Michael Baldwin Movies
The concluding installment of the popular horror series brings back the principal heroes Reggie, Mike, and Jody (Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, and Bill Thornbury) for their final battle against the evil Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). Mike is trying to escape the Tall Man's designs on turning him into a servant of the interdimensional body thieves, while Reggie is trying not to get involved, despite Jody's pleas for help. When a demonic cop with a skinned man in his trunk pulls Reggie over along a dark highway, and spits Reggie's mouth full of yellow slime when shot, it becomes clear that he will have to play too. After crashing his hearse in Death Valley, Mike dreams about the days of the Civil War, where he meets Jebediah Morningside (Scrimm), the Tall Man's pleasant former self. By the time he returns to the earthly plane, the dimensional forks introduced in previous installments have multiplied into over a dozen. While Reggie is occupied by a pretty undead blonde who ends up having two of the Tall Man's silver Death Balls for breasts, Jody turns out to not be quite dead either, being able to change his own body into the Death Balls at will. As the forks continue to multiply, Mike constructs his own Death Ball and skips through various dimensions with Jody looking for the Tall Man. Eventually, the brothers slip into the past to the night when Morningside turned evil in an attempt to stop the horror before it could begin. Needless to say, everything comes back to the cemetery for the chilling final battle, but it doesn't stay there for long. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- Starring:
- Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, (more)
In this erotic police thriller, three beauteous vice cops go undercover as porno actresses to catch a killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lana Clarkson, Liat Goodson, (more)
This third entry in the Phantasm series is the poorest of all. This time, Mike (Michael Baldwin) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) meet some new friends and join up with Jody (Bill Thornbury) from beyond the dead in their quest to stop the "Tall Man" (Angus Scrimm). The film has good special effects -- and Scrimm is at his best here -- but it answers all the wrong questions and not enough of the right ones. ~ Sean D. MacLaggan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, (more)
Music video director Richard Stanley made his feature debut with this apocalyptic, post-industrial nightmare set in the distant future. Dylan McDermott stars as Moses "Hard Mo"' Baxter, a washed-up ex-soldier who spends most of his time in "The Zone" -- a scorched, ochre-colored desert littered with the radioactive debris of an unspecified war (or wars). Mo's recent Zone foray with war-buddy Shades (Jon Lynch) turns up an interesting find -- a pile of droid parts he purchases from a spooky "Zone Tripper" (Carl McCoy, frontman for goth-rock's Fields of the Nephilim), which he carts home to his reclusive artist girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis) to serve as raw material for her latest work. Unbeknownst to them, the dismantled robot is the prototype of a controversial new battle-droid dubbed the Mark 13, which is designed to reassemble itself from available materials if damaged in combat. In short order, the Mark 13 proceeds to do just that, tapping into the power grid in Jill's fortress-like apartment and targeting her for death. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis, (more)
The "Tall Man" and his strange little Killer Sphere return for a second round in this sequel to the 1979 cult favorite. Mike Pearson (James LeGros) is still plagued by memories of the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), an evil mortician who has risen from the grave and bleeds embalming fluid -- and tried to kill him as a boy. Mike has been a patient in a mental institution for the last decade, insisting that the Tall Man is real; he still appears in his dreams ten years after their first encounter. When Mike changes his tune and says that the undead undertaker was merely a hallucination, he is finally released. However, Mike and his best friend, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), are actually out to find the Tall Man and put an end to his habits of grave-robbing and draining people's bodies with his flying brain-juicer. As they search for the Tall Man, Mike encounters Liz (Paula Irvine), a woman who has also appeared in his dreams, and she claims that she too has been pursued by the Tall Man. Phantasm II was followed by a third installment in 1994, and a fourth in 1998. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- James LeGros, Reggie Bannister, (more)
Phantasm is a surprisingly artful and imaginative horror film, an impressive film for 23-year-old director Don Coscarelli who worked with a miniscule budget to create a small masterpiece. When Mike (Michael Baldwin) spies some sinister Jawa-like creatures stealing corpses from the local cemetery, he and his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) explore the mausoleum, where they find that the mortician (Angus Scrimm), a towering, emaciated figure with superhuman strength, has somehow bridged the gap between Earth and the afterworld and needs fresh corpses. Among the tools of his trade is a flying Swiss army pinball that bores into the skulls of its hapless victims then extracts their brains. Their allies die off one by one, until only the brothers are left to defend humankind against the nefarious "Tall Man" and his army of shrouded dwarves. While the film does contain a fair amount of graphic violence, the gore is never gratuitous and, relative to other movies of its day, is used rather sparingly. The effects are fantastic as is the highly stylized direction; the result is a memorable chiller with more than its share of genuine shocks. ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, (more)
- 1973
- R
The darkly comic and sometimes quite gory Theatre of Blood is a vehicle tailor-made for its star Vincent Price, brilliantly capitalizing on his reputation as a master of period horror drawn from "literary" sources. Price portrays Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, who becomes enraged after losing a prominent acting award and decides to seek revenge on the critics responsible. Fittingly, he using the works of the Bard as a guide, basing his killings on violent scenes from Shakespearean plays. Price takes full advantage of his meaty role, ominously reciting classic Elizabethan monologues while rigging particularly nasty torture devices. This hilarious turn is assisted by a colorful supporting cast, including Robert Morley, Richard Coote, and Michael Hordern as critics and Diana Rigg as Lionheart's devoted daughter and partner in crime. The end result is a wonderfully evil lark that, in its own way, proves surprisingly faithful to the often bloody spirit of Shakespeare; certainly the full implications of Shylock's demand for a "pound of flesh" have rarely been made quite as explicit. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, (more)
