade, and the Tall Man says he can wait.
Mike’s in the hospital, still unconscious after the car accident. He dreams about people walking into the light. He sees Jody, his dead brother, who tells him to go back. “Stay away from the light,” he says. Reggie walks in the room in time to see a killer ball pop out of the nurse’s head. This ball has an eye.
Mike and Reggie go home to get their stuff before leaving town. Jody is there to warn them, but it’s really Jody’s mind inside one of the silver balls. “It’s time now, boy” says the Tall Man. The Tall Man and Mike leave through a portal.
The next morning, Reggie wakes up and tries to repair the Jody-ball to no avail. It only says “Holtsville.” Reggie goes to the town of Holtsville, population zero. There was some kind of toxic spill here years ago. He’s overpowered by a trio of looting crooks.
The three then decide, for some reason, to break into a big house and steal stuff. There’s a little kid in there who kills the girl and wounds one of the men. Then he throws a razor-tipped frisbee that kills the other man. Soon, he’s alone and lets Reggie out of the trunk of the car.
The boy’s name is Tim, and he warns Reggie about the “Lurkers” that the Tall Man left there after killing his parents. The Tall Man took both his parents, but he escaped. The eye-ball is watching them all night. The next morning, they find that the lurkers took the three bandits’ bodies. Reg decides to leave, and Tim insists on going along.
Next stop: Holtsville Cemetery. Reggie enters the abandoned mausoleum, and he’s almost immediately attacked by a ball. Two women handcuff Reggie, but the ball gets one of them. The other woman, Rocky, tries to fight it with nunchucks, but Tim shoots it instead.
The trio winds up at a cheap motel for the night. They’re headed to Boulton, another town that’s all cleared out. They get lost, but they soon spot a trio of Hearses driven by guys in gas masks. There’s dozens of Hearses.
Reggie finally convinces Rocky to have sex, but right in the middle of it, Jody appears again. He shows Reggie how to get to Mike. They take a portal to see the Tall Man and Mike. The Jody-ball lasers a hole in the wall to release Mike, but the Tall Man turns Jody back into a ball. They escape through another portal.
The three bandits from earlier are back, now zombified, but they don’t last long. Reggie, Mike, Rocky, and Tim head into the town’s mausoleum, thinking the Tall Man would never think to look for them there.
They find a cryonics pod there, and Mike remembers that the Tall Man doesn’t like the cold. Jody-ball explains the Tall Man’s plan to Mike. He puts brains into the sentinels/balls and turns their bodies into killers.
Mike talks to the Tall Man. Rocky and Tim fight with the not-so-dead bandits. The Tall Man starts to operate on Mike, but the others break in and fight him. They stab him and shove him into the meat locker, which is very cold. The Tall Man shatters, and a gold sentinel ball emerges. They end up dumping the ball in the liquid nitrogen.
Unfortunately, Mike now has balls in his head. He runs off into the darkness. Rocky says goodbye and drives off. Tim and Reg go back inside and find the ball has escaped and the portal has been activated. Oh, there are now thousands of balls. The Tall Man appears and says, “It’s never over!”
Commentary
It manages to bring back the trio of heroes from the first film, which is a good trick since one of them was killed. Or seemed to have been.
Generally speaking, Reggie may be the unluckiest hero since the Evil Dead films. He’s beat up, attacked, or something in every encounter, sometimes by his allies.
There’s a lot of silliness here. The three bandits. Bad-ass Rocky channeling Grace Jones with nunchucks. Reggie’s love life in particular is just comical.
I think there’s probably more to cryonics than just dumping floating heads into liquid nitrogen, but I’m no expert. Anyway, it makes for an entertaining plot device.