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I just finished watching this movie and it is very creepy. I would not be suprised if this old man haunts someone at night after watching this movie. The story was intresting, it had a very creepy vibe to it and the old man made the movie. There are certain scenes that I dont want to give away that attack some of our fears and may still have us thinking to this day if we might see that old man there one day. The one down side for me were the little jawas I didnt care for them very much and that part of the story itself was a bit strange
Posted By: trickytreats at 4:54pm, October 20, 2009
The tall man character was a good idea, but the whole movie just seemed too disjointed. There didn't seem to be any flow and a lot of the plot was very thin.
Posted By: DaynaWidaY at 5:33pm, September 10, 2009
this movie is the SHIT and if you are a true horro fan u have seen this and if u have not u NEED TO
music is great characters are awesome And the bad guy is creepy as hell One of my favs as a kid and still watch today
Posted By: MKultra138 at 10:50am, September 10, 2009
Definetly one of my favorite horror fllms of all time! Everyone pretty much has said what needs to be said about this film. I've heard that the original cut was well over two hours(close to three maybe?). I would love to see a special edition with alot of those scenes thrown back in. I know that some of them were used as flashbacks in Phantasm:Oblivion. There's been rumors of a remake that have been going around the net for a few years now. I would just love to see Don Coscarelli get the budget he deserves to do Phantasms End.
Good Parts- entertaining for the most part, some good effects considering the time period, pretty good acting, creepy and memorable villan,creative plot
Bad Parts- pace may be a little slow, end of movie is a little confusing to me
Overall a good sci fi/ horror movie from the 70s watch out for the tall man! 9/10
Great horror/sci-fi thriller. Good cast including Angus Scrimm who plays the tall man. and I agree with nightbreed666's review."It's a shame more people don't know about this movie." It deserves to be regarded as one of the best 70's horror films if not horror films in general.
The Pearson brothers: Jody- 24(Bill Thornbury) and Mike- 13(A. Michael Baldwin) are trying to recover from the recent death of their parents. Much of the responsibility has fallen on Jody in taking care of his younger brother. Mike becomes obsessed that his brother will die and leave him; it doesn’t help matters after he pays a visit to a fortune teller. The teller makes his fears greater by the possibility of Jody skipping town while leavening Mike to live with his aunt. Because of this Mike starts to spy on his older brother and on one particular night he follows him to the Morning Side Cemetery. While hiding behind trees, Mike discovers dwarfs’ roaming around and nearly has a panic attack when he sees a mortician (aka The Tall Man) on his own lift a casket on to the back of a hearse. After conniving Jody and their friend, Ice Cream Man: Reggie (Reggie Bannister), they make the commitment in bringing the Tall Man down.
Phantasm is the thinking mans horror movie, it’s very cerebral in the way the story is told. Unlike recent horror movies and remakes where everything is unmasked and spoon–fed to the audience, Phantasm shows respect towards the viewers in letting them come up with their own theories and conclusions. Writer and director Don Coscarelli (credits include Phantasm Series, The Beastmaster and Bubba Ho-Tep) does a successful job in giving the film a cold, morbid and grey look. Phantasm captures that grim street feel much like A Nightmare on Elm Street- almost between like a movie and documentary, realistic but polished. Coscarelli gave it just enough character development for us to have an attachment to them. Angus Scrim ( Tall Man) plays a freaky figure, the way he talks and stalks Mike; he makes the perfect Grim Reaper. With a believable cast, original story, a deep awesome atmosphere and a timeless score what more does a horror watcher want. Also the theme song is killer!
Phantasm isn't a great movie in any way, it has bad acting, gaping plot holes and cheesy effects and dialog. But somehow this film captivates me. It may be the weird atmosphere, the outlandish ideas or the creepy "Tall man". The movie left me wanting more (which I got with the sequels). If your into weird, cheesy late seventies/early eighties cinema this movie fits the spot.
