Reviews (131)

The most inventive and notable horror film of its time.
This is a gem from 1979, an absolute joyful expression of one filmmaker's vision. Don Coscarelli wrote, produced, directed and edited this bizarre tale which combines alien worlds, aliens, body snatching, fortune telling, Jawas, car chases and buddy-movie antics all into one. There are bizarre moving postcards, flying silver spheres that drain your blood, a threatening tall man (Angus Scrimm), femme fatales, a Tubular Bells-inspired score, and more. Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury are perfect as the brothers (Mike and Jody) who investigate the macabre events at Morningside Mortuary (the same house was the setting for Burnt Offerings) and a find a sinister "Tall Man" who seems to be crushing dead humans and using them for slaves on an alien world. Phantasm's plot is a mish-mosh of various standard horror film trappings, but is so engaging, thanks to the winning leads, that you don't care. And the surprises are many. This is a cult favorite and one of the most inventive and notable horror films of its time. Ignore the sequels.

That 70s Show Goes to Hell.
If you only watch derivative pablum like I Know What You Did Three Thanksgivings Ago and feel you have to bemoan the lack of originality in horror movies, then you should watch Phantasm. The story begins when two brothers, Mike and Jody, attend the funeral of a family friend. Things seem normal until Mike sees the mortician, AKA The Tall Man, lift up a coffin with as much difficulty as one would pick up an empty cardboard box. So the brothers, with the help of ice-cream truck driver Reggie, take it upon themselves to investigate the strange goings-on at the funeral home. What they uncover include lethal floating silver balls, little hooded dwarves that look like the Jawas in Star Wars, and a severed finger that transforms into the most laughably cheap looking monster you'll ever see.

Even the low budget isn't enough to hamper Phantasm's many endearing qualities. The atmosphere is perfect. It starts out as being 1970s laidback like an Eagles song, but becomes more desolate and sinister as the film progresses. Angus Scrimm (6'4" minus the platform shoes) is flawless as The Tall Man. Why he isn't as famous as the braindead Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers I'll never know. And what about that half-goofy / half-spooky organ heavy soundtrack? I wish it was on CD.

Overall rating: 5 stars, BOOOOOOOYYYYYYY!!!

Dark dreams are made of this...
If good films are like waking dreams, then good horror films are like waking nightmares. Few can match the power of Phantasm in this regard. Masquerading as a B-shocker, it gradually develops a kind psychological depth shared only by the best in the genre - films like The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs.

To begin with, the story is frankly outrageous: after the death of a close friend, two brothers (Mike and Jody, played by Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury) discover some strange things about the Morningside Funeral Home where their friend - and their parents, who died two years earlier - are interred. It seems the dour funeral director (a character known only as The Tall Man, indelibly rendered by Angus Scrimm) is not quite human. He's able to lift fully occupied coffins by himself, as the younger Mike secretly observes; he bleeds yellow blood; he has a strange reaction to cold; and he is aided by small silver spheres that roam the halls of the mausoleum, doing unspeakably gruesome things to intruders. It seems his main activity, though, involves a novel use of the corpses of the dearly departed - a use we learn in the striking left-turn the film takes in the third act.

Somehow, what could have been a very silly film takes on an unnerving, Lynchian kind of surreality, thanks in large measure to a well-developed subtext about abandonment, isolation, despair, and guilt. These are the anxieties that drive nightmares, and - despite the frequent humor throughout - writer/director Don Coscerelli infuses the proceedings with a poignant sense of sadness and dread. Like Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, or Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Phantasm isn't just a scary film; it has the authentic texture of a dark, disturbing dream.

And this, in a film where a major sequence involves a large, obviously rubber insect flown around on a fishing line! It could have been a real Ed Wood moment, but instead, we buy into it somehow. Amazing.

In The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm has created a classic horror film villain, in the Frankenstein's monster/Dracula/Wolfman/Mummy sense, rather in than the Freddy/Jason tradition. There is no sense of irony in his conception or performance. No camp. No winking, wisecracking, or self-aware irony. Just a powerful, implacable, evil presence.

Reggie Bannister rounds out the cast as a musician/ice cream vendor (!) who assists the brothers in their quest to rid the world (or at least their town) of the evil that has descended.

The performances (a couple of minor characters notwithstanding) are remarkably skilled, walking that fine line between believability and exaggeration virtually demanded by the genre.

The DVD is crisp and well produced. There is a delightful introduction by The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm, to get things rolling. There is a good deal of supplemental material to be found on the disc, and a thorough commentary track by Coscarelli, Scrimm, Baldwin, and Thornbury.

All told, an excellent addition to any horror fan's collection.

Beware the Tall Man, Booooyyyy!
"If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead." Or so goes one of the taglines used in the promotions for PHANTASM, the 1979 low-budget film from auteur Don Coscarelli that has become a much-loved horror classic. By today's standards, the film doesn't quite reach the level of fright promised by that slogan. But PHANTASM is nonetheless a well-made indie flick that has always been a real crowd-pleaser due to its enigmatic, unpredictable script; the ingenious and effective low-budget special FX; excellent directing and cinematography by Coscarelli; good acting, especially from the four principals; and a very memorable, haunting score.

