Fella_shibby I saw this first in the mid 80s on a VHS. Was terrified by the Tall man. Revisited it recently on a DVD. Don Coscarelli (his episode- Incident on n off a mountain.. from Masters of horror is my fav), did an awesome job with this film. His direction, writing n cinematography were all very good considering the tiny budget. The film has a very eerie music adding to the tension. The plot is about two brothers, one of em a teen, dealing with the recent death of their parents n how they are pulled back to the mortuary when one of their friends turns up dead. It gets weird when the teen brother sees the frightening mortician single-handedly lift a coffin into the back of a hearse. The film is creepy, fast paced n inspite of low body count there is enuff violence n scares. It is full of surreal images – the drilling spheres were scary n tension filled, the entire film n its characters r isolated with just the mortuary. The scariest part bah the film is the sinister figure of the Tall Man, always walking in slow-motion with the accompanied sound of the drumbeats n his shoes.

thelastblogontheleft I knew from the very first scene that I would love this movie, and I was totally right. Mike (played by A. Michael Baldwin) is still processing through the grief of losing his parents. He lives alone with his older brother, Jody (played by Bill Thornbury), who is growing a bit weary at his clinging and neediness. When Mike goes against Jody's request and spies on the funeral of a friend of theirs, he becomes suspicious of the undertaker — only known as the Tall Man (played by Angus Scrimm) — and what his motives really are. The rest of the movie unravels into delightful chaos — a bit disjointed at times, totally, but with some absolute gems, too.It's worth noting that the director, Don Coscarelli, not only wrote, directed, photographed, co-produced, AND edited this film, but he did so on a budget of around $300,000 (all privately funded). He was literally renting equipment just for the weekends, which dragged the filming process out to a full year. His father helped fund the movie, his mother designed some of the special effects and costumes, and the cast — unsurprisingly — was comprised of friends and aspiring professionals. They worked scene by scene and much of the script was improvised. But oh man, for what it lacks in cohesion and solid acting it makes up for in charm, creepiness, and some really awesome gore.It's an endearing story to begin with — two brothers just trying to make it through life alone after a tragic loss. Mike justifiably worried that Jody will leave him to retain some independence and freedom. And the naturally undeniable curiosity that comes from being a young teen — the only explanation for him busting a basement window at the funeral home to investigate further when most of us would have run for the hills after seeing the Tall Man.The scene where Mike slams the hand of his pursuer in the heavy metal door and yellow blood comes spurting out… awesome. The fact that he makes sure to take that finger home to convince his skeptical brother that he is, in fact, seeing some crazy things… even more awesome. And then you see the first glimpse of the Sentinels — the metallic orbs that latch onto your head and pump your blood out — and you're a fan for life (if you're anything like me, that is).Ultimately, the Tall Man is one of the creepiest goddamn villains I've seen in anything. He's just got this air about him that makes your blood run cold. I could relate deeply to the scene where Mike sees him out on the street and presses himself hard against the wall behind him in a vain effort to escape the mere sight of him from a distance. The fact that he is meant to represent death — and the morbid but honest idea that we can only escape it in our dreams — just makes him even more awesome.

