PHANTASM (1979)

Director: Don Coscarelli

Writer: Don Coscarelli

Producer: D.A. Coscarelli

Cast: Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Kathy Lester, Bill Cone, Terrie Kalbus, Mary Ellen Shaw, Ken Jones, Susan Harper, Lynn Eastman, Ralph Richmond, Laura Mann, Myrtle Scotton, Dac Coscarelli (uncredited), Kate Coscarelli (uncredited) 

Pals Jody Pearson (Bill Thornbury) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) are attending the funeral of their friend Tommy (Bill Cone) at Morningside Cemetery. Jody’s little brother, 13-year-old Mike (Michael Baldwin), is eavesdropping on the burial. After the mourners have left, Mike sees the tall and intimidating funeral home director (Angus Scrimm) lift Tommy’s coffin back into a hearse and drive away. Mike knows that something is wrong and thinks that he is in danger, but he can’t get his older brother to believe him. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Once those genre film juggernauts Star Wars (1977) and Halloween (1978) bulldozed through the world’s box offices, the path to mainstream movie success had been forged for sci-fi and horror. There was the profitable proof that a vast, new audience existed for movies of extravagant fantasy and visceral fright. 1979’s Phantasm is a film that tries to have it both ways and creates its own eerie vibe. 

Phantasm seems like a late ’70s variation on Invaders from Mars (1953). Again we have an adolescent hero privy to a weird menace. Being a kid, he has trouble getting an adult to believe him. Most of the perceptions and concerns of the film are those of a young boy: despair for the loss of parents, fear of his adult brother leaving, curiosity about sex, and an ongoing dread of death. 

This film is not so much a storyline as it is a series of spooky incidents interspersed with touches of humor that are never forced or take us out of the narrative. There is a deliberately dreamlike impression that this film leaves one with. At times some of the strange things that occur seem to be fragments of nightmares. Our perceptions are challenged and we are made to arrive at our own interpretation of the events we have witnessed. All of this is calculated to take the viewer on an unsettling flight of fancy. The themes of death, abandonment, and mourning play throughout. 

Where Phantasm differs most from its fright flick ancestor of the ’50s is in its sense of isolation. There are absolutely no comforting authority figures to be found. Mike’s parents are already dead and the proof of the menace threatening Mike gets destroyed before it can be shown to the police. 

To confront the threats facing him, Mike resorts to the direct means that seem typical for an adolescent boy: a big brother with guns and a fast car. What is surprising is that Mike seems daring and resourceful beyond his years. Mike displays great determination exploring the creepy Morningside Cemetery and funeral home, he maintains his older brother Jody’s muscle car and is allowed to drive it, Mike knows how to handle firearms, and he can quickly improvise a way to escape a locked room. 

Despite all of this character’s ability, Michael Baldwin’s performance still makes me believe in Mike as a real kid. He is gutsy, but he can cry, be scared, and swear a blue streak when he’s angry. His fear of abandonment is why he follows and spies on his older brother, which also leads to his fear of death embodied by the Tall Man. 

Bill Thornbury’s Jody seems like a pretty laid-back dude that provides a funny counterpoint to his younger brother Mike’s alarm. Jody’s usually mellow manner is an interesting contrast to his trigger-happy tactics when finally acknowledging the threat that his younger brother is facing. What I like is that this regular guy never indulges in unbelievable action-hero antics. Jody just does what needs to be done with a gun in dangerous situations. 

Reggie is the ice cream vendor, family friend, and hapless nice guy who stumbles into the weird plight facing the Pearson brothers and becomes their ally. This role was written with Reggie Banister in mind to play it, and he has become the most endearing of the characters in this film and its sequels.

The fearsome face of Phantasm belongs to the Tall Man. Angus Scrimm’s performance as the menacing mortician has created a screen bogeyman as iconic as Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. Scrimm’s villain is pure, unfathomable evil. His stony expression only changes when he gloats and chuckles. His few lines of dialogue are delivered with a voice that sounds like a whispered roar. 

After harrowing encounters with a blonde seductress (Kathy Lester), hooded dwarfs, flying silver spheres, and the evil undertaker, our heroes Mike, Jody, and Reggie can only surmise what awful motive is behind all of the ghoulish goings-on around Morningside Cemetery. Many of the weird spectacles in Phantasm remain unexplained, which contributes to the nightmarish atmosphere of the disjointed narrative. All we need to know is that damned Tall Man is responsible. 

This was writer-director Don Coscarelli’s third feature film. By this point he was quite an accomplished filmmaker and it shows. As his own cinematographer and editor, Coscarelli knows how to light, frame, and edit his shots for conveying action, fixating on an eerie visual, or timing a jump scare. 

The fantastic music by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave plays a huge role in making Phantasm creepy and thrilling. The “Main Title” theme is an all-time favorite of mine. 

The main appeal of horror films is that they vent anxieties in their audience by dealing with their fears in usually abstract ways. The most universal of human anxieties, which probably all horror films include, is the fear of death. That is the main topic in Phantasm. It not only shows us threats to character’s lives, it also makes us realize that learning the reasons for death and what lies beyond may not be comforting. This is pretty grim stuff that still manages to be great, creepy, and occasionally disorienting fun. Phantasm’s lack of complete explanations and resolutions may be frustrating to some, but that is the technique through which horror can seem the most haunting and leave us with a lasting sense of unease.