Rating: 
Summary: You played a good game, boy. Now you die and watch!
Review: The DVD version of this cult classic is well done on Picture Quality and Digitally Remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround is excellent. Is included the original 2 channel mono soundtrack also. The film has all the best extras on can find on a DVD, including Running Commentary Track by the Director:Don Coscarelli and actors:A. Micheal Baldwin, Bill Thornbury and Angus Scrimm. A fun 20 minutes behind the scenes featurette, 2 different interview from 1979 with the director and Scrimm which is very interesting to look at. Collector Booklet and A whole lot more extras for Horror fans(Like myself).The plot was something unusual and original in some way and also new, in that time. The picture is unique itself. Has a great creepy music score. Fine special effects were extremely good looking. The film has made over a year with a budget of $300,000. We can see, it was well spend on the location and imagination of the film director. True the film is confusing, sometimes ridiculous and uneven ending of the film but it payed of well-Thanks for the memorable end from Scrimm last line and the cast:Baldwin, Thornbury, Reggie Bannister and Scrimm gives good performances to help the film work. One of the true few classic of the late seventies, will be remember to some time to come, who`s loved the picture. Grade:A-.
Rating:
Summary: Phantasm (1979) d: Coscarelli, Don
Review: A 15 year-old orphan (Michael Baldwin) discovers strange and bizarre things happening at the local Morningside mortuary. He convinces his gear box older brother (Bill Thornbury) to check out the creepy goings. Together they end up battling an immortal and sinister looking Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). It seems that the Tall Man is crushing the funeral home bodies down to pint-sized dwarves, and sending them off to another dimension where they are exploited as slaves. The plot is absurd and has little logic, yet the young director / producer / writer Don A. Coscarelli [The Beastmaster (1982) / Survival Quest (1989)] manages to keep the tension and suspense flowing in this low-budget surreal horror / sci-fi thriller. The gore and creative effects (especially the brain - drilling, flying silver sphere) have made Phantasm a cult classic, genre favorite. Some extras on the disc include a 1979 interview with Don Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm; a Tall Man Fangoria Magazine commercial, and a disco version of the theme song.
Rating: 
Summary: ehh...it's not bad but I've seen better
Review: Giving this movie 5 stars seems too generous for me. I save 5 for all the better top notch stuff. And there are a lot of movies way better than this. The movie is suppose to be scary but ends unintentionally humorous. The top most gore you'll see is when some flying ball with a spike hits some guy in the face, that's pretty much it. So all you gorehounds can move along now if that's all you were interested in. The story is about a kid and his older brother with his friend that owns an ice cream parlor. They break in some funeral home and try to figure out what exactly is going on. Mysterious stuff happened like midgets come out of nowhere (they look like Jawas from Star Wars) and some tall guy (Tallman) picks up a casket with ease. The movie really revolves around the kid and his brother working together as a team to solve all the questions they have. There's an ending that doesn't make sense at all and comes out of nowhere (no, it wasn't shocking, just strange). Mild violence and a fun adventure, not bad. It's okay for a few laughs, very cheesy.
Rating: 
Summary: Boooooy! This film is good
Review: One of the hardest parts about writing a review of a film I love is conveying my feelings into written words. Why does the music in this movie haunt me? Why do the characters seem so real and why does the Tall Man seem so scary? He is just a tall, older man, but he is creepy to the extreme. I can't tell you why, but I know these things to be true. Phantasm has a wildly imaginative story; one of the most original ideas for a horror film in ANY decade. Two brothers and their ice cream vending friend face down a tall, gaunt, creepy, mortician and his army of hooded dwarves (called "Jawas" by many because of their resemblance to the Star Wars critters, even though the Phantasm creatures were actually designed first). The Morningside Funeral Home is creepy in itself (the house they used is the same one featured in Burnt Offerings). The Tall Man's arsenal also includes the infamous "Spheres" which fly thru the halls of the funeral home, guarding against intruders and viciously eliminating anyone who gets in the