Phantasm (1979)

June 25, 2018

What is it about Phantasm that has captivated viewers for almost forty years now? I discovered this film twenty years ago when it had already become a classic spawning at that time three sequels (just two years ago the fifth phantasm movie had come out). I remember loving the film but being unable to explain exactly why. Like the film's villain, The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), the movie is so bizarre but also so lovable. The movie's score captivated me with the same eerie eight notes. The helps to create the mysterious atmosphere for the odd plot (if you haven't seen the film, think Exorcist theme). In my early twenties I was in a punk band that actually would occasionally cover the Phantasm theme.

Maybe what makes this film a cult classic is its misfit qualities and charm. It really doesn't fit in with any other movie. It is too weird, too bizarre to be classified next to the slashers, demonic films, and alien flicks that were popular in the late seventies and early eighties. Sure, it's technically an alien movie, but it doesn't incorporate any of the elements typical of an alien movie. I also didn't fit in with any of the cliques in high school and maybe that is what made this film so appealing to me. It is a great film. A really great film! And it doesn't have to conform to any of the expectations, themes, or genres of any other film. It is weird, but so what?

Angus Scrimm's portrayal of The Tall Man is one of the standouts in the film. While he does very little, other than chasing Mike a couple of times and staring at the screen, his character has a very spooky supernatural feel to him. Tall, solemn, with a protruding lower jaw and a permanent scowl he is a horror film villain as memorable as Hannibal Elector or even Frankenstein. There is so much we don't know or understand about the character which makes it all the more interesting.

The Tall Man owns a mausoleum and graveyard and he is stealing dead bodies, shrinking them down to little druids (which like remarkably like Jawas from Star Wars), to become his slaves on his own planet/dimension. At one moment Mike goes through one of the Tall Man's portals to see the nightmarish landscape of a scorched planet with a mile long line of these druid slaves. Oh, he also likes to turn into women and have sex with men in the graveyard so he can stab them. Maybe there is a erotic subplot to his plan to enslave the world? Thinking back on it, didn't the Leprechaun use this approach a lot in his films?

There are a couple other truly great moments in the film. First and foremost, the scene when the metal ball stabs into the bridge of that guy's nose and sprays blood everywhere after which the dead guy voids his bladder (you gotta love Director/Writer/Producer Don Coscarelli's insistence on biological accuracy).

Another great scene is when the tall man's fingers are cut off and bleed out a yellow liquid (Embalming fluid right? Did they ever explain it?). Mike keeps one of the fingers which writhes in the yellow liquid before become a very cheesy looking fly that they have to capture and put down the garbage disposal. The fly looked silly, it was pretty obvious that Mike and Jody were just swinging a shirt around pretending the fly was inside, but it was still a lot of fun.

A couple last rambling notes: The song that Jody and Reggie play is great "Been sitting here until midnight and I'll be sitting here until noon...." (also the tuning fork foreshadows the portal entrance). The nightmare bed scene that Mike has could sell the movie on its own. The town scenes are filmed in Julian a small town (known for it's apple pies) about a half an hour from San Diego. My friends and I used to go there just to see the Phantasm filming locations. I once saw Angus Scrimm at a gas station in Escondido, a town near the filming location. My friend Danny drew over thirty Phantasm comics in math class in high school (his teacher was fine with him failing as long as he did it quietly). I cannot wait to watch the next four (I have yet to see the fifth one).