Fan of the PHANTASM series? If so, you may be about to cheer or cry at this news. Yes, there’s another PHANTASHM movie on the way. Titled PHANTASM V: RAVAGER, this latest installment will be written and directed by David Hartman with series’ creator Don Coscarelli producing. Not only that, the film has also debuted a poster and an early teaser trailer.

The first PHANTASM movie since 1998’s PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION, this movie will see familiar faces Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury and Kat Lester returning. In terms of plot, the movie will centre on Reggie (Bannister) and his decades-long pursuit of the Tall Man (Scrimm). Supposedly the film has been shooting for quite a while already.

Discussing this new installment, Coscarelli and Hartman have been speaking to EW, with the long-time writer/director explaining why he decided to give the directing duties over to someone else. “I felt it was time to let someone else play with my train set,” revealed Coscarelli. “David and I go back to my film BUBBA HO-TEP. He did terrific visual effects on that, and more recently created a wild animated sequence and some amazing visual effects in my most recent film, JOHN DIES AT THE END. Our aesthetics are in sync and he’s quite an experienced director in his own right.”

Hartman added, “Having worked with Don before, and being a huge fan of the entire PHANTASM franchise, it was a great honour to do RAVAGER with him. This film is a real turning point in the series. There’s real closure for the core characters that I hope fans will respond to. We were fortunate to shoot amazing new sequences with horror icon Angus Scrimm – he has terrific scenes with Reggie (Bannister) and Mike (Michael Baldwin) that are truly powerful”

Discussing the decision to go ahead with a fifth movie, Coscarelli said, “The PHANTASM films have been a guerrilla operation for decades now, totally outside of the studio system. We do them for the fans, and I think RAVAGER will definitely please them. In the past few years several studios have made offers to remake PHANTASM with large budgets, but the fans were very vocal that tey wanted the original cast to return and finish this iteration of the story with class. And for the first time there’s an extended sequence on the Tall Man’s home world. I know PHANTASM fans will be as excited as I am to see it. There are also some surprises thrown in that I promise will astonish long-time fans.”

No release date has yet been given to PHANTASM V: RAVAGER, but here’s that teaser trailer we mentioned:

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