Phantasm (1979)

Starring: Angus Scrimm, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester, Terrie Kalbus

First, The Lowdown: An annoying teen and his older brother finds out the local mortuary really put the “fun” in “funeral”.

It’s 2am, and a guy who looks like a roadie for the Little River Band is getting it on in the middle of a cemetery with a blonde chick that looks way out of his league. (And before you start thinking roofies were involved in the process, note this: the blonde chick is on top.) Sure enough, things run their course and before you can say “90-second wonder”, the blonde chick grabs a knife and goes all stabby on the poor schmuck. Fast forward to the schmuck’s funeral: it turns out that other two members of the late schmuck’s Steve Miller cover band, Reggie and Jody, are stunned to find out he killed himself. Jody steps away from the Schmuck’s memorial service to pay respect to his own parents – who died before the movie took place or something. What Jody doesn’t know is that his precocious little brother, Mike, has snuck away to spy on the funeral service. (Why Mike wasn’t invited isn’t made too clear, my guess is that Jody didn’t want him overtired for his audition with Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.) After the service is over, Mike hangs back to watch the burial, only to see the creepy, dollar store version of Christopher Lee pick up the casket by himself and shove it back into the hearse.

But Mike can’t spend too much time worrying about that because he has bigger things on his mind. Since the death of their parents, Jody has been serving as Mike’s guardian – which is taking time from his busy schedule of driving around in his sweet Barracuda and impersonating Knight Rider-era David Hasselhoff. Mike is naturally worried that his 24-year old sibling will dump him off at their aunt’s place (you know, the weird one with all the cats and the composting toilet). For some reassurance, Mike calls upon a schoolfriend of his, whose grandmother is a fortune teller – that only speaks through her granddaughter for some reason. Before telling his future, grandma tells Mike to put his hand in a black box that has magically appeared in from of him. Mike does so and the box clamps down on his hand painfully. Grandma tells him that the only way to get his hand out of the box is to not fear it (because it’s the mind-killer, donchaknow). Mike lets go of his fear like his Bene Gesserit mother trained him to do and frees his had. Oh yeah, and the fortune teller says he as nothing to worry about (and something else about a “quick-draw haberdasher” or something?).

Back home, Reggie has taken a break from his job as the Good Humor man, and shows up at Mike & Jody’s to jam on the front porch (and thus “adult contemporary” was born.) Later that night Jody goes to the neighborhood dive to drink away the headache that his brother is giving him. And who should start hitting on him? The same creepy blonde chick from before. Jody and creepy blonde chick stroll through the same cemetery where she got all stabby earlier, and unbeknownst to them Mike has been following close behind. Things between the inebriated lovers start progressing rather quickly, with clothing being shed. However, the woods are filled with creepy noises and shadows and- hey, was that a midget in a robe? Mike apparently has an irrational fear of those with dwarfism because he runs screaming out into the cemetery like he was in a Benny Hill short (I swear, the scene needed “Yakety Sax” playing in the background). Jody follows after his cockblocking brother, who has started ranting about weird scary things that he can’t fully articulate.

Back at home Mike is working on his brother’s sweet Barracuda when he starts hearing weird voices – much like what he heard in the forest earlier. Before he can investigate, though, the car falls off its wheel chocks and would’ve crushed the poor lad if Jody hadn’t shown up just then. Mike tries convincing his older brother about something weird going on, but Jody isn’t having any of it. Frustrated, Mike decides to do some snooping around at the funeral home. At first things there look just like they would in a Scooby Doo episode (Mike’s probably thinking “Is Don Knotts or Cass Elliot going to be the guest star tonight?”), but the kid’s hopes of getting “jinkies” with Velma in the back of the Mystery Machine are quickly dashed when he is attacked by disgruntled groundskeeper. The groundskeeper can’t hold his own against a juvenile though, and in the scuffle gets struck in the noggin by a prop that looks like something that would happen if Black Sabbath had done “Tommy”. Mike am-scrays amid the chaos, now thoroughly convinced that something not good is indeed afoot at Tall Guy’s Discount Funeral Parlour.

Hoo boy, where to begin?

Looking around on the internet, I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of a cult surrounding this movie. And as with a lot of fans of “esoteric cinema”, I’ve found that the more you point out a film’s flaws, the more people rally around it. So with that in mind I’ve decided to say, “I’m gonna tear into this movie like a bull elephant forcing itself on an ostrich. I don’t give a reconstituted shit if the fandom community declares a fatwa on me.”

Having seen many a film, I’ve noticed that movies are often like women I’ve dated: even the worst ones will sometimes have at least one interesting, positive feature in them. For example: Friday the 13^th, Part IV is considered (even amongst its die-hard fans) to be one of the more boring and formulaic entries into the franchise – with the exception of watching an obviously stoned Crispin Glover gambol about, the movie itself is pretty dull – even when the teen-meat starts getting killed. However, Part IV has one genuinely creepy scene in it that involves an 8-year old Corey Feldman desperately shaving his head and confronting the hockey mask-wearing psycho. (It has to be seen in order to be believed.) There are numerous entries in my catalogue of reviews that are too laughable to be considered horrific, but still contain one element – no matter how brief – that hits off of something subconscious in me. Which is why there are times I’ll be awake at 3 in the goddamned morning worried about some maniac is going to slice me to bits – and simultaneously pissed that even the stupidest concepts make sense late at night when you’re fatigued.

Phantasm has none of that.

I’m not joking either: I went to bed after watching Phantasm, got up at about 3 to use the bathroom, and it occurred to me while I lay awake afterwards that even in retrospect there was nothing remotely scary or creepy about the film. Yeah, the Tall Guy was kinda weird and had several “surprise!” moments, but the guy’s built like Christopher Lee after he was pulled from retirement. I’m 6’6” and 300 lbs, I’m pretty sure I could take him out. My roommate told me to watch Phantasm because it scared the hell out of her when she was a kid. But after we saw it she said, “That movie scared me a lot more before I started bleeding from the crotch.”

One detractor, for me at least, was the special effects. Phantasm is pretty obviously a self-financed feature, and it shows everywhere – especially in the “mausoleum” that’s made out of contact paper. I’m not one to laugh at the special effects of a film that was put together by a bunch of average Joes looking to make a movie, but couldn’t you guys at least tried to create some fake blood? The people here bleed either red or yellow – in the same kind of consistency that you’d find at your local hot dog stand. Phantasm’s showcase effect – the evil chrome ball with blades and stuff on it – is quickly undermined by the fact that when it hits its victim, he bleeds one of Heinz’s 57 varieties. Even worse, the “ball shot” starts out kinda nasty, but gets comedic when the victim’s catsup-like blood spurts out the back of it like a fountain. For a second I thought I was watching an Italian PSA about the warning signs of a stroke.

Another place the movie’s grassroots show is in the writing – the whole of the movie is filled with “wouldn’t it be cool if X happened” ideas that are never really fully fleshed out. I get the impression that the filmmakers got really high in their college dorm and started tossing premise after premise out, and no one was there to say “Uh, wait, that last one sounded kinda stupid.” Being an aspiring filmmaker myself, I know that oftentimes you have to make adjustments in the script and story to save on money – but here it looks like the director chose the easiest way out because it meant more of the budget could be used for Cheetos and beer.

Line of the Movie: “What we gotta do is we gotta snag that tall dude and stomp the shit out of him, and we'll find out what the hell is going on up there!”

Two stars. 57 varieties and they all suck.