Phantasm (1979)

A teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a lethal arsenal of terrible weapons with him.

Director:

Don Coscarelli

Writer:

Don Coscarelli

Stars:

A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
A. Michael Baldwin	...	Mike (as Michael Baldwin)
Bill Thornbury	...	Jody
Reggie Bannister	...	Reggie
Kathy Lester	...	Lady in Lavender
Terrie Kalbus	...	Fortuneteller's Granddaughter
Kenneth V. Jones	...	Caretaker (as Ken Jones)
Susan Harper	...	Girlfriend
Lynn Eastman-Rossi	...	Sally (as Lynn Eastman)
David Arntzen	...	Toby
Ralph Richmond	...	Bartender
Bill Cone	...	Tommy
Laura Mann	...	Double Lavender
Mary Ellen Shaw	...	Fortuneteller
Myrtle Scotton	...	Maid
Angus Scrimm	...	The Tall Man

Storyline

Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost his parents, afraid to lose his brother follow him to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lifting a coffin on his own. Mike decides to investigate, and discovers that the Tall Man, protected by his flying spheres, is shrinking dead bodies down to half their normal size and reanimating them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother, and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man.

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Plot Keywords:

fellatio | hot woman | breast | c cup | feminine hair | 

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Taglines:

If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead!

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for nudity, violence, and intense scenes

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 1979 (USA)

Also Known As:

Morningside

Filming Locations:

16232 Pacific Coast Hwy, Huntington Beach, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$300,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$11,988,469

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Breed Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono 4-Track Stereo (Visurama)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

There are several references to Frank Herbert's Dune, including a bar named "Dune" and a scene where Mike is forced to insert his hand into a black box that inflicts pain as part of a test.

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Goofs

(at around 3 mins) At the beginning of the movie when Mike is joy riding on his motorcycle through the cemetery, the tracks of the trailer towing the motorcycle are visible in the grass behind him.

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Quotes

Reggie: Hey, guys.
Mike: Reggie! You ain't dead!
Reggie: No, and I ain't three-foot-two yet either!

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Crazy Credits

The remastered version begins with the Bad Robot logo appearing in one of the Tall Man's spheres.

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Connections

Followed by Phantasm II (1988)

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Soundtracks

Sittin' Here At Midnight
by Bill Thornbury
Thornbury Music

User Reviews

The Chrome Sphere is 70s classic

There are two things that stand out in this film. The Tall Man (played by Angus Scrimm) and the chrome sphere with hook-like blades that stick out of it. Those are the two main elements when it comes to this horror series directed by Don Coscarelli. The Tall Man comes from another dimension where he takes some of the earth's dead back to his home planet, reincarnates them and turns them into slaves for his world. He even occasionally murders some earth people in order to speed things up. Why wait for them to get old and die natural deaths. That would take too much time, right? And what better earth profession he can hide his identity behind than that of a funeral parlor director. Everything goes smoothly for the Tall Man until Mike Pearson (Michael Baldwin) witnesses him carting a body away that's supposed to be buried in the ground. At first his brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) doesn't believe him, but when Mike shows him a cut-off finger surrounded by 'yellow blood' in a little wooden box he had saved as proof, Jody starts to believe him. Excellent scene of the chrome sphere zooming down the funeral parlor hallway and 'accidentally' digging into the skull one of the Tall Man's henchmen. A little screw appears out of it and starts to bore a hole through his skull, ejecting the excess blood out a hole in the back of the sphere. I wish there was more of the sphere although we'll get to see a lot more of it again in PHANTASM II (1988). I also like the portal gateway scene where if you go through the two chrome poles, you'll get to see the Tall Man's alternative universe where the slaves are busy carrying caskets down a stone pathway. We even get to see Ice Cream Man, Reggie Bannister almost get sucked through it as well. I won't give away the ending but let's just say the Tall Man is temporarily disposed of until the next sequel comes out, although the dream element that's supposed to encompass the whole sequence of events in the film, is a big negative against it. In fact, it brings it down a notch, unfortunately. Even so, I consider PHANTASM to be one of the best horror films of the 1970s. It managed to keep Avco/Embassy in business so they could bring us later horror stuff like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1980); THE FOG (1980) and DEAD AND BURIED (1981) The MGM DVD also has a lot more extras on it than you would expect from other DVDs released by the same company, including 8mm behind-the-scenes footage of the making of PHANTASM; a 1979 interview down in Miami with director Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm; an appearance at a 1989 Fangoria convention by Scrimm, and movie & TV trailers for the film. It's a labor of love by the truest fans of this film. 7 out of 10