Phantasm (1979) Review

Phantasm (1979) Review

 

You’ve heard of a phantom, so what is a Phantasm? I still don’t know, but here’s what I do know: this is one of the craziest 70’s horror movies I’ve seen. 

It begins with a guy and a girl having sex in a graveyard. Oh yeah, real romantic location. Then the girl pulls out a dagger and kills the guy! His brother and family friend have a funeral for him at Morningside Cemetery, and their younger brother, Mike, doesn’t attend, he just hangs out in the cemetery, but creepy cloaked creatures keep ducking out of sight behind gravestones, and then Mike sees the elderly undertaker, who becomes known as “The Tall Man”, lift a casket with a body in it as if it were weightless. This is just the start of the oddness. 

Mike goes to an old fortune teller lady and expresses concern that one of his older brother's, Jody, is going to skip town and leave him behind. Jody started caring for Mike after their parents died. What does the family friend Reggie do? Oh, he drives an ice cream truck, of course. The fortune teller gets Mike to put his hand in a box, which crushes his hand, but then he’s told not to be afraid and it stops. Then it immediately cuts to Jody and Reg sitting on the front porch playing guitars. 

What?  

Mike is haunted by nightmares of The Tall Man and pursued by the creatures, which look like the Jawas from Star Wars. So, he goes to the cemetery to get to the bottom of this once and for all. Wouldn’t you know it, he discovers the place is guarded by a flying chrome ball that has a spike/drill sticking out of it, which flies into a guy’s head, causing a fountain of blood to shoot out! Then The Tall Man chases after Mike and Mike slams a door on his fingers and severs one of them, and The Tall Man bleeds yellow liquid that looks like mustard! 

You’d never guess what they eventually discover. The Tall Man is turning the bodies in the mausoleum into his undead slaves (also filled with mustard), then sends them through a portal to another planet, where the extra gravity and heat compresses them into dwarves. 

Phantasm certainly gets major credit for imagination. Don Coscarelli (who wrote and directed, plus produced and edited) has some really lofty ideas, many of which wouldn’t be fully realized until later sequels. The original was independently financed, and though the acting is bad, the effects are cheesy, and the editing is sometimes choppy, it’s still surprisingly creepy and effective. 

So, Phantasm has zombie dwarves, an underrated horror villain icon in The Tall Man, a sentient silver ball, plus blood, boobs, and scares. What’s not to love? It’s random and weird, but great.