I realize the idea of taking Star Wars, interbreeding it with one of Dario Argento’s cheese-fests, and putting an intoxicated spin on the whole thing may sound like a pretty cool idea. In 2009, the weirder the idea, the greater the appeal to the “open-minded” emo kids. In 1979, I’m the idea also appealed to the acid-induced “free-spirited” 10-year-old hippie boys. My point is, no matter what generation you grew up in, there has always been and always will be those who think that they can be nonconformists by throwing out every rule and making their own rules . . . thus, paradoxically, conforming. I can’t help but relate this attitude to Phantasm. It tries so hard to be different from the rest, but in the end, it’s just another bucket of horror clichés. Maybe the bucket is painted a different color—yellow blood, perhaps—but the contents are exactly the same as all the other generic horror films from the 70s.
A concept that few people really understand: When weird is the norm, it isn’t weird anymore.
That concept is the problem that I always have with movies like Phantasm. The fans and the modern critics always site them as coming up with original ideas, when in reality, they’re just cliché ideas presented in a weird light. Every single “weird” occurrence in Phantasm was unabashedly copy/pasted from Star Wars, Argento movies, 40s horror movies, and classic sci-fi novels. There wasn’t a single “weird” scene in this movie that I haven’t seen before in pre-’79 entertainment. For example, the silver sphere IS unarguably the lightsaber training bot in the original Star Wars. The hooded midgets in the end are also unarguably the Jawas from the original Star Wars. The fly was used before in various Stephen King short stories and various 40s movies. Etc., Etc. It would take me pages to list every single instance Phantasm ripped-off other movies/books, but it pretty much amounts to the entire movie. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is a fanboy, blinded by his nostalgic first viewing of this film as an preadolescent, then growing up thinking “Those were the good ole days , when horror . . .” for no other reason than it was his first exposure to horror. Anyone who enjoys horror films that are actually scary, aren’t overflowing with cheese, and actually have some sort intelligence, this is the last place to look.
Despite what the old men who grew up with this film will tell you, it is not scary, gory, or weird. It’s just another generic paint-by-the-numbers horror film. The acting is pathetic. The special effects are pure cheese—fugitively and literally (referencing the yellow blood). The story is done with go-anywhere-do-anything surrealism—which has recently been popularized by the author Neil Gaiman—which works in children’s movies, but here is just unintentionally ludicrous. People have complained Phantasm makes no sense, but they fail to realize that’s the immature point behind the movie. It’s meant to be nothing more than a bunch of pseudo -weird scenes that it ripped-off from other (superior) movies. It’s ironic, maybe even hypocritical, that older horror fans claim Phantasm as part of “the good days of horror”, when “there was a story, not just gore and nudity.” Phantasm has no story. In its time, it was just an acid trip, and a vehicle to display what was considered over-the-top gore/nudity in the ‘70s. In its generation, it was far more mindless than what is claimed as mindless today.
Some cite the music as great: it’s really just okay. It is atmospheric like the music in Suspiria and Halloween, but it can’t stand up to either, really. Also, the acting, like everything else, is laughable. Another problem is the lack of entertainment value. I fell asleep four times.
I’m not sure what my overall thoughts on Phantasm were, because as soon as I write the last sentence of this review I’ll forgot entirely about it. It’s just a generic horror film with “weird” aspects copy/pasted from other films. And it cannot be defended by saying that it's intended to be cheesy, because that is not the intention of the film. If that’s what we classify as original, intelligent horror that is deserving of a fond place in our hearts . . . there’s no hope for us as horror fans. And even less hope of the genre progressing any further in the future.
(1) Cheese oozing out of severed fingers, and fugitively out of the plotline. Or, (2) A genuinely scary, original horror movie that you can talk to the outside world about without feeling immature and stupid.
Extremely epic movie. Great scares, great story, original and great music. This is genuine horror, these were the good old days, before the likes of Eli Roth, 44 saw movies, remakes and so many others that have nearly destroyed the genre as a whole. Coscarelli wrote a very original story and made a great movie out of something most people fear, a mortuary. The usage of hearses, caskets and so much more make this movie great. You have to wonder why horror directors don't implement these basic elements of terror anymore. No matter what day and age we live in, most people fear anything to do with death, caskets, graveyards etc.