way. What at first looks like another undead movie turns into more of a sci-fi premise when the origin of the Tall Man is partially revealed (the full origin has still only been hinted at after 4 films). The name Phantasm hints at the dream-like unreality that saturates the story, music, direction, and cinematography. By the end you are left not knowing exactly what was real and what was a dream as the red lettering of the credits appear. Phantasm's synth score adds so much to the film. I cannot stress this enough. Even in scenes not actively trying to scare you, the haunting music carries you along, never letting you lose the uneasiness the movie has already built up. The special edition DVD is a great package with a commentary track featuring the director and 3 primary actors, PLUS Angus Scrimm (the Tall Man) is in the commentary too, even though he is not listed for some reason. Scrimm also introduces the movie in a rather hammy chat with the audience. Special features also include trailers and an extensive gallery of promotional materials from it's theatrical release. I hate to mention "interactive menus" because I don't see them as an actual feature, but the menus on the Special Edition DVD are fantastic. Accompanied by the great music of the film, the menus are easy to navigate and have an interesting design. Chapters are presented inside graphics of the spheres and are animated to you can see the exact scene as it plays out. The 4th Phantasm film, Phantasm: Oblivion, used a lot of deleted scenes from the original movie in it's time hopping sequences. This DVD includes even more deleted material not shown in the past-scenes of the 4th movie. They must have cut a ton of stuff from this. Most of the scenes are character scenes and give you more reason to like the characters. Well worth a look. Amazon lists this DVD as out of print. If you don't have it, find it any way you can. Maybe it will be released again in a new form, but I can't see them improving on this great DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Phantasm Phan
Review: Probably the best cult horror/sci-fi film ever made. Combines a boogie man (Tall Man), corpses crushed down into hooded, very ugly dwarfs and, scariest of all, the fear of a 14 year old boy that he will be left alone in the world. A perfect combination of horror and science fiction, with one of the most memorable villains ever to grace the silver screen. Says little, but is SCARY (BOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYY!!). Rather than the typical damsel in distress, the protagonists (Mike, Reggie and Jamie) don't back down from the evil forces. Instead, they arm themselves heavily and cruise around in a black muscle car looking to crack some skulls. If you are a film student, or just love film, the extras on this DVD are worth the purchase. A truly amazing story of a 23 year old director (Don Coscarelli) who made a truly independent film, using money borrowed from neighbors and his parents. The total budget was $ 300,000. While the effects are sometimes corny, the overall mood created, and especially the haunting score, make it look like anything but a "B" horror film. The cast is riddled with relatives and friends lending a hand. Phantasm 2 isn't bad, but 3 and 4 do a diservice to the original. BUY THIS MOVIE.
Rating:
Summary: A Phenomenal DVD to a phenomenal horror classic!
Review: The Movie is a startling 1979 cult horror fantasy shocker about a evil mortician named " Tall Man" ( Angus Scrimm) who is mysteriously stealing bodies from the local cemetery and using them to turn them into Dwarf-like Zombies, a couple of brothers and a Ice Cream vandor ( Reggie Bannister) discover that these mysterious beings are from another dimension. A geniunely scary movie that has decent performances, b-movie special effects such as the infamous silver ball that drills through your skull and sucks your brains out and a spooky if twisting ending that will scare the crud of you, it's a must see for fans of the genre. The DVD: Excellent transfer with great sound and picture, the extras are phenomenal too such as Documentary, audio commentary, trailers, TV spots, audio extras such as the disco version of the theme score and more. Similar movies recommended: City of the Living Dead ( a.k.a. The Gates of Hell), From Dusk Till Dawn, The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Roland Emmerich's Making Contact, Return of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, House by the Cemetery, Suspiria, Poltergeist, Ghosts of Mars, House ( 1986), Return of the Living Dead 3, Resident Evil, Maniac ( 1980), Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Lucio Fulci's The Beyond.
Rating:
Summary: Beware the Tall Man, Booooyyyy!
