Phantasm

Phantasm is very interesting, to say the least. It is very good, I did like it, but it is very weird.
Released in 1979, and directed by Don Coscarelli. It is very cool to watch, because a lot of the time, you don`t really know what’s happening, it can be pretty crazy at times.

It is about a kid named Mike and his older brother Jody, who is raising him because their parents are dead. A friend of Jody`s dies and Mike spies on the funeral and see`s a tall man carrying the coffin on his own and driving away with it. Mike eventually sneaks into the mansion by the grave yard. He finds out that something is seriously wrong and is attacked by The Tall Man. He escapes and tells Jody, they and their friend Reggie go back to the mansion to try to stop whatever it is that is going on. The Tall Man has an army of hooded dwarfs made of the dead people in the grave yard. They make a plan to kill The Tall Man, but he starts getting more serious with his attacks.

This movie was low-budget and very successful. It spawned three sequels, which apparently are all pretty bad. It has a cult following now and was ranked #25 on Bravo`s 100 Scariest Movie Moments. I totally understand all that. This was a really good horror movie; it was scary, and very cool. The character of The Tall Man was creepy at times, and at other times he was all out terrifying. Something would be happening and all of a sudden he would just come out of nowhere and attack someone. He is surprisingly fast for an elderly man. Angus Scrimm returned in all movies to play The Tall Man.

The acting is all around pretty good. There isn`t one actor who steals the show, they all pull their own weight. The effects were very good, epically for the time, and the sets were amazing for some scenes, mainly the interior of the mansion. The film was giving an X rating just because of the silver orb. It’s a small flying silver orb and drills into your head and drains your blood out, the rating was later brought down to an R.

All in all, a good horror movie, and it still stands up well today, it’s not really dated.