PHANTASM follows precocious 13-year-old Michael (Michael Baldwin), his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury), and friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) as they investigate the enigmatic goings-on at the creepy nearby funeral parlor. Just who or what is that terrifying Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) that seems to have the run of the place? What is his part in the recent disappearance of corpses at the mortuary, and what is his relationship to the elfish eidolons lurking in the graveyard shadows?

PHANTASM's script is loosely structured and rather weak in spots, but this actually heightens the unpredictability of the plot and thereby gives the film an unnerving surrealistic quality. And when combined with bizarre imagery (e.g., an airborne chromed sphere drilling into a human head); gloomy, atmospheric sets and on-location sites; and a genuinely creepy, inscrutable antagonist like the Tall Man, the movie transcends the script and evolves into a 90-minute spine-tingling nightmare-on-film.

The excellent musical score also adds much to the nightmarish quality of PHANTASM. Composed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, it is stylistically reminiscent of John Carpenter's score for his groundbreaking film HALLOWEEN, released a year earlier. But unlike Carpenter's one-man synthesizer score, Myrow and Seagrave's music is performed on multiple instruments, delivering a rich, three-dimensional sound that makes PHANTASM's aural atmosphere seem much more ominous than that of HALLOWEEN.

Though it has been over 20 years since its initial release, PHANTASM has aged surprisingly well. As with its aforementioned predecessor HALLOWEEN, the gore is minimal, especially when compared to the wave of bloody horror films that splashed up on the cinematic shore in the 1980s and beyond. But the eerie, surreal ambiance of PHANTASM can still make a viewer's skin crawl, and the malignant Tall Man, with all his accursed accoutrements and paranormal paraphernalia, is still pretty damned creepy. Yes, PHANTASM has a certain ineffable 1970s drive-in quality that identifies it as a product of its era, but rather than being an annoyance, this seems to add yet another layer of "otherworldliness"--at least from a contemporary standpoint.

MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM offers the film in a non-anamorphic letterbox format in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The digital transfer is pretty clean, with only moderate filmic and digital artifacts sometimes apparent. Colors are bright and vivid, though darks are a bit on the muddy side. Soundtrack audio options include a new Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound remix, which sounds good, or the film's original 2.0 mono.

The supplements on MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM are outstanding. First off, the disc comes packaged with a very nice booklet that contains a note from writer/director Don Coscarelli, as well as a myriad of interesting tidbits about the film and its stars. On the disc itself, a really cool alternate audio track offers a feature commentary with Coscarelli and the film's principal actors. Also included are outtakes, deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots, TV interviews with Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm, and much more! These extras alone are worth the very reasonable retail price, but buyers get the cool film, too!

To recap, PHANTASM is a minor cult classic that both ardent horror fans and casual viewers alike will find genuinely enjoyable, and the loaded-with-extras DVD from MGM is nothing short of Phantastic!

Boooooy! This film is good
One of the hardest parts about writing a review of a film I love is conveying my feelings into written words. Why does the music in this movie haunt me? Why do the characters seem so real and why does the Tall Man seem so scary? He is just a tall, older man, but he is creepy to the extreme. I can't tell you why, but I know these things to be true.

Phantasm has a wildly imaginative story; one of the most original ideas for a horror film in ANY decade. Two brothers and their ice cream vending friend face down a tall, gaunt, creepy, mortician and his army of hooded dwarves (called "Jawas" by many because of their resemblance to the Star Wars critters, even though the Phantasm creatures were actually designed first). The Morningside Funeral Home is creepy in itself (the house they used is the same one featured in Burnt Offerings). The Tall Man's arsenal also includes the infamous "Spheres" which fly thru the halls of the funeral home, guarding against intruders and viciously eliminating anyone who gets in the way. What at first looks like another undead movie turns into more of a sci-fi premise when the origin of the Tall Man is partially revealed (the full origin has still only been hinted at after 4 films).

The name Phantasm hints at the dream-like unreality that saturates the story, music, direction, and cinematography. By the end you are left not knowing exactly what was real and what was a dream as the red lettering of the credits appear.

Phantasm's synth score adds so much to the film. I cannot stress this enough. Even in scenes not actively trying to scare you, the haunting music carries you along, never letting you lose the uneasiness the movie has already built up.

The special edition DVD is a great package with a commentary track featuring the director and 3 primary actors, PLUS Angus Scrimm (the Tall Man) is in the commentary too, even though he is not listed for some reason. Scrimm also introduces the movie in a rather hammy chat with the audience. Special features also include trailers and an extensive gallery of promotional materials from it's theatrical release. I hate to mention "interactive menus" because I don't see them as an actual feature, but the menus on the Special Edition DVD are fantastic. Accompanied by the great music of the film, the menus are easy to navigate and have an interesting design. Chapters are presented inside graphics of the spheres and are animated to you can see the exact scene as it plays out. The 4th Phantasm film, Phantasm: Oblivion, used a lot of deleted scenes from the original movie in it's time hopping sequences. This DVD includes even more deleted material not shown in the past-scenes of the 4th movie. They must have cut a ton of stuff from this. Most of the scenes are character scenes and give you more reason to like the characters. Well worth a look.

Amazon lists this DVD as out of print. If you don't have it, find it any way you can. Maybe it will be released again in a new form, but I can't see them improving on this great DVD. ... Read more