TheRedDeath30 I am fairly well immersed in the horror community. I go to a dozen conventions a year. I talk about horror on social media frequently. I buy things from horror vendors (toys, t-shirts, etc). What I am trying to convey is that I think I am fairly in tune with the trends of the horror culture. This is one of those "forgotten out of mind" classics. What I mean by that is that I don't see the stars of this movie invited to conventions all that often. I don't see people talking about it all the time on social media. I don't see Phantasm toys, posters, t- shirts flooding the vendor stalls and websites. It's by no means a HALLOWEEN or Friday THE 13th. However, ask any horror fan if they like this movie and you will get a resounding yes. This fact was backed up last night (as I type this) as they re-released a remastered version to select theaters, most of which sold out, attesting to the love of this movie.As loved as it is, clearly what keeps it from being a certified classic is that it does have weaknesses, as well. It is certainly not a perfect film, but it is memorable and frightening. The movie occupies a strange place in its' classification. It's an American independent horror film, but feels far more in place with what European horror was doing at the time. This is no slasher, or mean- spirited grindhouse horror that was so popular with American horror audiences at the time. It is a surreal film, with a storyline that is all over the place, and a dreamlike tone that reminds me much more of the influence of the Italians. It is, also, not quite horror. There are clear sci-fi tones and influences here, which only begin to reveal towards the end of the film, but the big "reveal" of who the Tall Man is and why they are gathering bodies is certainly not your typical horror story. It has much more in common with sci-fi.The movie has several things in its' favor that have made it so loved by horror audiences, not the least of which is Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man, the movie's iconic villain. He has that old guy creepiness that works so well in a horror role, mixed with physical attributes that made him imposing. Let's not forget that voice, too, as he utters those classic lines...."Booooyyyy". He has an arsenal of weapons at his disposal, as well. We have the human familiar with almost traps our young hero in the crypt, another creepy old guy. There is the slut with the stiletto, who may or may not also be The Tall Man. A well-endowed young woman who lures men, siren-like, to their deaths in the graveyard. There are the evil Jawas, dwarf minions who always seem right around the corner. Then, of course, there is the ball of death, the orb that is so familiar as a part of this movie. It was originally given an X-rating because the orb scene was considered to be so gory and violent that they couldn't pass it with an R. Of course, now it look a little silly, but if you can let your imagination do a little work, it is still a frightening scene.The biggest thing going for this movie is that it has creativity in spades. I can't imagine sitting down to write this story. There are so many ideas here and plot strands going all over the place that someone's creativity was clearly running wild. That is, also, one of the weaknesses of the movie, though. The plot is all over the place. There is, at times, just far too much going on and some of it makes little to no sense. It feels like this could have been tightened into a masterpiece by eliminating one or two elements to bring more detail to the best ones, but part of its' charm is that "all over the place" feel.Know that this is low budget before you go in. The acting is very limited. The effects look like a high school AV club did them. One of our main heroes is a middle aged guy with a "skullet" who drives a 50s looking ice cream truck and wears silly bowties, all while playing a mean acoustic guitar. I don't, personally, hold any of that against this movie, but I know that there are plenty of millennials out there who will look at this and scoff, robbing themselves of the experience of seeing the type of movie that formulated your modern horror scene.The movie has spawned four sequels, to date, and the orb and Tall Man have become iconic. It may not be on anyone's Top Ten list of horror, but I think you would find that it's on a lot of Top 100 lists and that's nothing to scoff at, either.

simest PHANTASM is an uneven work, too fantastic to be genuinely scary but ferociously unique and fascinating on numerous levels. I think there was a desire to create a warped and entirely original Universe where nothing is as it seems and anything can and probably will happen. Logic is quickly cast aside and indeed has no place in the crooked landscape that PHANTASM paints. Into this bizarre, Dali-like twisted and surreal cosmos, are thrust a group of characters who - perhaps even by virtue of their acting inadequacies - seem somehow as much a part of the fabric of that Universe - even in their struggles to survive and make sense of it. For me, PHANTASM has a hypnotic effect for all those reasons. Flying sphere drills, a gender bending alien cemetery keeper, hooded shrunken corpses refined for slave labour in some parallel Universe, a severed finger that morphs into a grotesque (if admittedly comical) fly and countless other wild fantasies are all episodic nightmares that work their way into my head and stay there - however well or not they may be executed. They are indeed, the essence of all the darkest, unfathomable episodes that invade our deepest sleep. Also, the film's tendency to bounce us in and out of reality - if indeed there is a reality present at all - without warning, keeps us permanently on unstable ground. Dreams are very prominent and indeed prevalent in PHANTASM. So much so, that by the end there seems no dividing line between that which was real and which was not. In this sense, the film explored the territory that NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET would later make it's own but somehow achieves a dream-like quality that even Craven's classic would not surpass. Only Dario Argento's similarly bizarre INFERNO comes to mind as a rival to PHANTASM for the closest we might get to a dream realised on film.PHANTASM is a unique, mind bending vision of quaint, small town America, infused with hellish fantasies of death, loss and isolation, unleashed from the subconscious mind - perhaps even in the end, from that of it's young, insecure and lonely adolescent protagonist. Poe said "Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?" PHANTASM presents a case. I urge those who are not impressed, to watch it again with these notions in mind.