A young boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a mysterious arsenal of terrible weapons with him.
Well here is the start of my “Phantasm” franchise review, this is a franchise I feel is under-rated so I’m excited to put my view across.
When it comes to Horror films you’d be surprised how many villains have come from the writer/directors dreams or real life events. In the case of Don Coscarelli it was a dream. One night, being in his late teens, he dreamed of fleeing down endlessly long marble corridors, pursued by a chrome sphere intent on penetrating his skull with a wicked needle. There was also a quite futuristic “sphere dispenser” out of which the orbs would emerge and begin chase. He took the title “Phantasm” from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, it’s a term frequently used in his writings.
In-fact the film’s original running time was over three hours long, but Don Coscarelli decided that that was far too long for it to hold people’s attention and made many cuts to the film to bring it down to just shy of 90 minutes. Some of the unused footage was located in the late 1990s and became the framework for “Phantasm IV: Oblivion”, the rest of the footage is believed to be lost which is a crying shame as I’d love to see what other parts the story involved.
One thing I truly love about this film is it’s beautiful location settings, every scene was perfectly shot and it’s subtlety just works so well. My favourite location is the mausoleum, these places are usually really nice looking on screen and there’s no difference here. It’s so good that it’s hard to believe that The stone-looking interior of the mausoleum was actually constructed of plywood and marble coloured plastic contact paper. The casting for the film was magnificent, you have a real eclectic group of people who just fit with one another. My favourite character is Reggie, a loveable character that you really root for.
Now I can’t write all this without mentioning the true star of the film, The Tall Man. Angus Scrimm plays such a great villain and I can’t imagine anyone else playing that role, his height and menacing looks creates truly creepy moments and don’t forget that deep raspy voice. The Tall Man character also has one of the most unique weapons, killer spheres that are like guiding missiles that when strike drain the blood out of you. I love the spheres and think they are often overlooked when it comes to weapons in the Horror genre. The spheres were actually designed by craftsman Willard Green who charged the production a little over $1,o00 for his services. Sadly, he died just after production completed and never saw his work on the big screen.
“Phantasm” is easily one of my favourite Horror films, despite being released in the late 70’s it actually looks like an 80’s gem and you can see the influence it had on future Horror films. If you haven’t already seen it you’re missing out and should do your best to see it as soon as you can.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
The mansion used for the exterior shots of the mausoleum was also seen in the James Bond film A View to a Kill and also the 1976 horror film Burnt Offerings.
Don Coscarelli’s and Reggie Bannister’s parents can all be seen as extras in the funeral scene.
The dwarves were played by children.
The “ball” scenes were simple special effects. The sphere was being guided around a corner by a fishing line. The sphere was thrown from behind the camera by a baseball pitcher and then the shot was printed in reverse. The ball attaching itself to the man’s head was filmed by sticking it on his head, then pulling it off, and printing the shot in reverse.
Title was changed to “The Never Dead” for Australian audiences as not to confuse it with the popular Aussie sex comedy World of Sexual Fantasy, which was also known as Fantasma.
The coffin that Mike sees the Tall Man lift by himself and shove back into the hearse was made out of balsa wood, empty, and had a rope on the side facing away from the camera to make it easier to handle. The rope can be briefly seen as the Tall Man lifts up the coffin.
The copyright date shown during the closing credits of this film says MCMLXXVII (1977)
Don Coscarelli rented all of the filming equipment used to make this movie, always on Fridays so he could use it all weekend and return it on Mondays, all the while only actually having to pay one day’s rental on the equipment.
The film’s Turkish title, ‘MANYAK’, translates to ‘Psycho’.
Filmed at the same mansion location used in Little Girls Blue.
The role of Jody Pearson was originally intended for performer Gregory Harrison who played the title role in Don Coscarelli’s first feature Jim, the World’s Greatest
The song played on the front porch by Reggie and Jody, ‘Sittin’ Here At Midnight’, was actually composed by Bill Thornbury himself.
At the scene near the end when Reggie comes out of the funeral home, the production installed a wind machine with a huge fan blowing to create the effect of a very strong wind. As a joke, A. Michael Baldwin started throwing stones in front of the fan, that went to hit Reggie Bannister and Kathy Lester several times.