Review: "If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead." Or so goes one of the taglines used in the promotions for PHANTASM, the 1979 low-budget film from auteur Don Coscarelli that has become a much-loved horror classic. By today's standards, the film doesn't quite reach the level of fright promised by that slogan. But PHANTASM is nonetheless a well-made indie flick that has always been a real crowd-pleaser due to its enigmatic, unpredictable script; the ingenious and effective low-budget special FX; excellent directing and cinematography by Coscarelli; good acting, especially from the four principals; and a very memorable, haunting score. PHANTASM follows precocious 13-year-old Michael (Michael Baldwin), his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury), and friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) as they investigate the enigmatic goings-on at the creepy nearby funeral parlor. Just who or what is that terrifying Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) that seems to have the run of the place? What is his part in the recent disappearance of corpses at the mortuary, and what is his relationship to the elfish eidolons lurking in the graveyard shadows? PHANTASM's script is loosely structured and rather weak in spots, but this actually heightens the unpredictability of the plot and thereby gives the film an unnerving surrealistic quality. And when combined with bizarre imagery (e.g., an airborne chromed sphere drilling into a human head); gloomy, atmospheric sets and on-location sites; and a genuinely creepy, inscrutable antagonist like the Tall Man, the movie transcends the script and evolves into a 90-minute spine-tingling nightmare-on-film. The excellent musical score also adds much to the nightmarish quality of PHANTASM. Composed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, it is stylistically reminiscent of John Carpenter's score for his groundbreaking film HALLOWEEN, released a year earlier. But unlike Carpenter's one-man synthesizer score, Myrow and Seagrave's music is performed on multiple instruments, delivering a rich, three-dimensional sound that makes PHANTASM's aural atmosphere seem much more ominous than that of HALLOWEEN. Though it has been over 20 years since its initial release, PHANTASM has aged surprisingly well. As with its aforementioned predecessor HALLOWEEN, the gore is minimal, especially when compared to the wave of bloody horror films that splashed up on the cinematic shore in the 1980s and beyond. But the eerie, surreal ambiance of PHANTASM can still make a viewer's skin crawl, and the malignant Tall Man, with all his accursed accoutrements and paranormal paraphernalia, is still pretty damned creepy. Yes, PHANTASM has a certain ineffable 1970s drive-in quality that identifies it as a product of its era, but rather than being an annoyance, this seems to add yet another layer of "otherworldliness"--at least from a contemporary standpoint. MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM offers the film in a non-anamorphic letterbox format in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The digital transfer is pretty clean, with only moderate filmic and digital artifacts sometimes apparent. Colors are bright and vivid, though darks are a bit on the muddy side. Soundtrack audio options include a new Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound remix, which sounds good, or the film's original 2.0 mono. The supplements on MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM are outstanding. First off, the disc comes packaged with a very nice booklet that contains a note from writer/director Don Coscarelli, as well as a myriad of interesting tidbits about the film and its stars. On the disc itself, a really cool alternate audio track offers a feature commentary with Coscarelli and the film's principal actors. Also included are outtakes, deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots, TV interviews with Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm, and much more! These extras alone are worth the very reasonable retail price, but buyers get the cool film, too! To recap, PHANTASM is a minor cult classic that both ardent horror fans and casual viewers alike will find genuinely enjoyable, and the loaded-with-extras DVD from MGM is nothing short of Phantastic!
Rating:
Summary: Even The Name Is Cool!!
Review: Phantasm was one of the first horror movies I happened to see. I was seven at the time and was really looking for a scare instead of a story. I have to say I didn't understand this movie when I first saw it. I recently watched this movie again and was pleasantly surprised by the originality of this film with the ability to still scare and delight. It still makes me jump. The effects aren't the greatest, but considering the film was made in 1979 they weren't all that bad for the times either. The story about two brothers who notice strange going-ons at the local funeral home while paying their respects to a deceased friend. They decide to check it out but get much more then they bargain for. The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) is a tall terror and stalks the halls of the Morningside Mortuary with a flying spear that "wants to know what your thinking".
If your looking for a different type of horror movie instead of the typical slasher Jason movies. Give Phantasm a try. Even the name is cool.
Rating:
Summary: Dark dreams are made of this...
Review: If good films are like waking dreams, then good horror films are like waking nightmares. Few can match the power of Phantasm in this regard. Masquerading as a B-shocker, it gradually develops a kind psychological depth shared only by the best in the genre - films like The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs. To begin with, the story is frankly outrageous: after the death of a close friend, two brothers (Mike and Jody, played by Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury) discover some strange things about the Morningside Funeral Home where their friend - and their parents, who died two years earlier - are interred. It seems the dour funeral director (a character known only as The Tall Man, indelibly rendered by Angus Scrimm) is not quite human. He's able to lift fully occupied coffins by himself, as the younger Mike secretly observes; he bleeds yellow blood; he has a strange reaction to cold; and he is aided by small silver spheres that roam the halls of the mausoleum, doing unspeakably gruesome things to intruders. It seems his main activity, though, involves a novel use of the corpses of the dearly departed - a use we learn in the striking left-turn the film takes in the third act. Somehow, what could have been a very silly film takes on an unnerving, Lynchian kind of surreality, thanks in large measure to a well-developed subtext about abandonment, isolation, despair, and guilt. These are the anxieties that drive nightmares, and - despite the frequent humor throughout - writer/director Don Coscerelli infuses the proceedings with a poignant sense of sadness and dread. Like Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, or Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Phantasm isn't just a scary film; it has the authentic texture of a dark, disturbing dream. And this, in a film where a major sequence involves a large, obviously rubber insect flown around on a fishing line! It could have been a real Ed Wood moment, but instead, we buy into it somehow. Amazing.
