PHANTASM  (1979)
Writer: Don Coscarelli
CAST---
A. Michael Baldwin ...  Michael 'Mike' Pearson
Bill Thornbury ...  Jody Pearson
Reggie Bannister ...  Reggie
Kathy Lester ...  Lady in Lavender
Terrie Kalbus ...  Fortuneteller's Granddaughter
Kenneth V. Jones ...  Caretaker (as Ken Jones)
Angus Scrimm ...  The Tall Man  

Runtime: 88 min

Every horror and scifi fan should see this movie at least once. It is a classic film that shows us  just how
much one can do with our imagination. Don Coscarelli wrote and directed this freshly original scary
story. If you follow the Masters of Horror series you will see he has contributed there as well with an
excellent tale. There are currently four Phantasm films with the fifth in production and all are written and
directed by Coscarelli.

It all starts with suspicious activity at the local mortuary. Mike and Jody Pearson are two brothers that
take care of each other since their folks died. Along with the gentle- hearted ice- cream man, Reggie,
they get along ok. While Jody, the eldest is looking for girls and playing his guitar, Mike is snooping
around the graveyard observing strange stuff.

It seems Coscarelli mixed in a bunch of scary stuff and made it work, some, pretty original. There is a
mysterious ‘tall man’ that oversees the mortuary and the graveyard. He barely speaks and always has a
grim face. There is something not quite right here. He has superhuman strength for one thing and he
seems to be doing something with the bodies. Then there are midgets in brown robes that scurry about.
A finger that had been chopped off the ‘tall man’  moves about then turns into a freakish bug. And now
everyone’s  favorite: the flying polished steel orb that sucks blood from you head.

The trio get together to put a stop to this. And what they discover will blow your mind.  The ‘tall man’ is
from another dimension and he is recruiting our dead corpses and turning them into midget slaves to
work for him in his dimension. This is all fantastic, you even get to see the portal and go through it for a
few seconds and see that other place.

But there is much more here than a great scifi and horror story. The main characters are very likeable
and the actors made me believe that they were as close as family. They each have each others back.
Even Jody didn’t get upset at his younger brother Mike for peeking at him while he had sex with a girl in
the graveyard. He understood and let his kid bro drive his bad ass sports car. When The ‘tall man’ is
introduced, so is the sense of the unknown. With the midgets and the ball that flies and sticks to your
forehead to drink your blood, there is so much we see and we still want more. Because what Coscarelli
created here was truly an epic. There are so many ways it can go and progress. I will soon find out,
because I have not seen the other three movies, but I will, and whatever happens, I believe that if the
‘tall man’ is behind the curtain, none of us are safe !

                                                                                       - Jorge Antonio Lopez
Phantasm (1979)
Seen it too? Let us know what you thought.

IMAGES
OVERALL
BLOOD
BREASTS
BEASTS