|
Post by novastar6 on Dec 18, 2020 7:02:09 GMT
I really would've sworn we discussed this one already, but a search didn't turn up anything.
Where to begin? Well first of all I've only seen the first movie, I know there's about 4-5 sequels, don't know anything about them.
Can we agree this is the ultimate yell/talk back to the screen horror movie? This goes BEYOND the simple stuff like 'don't answer that phone, don't open that door, that ain't yo mama, yo mama dead, run fool!', it's everything, every little thing that anybody does, it's don't turn around, don't stand there, don't close your eyes, don't open that box, don't go with Reggie, about any time anybody did anything all these thoughts were just running through my head.
Secondly...how do you even describe this movie? Well the phrase that came to mind when I saw it was 'walking acid trip'.
And it just sticks out in every way. One way that dawned on me about halfway through, unlike a lot of movies that have little lulls and little boring parts, that does NOT happen here, every time they cut to a different scene, you can't look away from it, you can't leave the room, you have to see what happens next and it never slows down. That's a very rare thing to get from a movie.
Now one thing I did read was that the first sequel was inspired by Salem's Lot...which is funny, because I ordered this movie AND Salem's Lot together for Halloween...and the whole time I'm watching Phantasm, I'm getting a serious Salem's Lot vibe off of it. Is it just me?
Now, spoilers, was I the only one who thought Reggie could not be trusted? I figure the Tall Man got to him, at any given minute he's going to turn on the others, it's going to be revealed he's possessed by the Tall Man, etc., I was surprised that that was not the case, and very much relieved, because half of the movie I'm just thinking 'don't trust him, don't go with him, don't be alone anywhere with him', etc.
And finally, for now anyway, Michael Myers can't die, Jason Vorhees can't die, Freddy Krueger can't die, everybody tries, and they just keep coming back...but I truly believe the Tall Man is far scarier than all three of these guys put together, because where somebody will kill/try to kill those guys once each movie, they do it all to the Tall Man in the same movie, they shoot him, they blow him up, drop him down a mine, he's like the killer from Groundhog's Day in The Monster Squad, "If they blew him up, put his head in a blender and mail the rest of him to Norway, he would still return from the grave!" No matter what you do, you can't kill him, you think you have, and then he just comes back again, and again, and again, he's a demonic Energizer bunny.
|
|
|
Post by wmcclain on Dec 18, 2020 16:03:57 GMT
Phantasm (1979), written, photographed, edited and directed by Don Coscarelli. Horror film fans have a soft spot for the tiny budget, semi-pro, indie efforts. Sure, the results are often rough, but sincerity counts for a lot and cheap can sometimes be scary. Some outfits spend vastly more money and produce less. Quality horror does not easily survive the corporate studio pipeline. Phantasm is one of the more ambitious such films of the 70s. Funny, gruesome, and inventive with a surreal dreamlike small town setting, depopulated except for our characters. The combination of graveyards and science fiction portals to other dimensions is almost Lovecraftian, although he had no taste for sex or nudity, of which we have just a bit. It's gratifying to have characters who know how to do things: fix cars, drive and handle firearms. Unfortunately they are facing the Tall Man, and bullets won't stop him. The bond of orphaned brothers is balanced against the horrible suspicion that diabolical, unworldly forces are transforming dead loved ones for evil purposes. This is famous for the evil flying sphere which kills in horrible ways, but my favorite bit is when the kid climbs into the mortuary through a basement window. In the dark, a foam head holding a wig falls on him. He catches it and does not jump. On DVD with a commentary track from the laserdisc days. No subtitles. Phantasm II is available on Blu-ray.
|
|
simest
Sophomore
@simest
Posts: 243
Likes: 222
|
Post by simest on Dec 18, 2020 21:08:25 GMT
My IMDb review from some years ago:
PHANTASM is an uneven work, too fantastic to be genuinely scary but ferociously unique and fascinating on numerous levels.
At the films heart, there seems a desire to create a warped and entirely original Universe where nothing is as it seems and anything can and probably will happen. Logic is quickly cast aside and indeed has no place in the crooked landscape that PHANTASM paints. Into this bizarre, Dali-like twisted and surreal cosmos, are thrust a group of characters who - perhaps even by virtue of their performers' acting inadequacies - seem somehow as much a part of the fabric of that Universe - even in their struggles to survive and make sense of it.