In The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm has created a classic horror film villain, in the Frankenstein's monster/Dracula/Wolfman/Mummy sense, rather in than the Freddy/Jason tradition. There is no sense of irony in his conception or performance. No camp. No winking, wisecracking, or self-aware irony. Just a powerful, implacable, evil presence. Reggie Bannister rounds out the cast as a musician/ice cream vendor (!) who assists the brothers in their quest to rid the world (or at least their town) of the evil that has descended. The performances (a couple of minor characters notwithstanding) are remarkably skilled, walking that fine line between believability and exaggeration virtually demanded by the genre. The DVD is crisp and well produced. There is a delightful introduction by The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm, to get things rolling. There is a good deal of supplemental material to be found on the disc, and a thorough commentary track by Coscarelli, Scrimm, Baldwin, and Thornbury. All told, an excellent addition to any horror fan's collection.
Rating:
Summary: Beware the Tall Man, Booooyyyy!
Review: "If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead." Or so goes one of the taglines used in the promotions for PHANTASM, the 1979 low-budget film from auteur Don Coscarelli that has become a much-loved horror classic. By today's standards, the film doesn't quite reach the level of fright promised by that slogan. But PHANTASM is nonetheless a well-made indie flick that has always been a real crowd-pleaser due to its enigmatic, unpredictable script; the ingenious and effective low-budget special FX; excellent directing and cinematography by Coscarelli; good acting, especially from the four principals; and a very memorable, haunting score. PHANTASM follows precocious 13-year-old Michael (Michael Baldwin), his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury), and friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) as they investigate the enigmatic goings-on at the creepy nearby funeral parlor. Just who or what is that terrifying Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) that seems to have the run of the place? What is his part in the recent disappearance of corpses at the mortuary, and what is his relationship to the elfish eidolons lurking in the graveyard shadows? PHANTASM's script is loosely structured and rather weak in spots, but this actually heightens the unpredictability of the plot and thereby gives the film an unnerving surrealistic quality. And when combined with bizarre imagery (e.g., an airborne chromed sphere drilling into a human head); gloomy, atmospheric sets and on-location sites; and a genuinely creepy, inscrutable antagonist like the Tall Man, the movie transcends the script and evolves into a 90-minute spine-tingling nightmare-on-film. The excellent musical score also adds much to the nightmarish quality of PHANTASM. Composed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, it is stylistically reminiscent of John Carpenter's score for his groundbreaking film HALLOWEEN, released a year earlier. But unlike Carpenter's one-man synthesizer score, Myrow and Seagrave's music is performed on multiple instruments, delivering a rich, three-dimensional sound that makes PHANTASM's aural atmosphere seem much more ominous than that of HALLOWEEN. Though it has been over 20 years since its initial release, PHANTASM has aged surprisingly well. As with its aforementioned predecessor HALLOWEEN, the gore is minimal, especially when compared to the wave of bloody horror films that splashed up on the cinematic shore in the 1980s and beyond. But the eerie, surreal ambiance of PHANTASM can still make a viewer's skin crawl, and the malignant Tall Man, with all his accursed accoutrements and paranormal paraphernalia, is still pretty damned creepy. Yes, PHANTASM has a certain ineffable 1970s drive-in quality that identifies it as a product of its era, but rather than being an annoyance, this seems to add yet another layer of "otherworldliness"--at least from a contemporary standpoint. MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM offers the film in a non-anamorphic letterbox format in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The digital transfer is pretty clean, with only moderate filmic and digital artifacts sometimes apparent. Colors are bright and vivid, though darks are a bit on the muddy side. Soundtrack audio options include a new Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound remix, which sounds good, or the film's original 2.0 mono. The supplements on MGM's DVD release of PHANTASM are outstanding. First off, the disc comes packaged with a very nice booklet that contains a note from writer/director Don Coscarelli, as well as a myriad of interesting tidbits about the film and its stars. On the disc itself, a really cool alternate audio track offers a feature commentary with Coscarelli and the film's principal actors. Also included are outtakes, deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots, TV interviews with Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm, and much more! These extras alone are worth the very reasonable retail price, but buyers get the cool film, too! To recap, PHANTASM is a minor cult classic that both ardent horror fans and casual viewers alike will find genuinely enjoyable, and the loaded-with-extras DVD from MGM is nothing short of Phantastic!
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