Phantasm (DVD)

Phantasm is a cult 1979 low-budget horror film written and directed by Don Coscarelli. The story is set in a small Californian town - where people have started to vanish and dead bodies are mysteriously disappearing from the local cemetery - and revolves around perceptive shaggy haired adolescent Mike (Michael Baldwin) who lives with his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) after the death of their parents. Jody is a musician and plays together in a three-piece blues band with friends, part-time ice cream man Reggie (Reggie Bannister) and Tommy (Bill Cone). Bad things start to happen though when Tommy is murdered in Morningside cemetery by a strange 'lady in lavender' ...  Read the complete review

Reggie: OK, I see it all now. We gotta stomp the s**t outta that tall dude! When Mike follows his older brother to an old cemetery while spying on him, he soon notices some pretty strange events are happening here, they all lead back to the tall undertaker that runs the Morning Side funeral home. As Mike investigates further, the tall undertaker (known as the tall man) gets annoyed that this kid and soon enough Mike find?s himself in a world of trouble. Released in 1979, both written and directed by Don Coscarelli?s Phantasm is a strange and twisted tale, it is reported it originally started out as a simple movie about a young boy who has strange ...  Read the complete review

This is the first film in the Phantasm quartet and was first made in 1979. It never quite got the attention it deserved with the more high profile horror films produced around the time (like Halloween in 1978 and Friday the 13th in 1980) overshadowing it, which is a shame as it is a highly effective horror film that relies more on style and an original story than shocks (although it does have some!) to entertain. The film starts with a young boy – Mike (played by Michael Baldwin) noticing some strange goings on at the local cemetery (Morningside) and in particular the Undertaker “The Tall Man” ((played with great style and malevolence by ...  Read the complete review

Don Coscarelli as about 20 years old when he made this ultra low-budget chiller, and he (along with his leading men) seems to have based his entire career on it. The story follows a young man who suspects some dodgy goings on in the local graveyard. Along with an ice cream man (armed with a 4 barreled (!?!) shotgun), he saves he day... for a while. Without giving *too* much away, it involved The Tall Man, an alien being who is stealing brains from corpses, turning them into midget zombies and sending them back to his homeworld. The standout 'characters' or chrome metal spheres, which fly around, drilling holes into people who go snooping. ...  Read the complete review

This cult film has to be one of the most original and weird films I have seen. It is about a boy who sees strange things at the cemetary like a tall man who can carry a coffin with some in by himself and midgits in brown cloaks. He tells his brother who at first doesn't believe him but when he sees it for himself agrees to got the cemetary. They discover the tall man is turning the dead into his slaves. They must stop him before it's too late. The story line is confusing and it has to be watched a couple of times to understand it but it has some original ideas, like killer balls and the tall man is an excellent villian. I would recommend it to any horror fan. ...  Read the complete review