Some people make it a tradition every Halloween to watch a certain movie, like John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher Halloween, or Michael Dougherty’s anthology film Trick ‘r Treat. Given the season it’s not uncommon for horror fans to annually revisit the likes of Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, or any other seasonal favorites. For me though, it’s Don Coscarelli’s 1979 movie Phantasm, which immediately puts me in the Halloween mood early in the season and which I already have the itch to watch again despite it not being set on the holiday at all. Thanks to the nightmare imagery at its core, a killer soundtrack, and a plot that is as captivating as it is indecipherable, Phantasm is an easy pick for this time of year.
Phantasm’s opening scene immediately tells the audience what kind of movie it really is, because it confirms that it will not be going in any direction you expect. A young man named Tommy has been seduced by a woman into a sexual encounter in, where else, a graveyard. In the midst of their tryst she takes out a knife and stabs him, with a quick cut revealing that this sultry young woman is not a young woman at all, but instead the local mortician who we will come to know as The Tall Man. This isn’t spelled out with any grand special effect or magical transformation; just two quick cuts by Coscarelli reveal the secret. The film is not only revealing that you cannot expect anything normal within Phantasm, nor trust what your eyes see, but that a storyteller with a full command of his narrative is behind the camera.
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Tommy’s death kicks off the larger plot of Phantasm which follows Mike Pearson, a young boy who finds himself in a bit of daze. After his parents death, he was placed in the custody of his older brother Jody, who would prefer to be getting up to things that a young man is eager to take part in than look after his younger brother in a parental capacity. Mike is desperately attached to his brother, but Jody openly ponders sending him away so he can live his own life. Their relationship becomes the main crux of one of the movie’s larger themes, coming to terms with death through leaning on others.
As Jody and his pal Reggie (the ponytail-sporting, ice cream-selling comic relief of the franchise) attend the funeral, Mike watches them from a distance, always eager to keep his brother in his sights in case he decides to finally up and leave town one day. While spying on them, Mike sees unlikely images unfold around him in the graveyard as dwarven figures wearing black hoods pass between the headstones just out of his peripheral vision, culminating in the moment where he sees The Tall Man lift up Tommy’s coffin by himself and place it in the back of the hearse.
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Having witnessed all this, Mike becomes obsessed with figuring out what The Tall Man is up to, prompting him to do more sleuthing. After breaking into the funeral home and its adjacent mausoleum at night, Mike encounters the third horrifying piece of imagery that is nestled into Phantasm, the tiny chrome sphere that flies through the air and drills its way into the head of anyone that crosses its path. An unlucky caretaker at the cemetery gets a new hole in his forehead after it slams into the space between his eyes and sends blood flying all around. The death is not only gruesome, but wholly unique.
(As a side note, JJ Abrams apparently loves Phantasm so much that he was a driving force behind getting the movie remastered a few years ago. He even went on to create the Star Wars: The Force Awakens character Captain Phasma in reference to it. Now, what did she look like again?)
Though the flying sphere is maybe Phantasm’s most notable addition to pop culture, it’s Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man that is its most iconic nightmare fuel. Standing at 6’4”, Scrimm’s subtle mannerisms, long stride, and guttural delivery of the iconic “Booooooy!” are just some of the elements in his performance that make The Tall Man feel not only fully realized but memorable. In a world where the genre was dominated by masked killers using whatever household items they could find to get kills, a dignified older man whose defining characteristic is primarily that he’s just tall is already enough of a reason to make him stand out. Couple that with how Scrimm didn’t take his role lightly and you’ve got one of the most underrated movie villains of all-time, and he can be found in all five of the Phantasm movies.
This is where I draw the line at revealing what Phantasm has in store for you, because ruining its biggest surprises to a fresh audience member feels criminal. It’s also why it has become such a seasonal treat that feels ripe for repeat viewing in October; it’s all in the experience. There’s not only a human story at the center of Phantasm, but its outer shell is a surreal nightmare that Don Coscarelli masterfully brings to life. Fans will also find themselves quietly jamming to the film’s score from composers Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, a dreamlike melody that manages to keep your hair on edge while also making you wonder how much of what you’re seeing is real.
Phantasm offers a lot of meat to chew on, not only from the imagery that feels like it was plucked directly from our subconscious fears but its clear thematic arc and fresh characters. In the end though, it’s also a film that’s just fun as hell to watch. Will Phantasm always make sense to you? Perhaps not. But when the characters themselves are this likable and real, you can buy into supernatural happenings around them. You have to just buy the ticket and enjoy the ride.
You can watch Phantasm for free online over at FREEVEE; KANOPY; PLUTO; ROKU; or TUBI.
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