Phantasm is a great original film. It has some pretty creepy parts with the jawas and the Tall Man. It delt with fears a boy has of losing the ones he loves. I really like the improvised singing and guitar playing.
phantasm is awesome, the tall man is one of the most iconic villians of all time
Posted By: bdwolfe312 at 8:07pm, December 28, 2008
Ten years ago, "Phantasm IV" was released straight to VHS(or a DVD if you were ballin'). Fully aware of Phantasm's status as a classic horror franchise, I checked it out, knowing that it would likely be but a tenth of what the original was. I was left scratching my head. I had no idea what was going on the entire film. I figured, "well, I came into the franchise on the 4th film. one day, I will see the first and everything will start to make sense." That day was today, and I am even more confused than I was ten years ago. A lot of the scares are genuine, and Tall Man is a great antagonist, but I'm still left with a bunch of puzzle pieces that just don't fit together. Was the whole film a dream? Is Reggie dead or alive? Is Jody dead or alive? Well, obviously I know that's not the case because they appeared in the 4th part. But the corpses were crushed down into dwarves and turned into slaves? Flying death balls, inter-dimensional gates, yellow bleeding supernatural aliens that's fingers turn into really mean bugs that require two rounds in the garbage disposal before they day...it doesn't add up.
I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers. I can see the cinematic value that gained this status as a cult classic.
Posted By: GOREGRINDwp13 at 7:08pm, December 3, 2008
This movie is one of the greatest
Tall man one of the greatest horror movie icons ever
if u havent seen it go buy it
Posted By: Justin Warren at 11:40am, November 4, 2008
Phantasm just might be my favorite horror film of all time, it's such a wonderful trip that I would be willing to take all over again, any time, any minute. I adore the kitschy vibe of the bizzare plot, adorable characters, haunting soundtrack, and great cinematography inside the mausoleum. I'm an avid fan of the series as a whole, I applaud Coscarelli for never conforming to traditional filmmaking with this series and always leaving it full of mysterious surprises. A timeless classic, and one the best, if not THE best, horror film series ever.
Loved this film killer balls were done great. When I first watched this when I was a teenager and the Tall man scared the hell out of me and those killer dwarves were also scary as hell a great horror movie highly recommended.
I love this movie. Has to be in my top 3 horror movies and (depending on my mood) might even rank as #1. For me, it has everything. The acting is spot on, especially considering the low budget effects that would have been made glaringly obvious if not for the actors making me believe in it. Hell, even the few kind of "off" acting moments made me smile in a good way. A perfect example of this is the shot of Jody's face when Mike cracks him in the foot with a hammer. Priceless.
Speaking of Mike and Jody, their relationship in this movie is really well played. I would have no trouble buying that A. Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury were actually brothers, which really strikes a chord when you realize **SPOILER** that Jody is actually dead by the end of the movie. This, of course, opens the door for Reg to become the fucking man throughout the rest of the series, but it's easy to forget that in the original it was mainly just the two brothers **END SPOILER**
Not to say that Reg wasn't brilliant even with his smaller screen time. I defy anyone not to like this guy..."We're hot as love, that's all"
Of course you can't talk Phantasm without talking about the Tall Man. While this isn't the only senior citizen that I'm afraid of (Kane from Poltergeist anyone?) this is the only one that I'm quite sure could take me in a fist fight. Given that he doesn't talk much it would seem like he had a pretty easy job, until you see Angus Scrimm and realize that, in real life, he's just as unintimidating as your grandfather. But, with a simple scowl, he manages to be completely terrifying, even as decades have passed and his character has aged.
The final aspect of this film that really brings it all together for me is the score. Just a few repeating notes on the piano, and the composer manages to encompass the terror, surrealism, and sadness of the movie. This is probably my favorite theme song to any movie.
OK, that should just about do it for my fanboy rambling of this movie. If you haven't seen it, just do yourself a favor and give it a chance.
The Phantasm series as a whole is great. The way things un-fold and remain mysterious is excellent. The Tall Man is one of the best and most original villians ever. My favorites are Phantasm, Phantasm IV, and Phantasm III.
The 1970's really has got to be the best decade for horror movies and Phantasm is no exception. I have not seen the sequels in years but the first movie is one I do watch at least once a year.
Weird and totally original with a great soundtrack too! Disturbed the hell out of me as a kid.
Since I haven't seen any of the sequels I was completely baffled by the end of this one. It had a lot of really great elements to it (especially the music) but I think it will take some time for this to creep up on me. I guess that might happen as soon as the re-release Part II so I can make some sense out of Part I.
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