Don Coscarelli’s mother, novelist Kate Coscarelli, held several titles on the production and even used two aliases, “S. Tyler” and “Shirley Mae”, for production design and make up/costume design respectively. She also wrote a novel adaptation based on the film. It was published in 2002 and only 500 copies were produced.
There are several references to Frank Herbert’s Dune, including a bar named “Dune” and a scene where Mike is forced to insert his hand into a black box that inflicts pain as part of a test.
The 1971 Plymouth Barracuda was chosen because Don Coscarelli remembered a guy in high school had one, and was a little envious of him. A Barracuda was made to look like the Hemi ‘Cuda. Though in one scene you can see the designation of 440-6 on the hood. Indicating the car had a 440, with a “six pack” (3 two-barrel carburetors).Bill Thornbury then took the car to a friend of his and had it custom striped so it felt like it was really his car. The true purpose of the car was so the brothers Mike and Jody could have a means of bonding. In fact, A. Michael Baldwin learned to drive in that car, he was only 14 at the time! After the movie was finished, the car was sold, and to this day nobody is sure what really happened to it. As a result the black Hemi ‘Cuda became just as much of a hallmark to the series as the chrome spheres.
The theme song is played by death metal band “Entombed” in the middle section of the title track of their debut album, ‘Left Hand Path’ (1990), before the solos.
A piece of dialogue is used at the beginning of the song “Guilty Of Being Tight” included in the “Municipal Waste” album “Hazardous Mutation” (2005).
The line of dialogue “The funeral is about to begin, Sir” was used by black metal band “Marduk” in their track ‘Hearse’, from the album ‘World Funeral’ (2003), and also by the death metal band “The Ravenous” in a track from their first album “Assembled in Blasphemy” (2000).
The theme song is also played by the Hungarian black metal/thrash band “Tormentor”, in the title track “introduction” of their album, released in August 1988.
In Italy, this movie is called ‘Fantasmi’ (‘Ghosts’). is The Spanish distributors for the movie decided, instead of translating the title, to simply add an “a” at the end, making it “Phantasma”. The word itself does not exist in the Spanish language, but sounds phonetically the same as “Fantasma” (Ghost).
Performers A. Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm, Terrie Kalbus, Mary Ellen Shaw and Kenneth V. Jones had all appeared in one of Don Coscarelli’s previous two movies, Jim, the World’s Greatest and Kenny & Company. Reggie Bannister is the only actor in the cast to have appeared in both features.
The iconic bed nightmare sequence was number 25 on the cable channel Bravo’s list of the “100 Scariest Movie Moments”.
Mike’s motorbike is a Hodaka Road Toad.
In the Fortune Teller’s house, right behind Mike, you can see a copy of the famous painting “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh.
Don Coscarelli got the idea of The Tall Man’s living severed finger while drinking from a styrofoam cup. He punched his finger through the bottom and started moving it. He loved the visual effect of it and decided to include it in the story.
Although being very tall, standing at 6 feet 4 inches, Angus Scrimm wore suits several sizes smaller and boots with lifts inside that added 3 inches to his height.
The film was originally rated X by the MPAA because of the famous silver sphere sequence, and because of the man urinating on the floor after falling down dead. Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin made a phone call in a favour to a friend on the board. Thanks to him, Phantasm was downgraded from the original dreaded X-rating to a more acceptable R. Champlin’s positive review was quoted on the film’s promotional posters.
Co-Producer Paul Pepperman approached Angus Scrimm at a sneak preview of Kenny & Company and told him that Don Coscarelli had written a role for him in his next production. When informed that he would be playing an alien, Scrimm became very excited and immediately asked to know what country his character would hail from. Pepperman said: “He’s not from another country, he’s from another world.”
The idea to create the film came about when Reggie Bannister approached Don Coscarelli with the idea to adapt Ray Bradbury’s novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which was to star A. Michael Baldwin and Dan McCann from Kenny & Company. However, the two learned that very week that Bradbury had sold the novel’s rights to Disney, and so Coscarelli sought an idea for a similar type of project.
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