Director: Don Coscarelli
Cast: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester, Angus Scrimm
Screenplay: Don Coscarelli
89 mins. Rated R for nudity, violence, and intense scenes.

Phantasm is a bona fide horror saga, retaining several of its main characters (with exception to Phantasm II) across its 37 year franchise history, with years between installments and an overarching plot and mythology that is always at arm’s distance from the audience. That’s what can be so frustrating about its initial entry, a movie that keeps its secrets hidden, often feeling nonsensical, but that mystery and the questions it raises make for a unique horror experience that works better with multiple viewings.

After their friend Tommy is dead, believed to have committed suicide, Jody (Bill Thornbury, The Lost Empire) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister, Wishmaster) reflect on their recent losses, including Jody’s parents. Mike (A. Michael Baldwin, Kenny & Company), Jody’s younger brother, witnesses a mortician stealing Tommy’s coffin instead of completing the burial. As they start to notice more strange happenings around the mortician and his mausoleum, they suspect that this mortician, dubbed The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm, John Dies at the End) has a nefarious purpose for them all.

Phantasm is light on story, but that’s by design. Conjured up based on the teenage nightmares of writer/director Don Coscarelli (Bubba Ho-tep), and it gives that ethereal feeling for the entirety of its run time. It isn’t so much that the story doesn’t make sense, more so that there isn’t a lot of information and time dedicated to the development of that story. Coscarelli’s film operates on its dream logic, creating the rules of its universe, and then trusting the viewer to go along. For my first viewing fifteen years ago, this didn’t work for me, but upon revisiting, I was more pulled in.

There isn’t much in the way of strong performances here, as this is a VERY INDY production, with funding from Coscarelli’s family and friends. Baldwin is a genuinely relatable actor, especially for younger audiences, so his surprise, shock, and concern comes across nicely, though some of these there is difficulty in consistency with most of the acting in the film, with the exception of Angus Scrimm.

Scrimm’s The Tall Man is a character with not a lot of story but he has an energy that he uses to create unease and fright. You can point to the mausoleum or the cloaked figures or even the weird death spheres, but Scrimm’s Tall Man is doing a lot of the work to create shock and build suspense. It’s no wonder that the franchise embraced him as its symbol.

Phantasm is no perfect franchise starter, and many viewers that are looking for grandiose scares will likely be underwhelmed. I get it, the first time I saw this movie, it didn’t much work for me, and I much preferred its direct sequel, but time has given me the opportunity to revisit and appreciate the strange world that Coscarelli has envisioned.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For my review of Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End, click here.
• For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.