More death! More blood! More ... Aliens crushing corpses into midget slave labor?
This 1979 horror flick and its sequel are favs of my friend Rosebride, so the sweetie and I joined her for a "Phantasm" fest.
The movie doesn't make much sense, but it's lots and lots of fun. There's nefarious goings-on at the local cemetery, so a kid and his cool older brother take on the alien "Tall Man," played with creepy intensity by Angus Scrimm.
Written, directed, photographed, produced and edited by Don Coscarelli (of the marvelous "Bubba Ho-Tep") this was obviously a labor of love. The extensive mausoleum interiors were made of plywood and contact paper, if that gives you any idea of the budget, but it looks good nonetheless. And the theme of a child's fear of losing those he loves gave the film a heartfelt touch.
This film is also notable for introducing Reggie, the most capable ice cream man/alien freedom fighter ever seen on film (nice hair!), a trick with a shotgun shell that should be on "Mythbusters" and dialogue that you could *never* get away with today -- listen for the line where Jody blames strange happenings on the kid down the street.
So why did we skip straight to 1998's "Phantasm IV"? As Rosebride puts it: "The first Phantasm was awesome, two and three sucked so bad they never made it to DVD, and four is so good that it makes all the ones before better."
I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it was a solid B-flick. A long, strange trip through the history of the Tall Man and Michael's one-guy quest to thwart his plans, "Phantasm IV" offers a loaded DVD worth of unused footage from the earlier films.
It's really for the longtime fans of the series who have been to the Web sites and argued the finer points of alien minutiae. The casual viewer (like me) isn't going to get as much out of it.
But Reggie's back, and so are The Tall Man, the creepy dwarves and the shiny metal balls that fly around and stick in people's heads. What's not to like about that?
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