For me, PHANTASM has a distinctly hypnotic effect for all those reasons among others. Flying sphere drills, a gender bending alien cemetery keeper, hooded shrunken corpses refined for slave labour in some parallel Universe, a severed finger that morphs into a grotesque (if admittedly comical) fly and countless other wild fantasies are all episodic nightmares that work their way into the subconscious and stay there - however well or not they may be executed. They are indeed, the essence of those darkest, unfathomable episodes that sporadically invade our sleep. Raw, random and without any measure of reason. It is this very trait upon which the movie thrives.
Also, the film's tendency to bounce us in and out of reality - if indeed there was ever a reality there - without warning, keeps us permanently on unstable ground. Dreams are very prominent and indeed prevalent in PHANTASM. So much so, that by the end there seems no dividing line between that which was real and which was not. In this sense, the film explored the territory that NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET would later make it's own but somehow achieves a dream-like quality that even Craven's classic would not surpass. Only Dario Argento's similarly bizarre INFERNO might challenge PHANTASM for the closest we may ever get to a dream realised on film.
PHANTASM is a unique, mind bending vision of quaint, small town America, infused with hellish fantasies of death, loss and isolation, unleashed from the subconscious mind - perhaps even in the end, from that of it's young, insecure and lonely adolescent protagonist.
Poe said "Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?"
PHANTASM presents a case.
I urge those who are not impressed, to watch it again with these notions in mind.
|
|
|
Post by novastar6 on Dec 18, 2020 22:55:03 GMT
My IMDb review from some years ago: PHANTASM is an uneven work, too fantastic to be genuinely scary but ferociously unique and fascinating on numerous levels. At the films heart, there seems a desire to create a warped and entirely original Universe where nothing is as it seems and anything can and probably will happen. Logic is quickly cast aside and indeed has no place in the crooked landscape that PHANTASM paints. Into this bizarre, Dali-like twisted and surreal cosmos, are thrust a group of characters who - perhaps even by virtue of their performers' acting inadequacies - seem somehow as much a part of the fabric of that Universe - even in their struggles to survive and make sense of it. For me, PHANTASM has a distinctly hypnotic effect for all those reasons among others. Flying sphere drills, a gender bending alien cemetery keeper, hooded shrunken corpses refined for slave labour in some parallel Universe, a severed finger that morphs into a grotesque (if admittedly comical) fly and countless other wild fantasies are all episodic nightmares that work their way into the subconscious and stay there - however well or not they may be executed. They are indeed, the essence of those darkest, unfathomable episodes that randomly invade our sleep. Raw, random and without any measure of reason. It is this very trait upon which the movie thrives. Also, the film's tendency to bounce us in and out of reality - if indeed there was ever a reality there - without warning, keeps us permanently on unstable ground. Dreams are very prominent and indeed prevalent in PHANTASM. So much so, that by the end there seems no dividing line between that which was real and which was not. In this sense, the film explored the territory that NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET would later make it's own but somehow achieves a dream-like quality that even Craven's classic would not surpass. Only Dario Argento's similarly bizarre INFERNO might challenge PHANTASM for the closest we may ever get to a dream realised on film. PHANTASM is a unique, mind bending vision of quaint, small town America, infused with hellish fantasies of death, loss and isolation, unleashed from the subconscious mind - perhaps even in the end, from that of it's young, insecure and lonely adolescent protagonist. Poe said "Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?"
PHANTASM presents a case.I urge those who are not impressed, to watch it again with these notions in mind.
Speaking of, am I the only one who caught this similarity?
|
|
simest
Sophomore
@simest
Posts: 243
Likes: 222
|
Post by simest on Dec 18, 2020 23:02:21 GMT
No........you're definitely not! But I'm glad you've brought it up.
The two final moments are practical duplicates.
Not just in what physically happens but also the way they just suddenly follow all that's happened in the movie and present us with characters we thought had died, suddenly back with us and throw the whole story that preceded into some confusion...........and then we get the boom moment!
|
|
|
Post by Marv on Dec 19, 2020 11:35:07 GMT
Great theme song.
|
|
|
Post by novastar6 on Dec 20, 2020 6:05:31 GMT
Oh something else I forgot...I thought tuning forks were just for pianos, I've never seen one used on a guitar.
|
|
|
Post by Zos on Dec 23, 2020 13:34:55 GMT
Saw it at the pictures in London when it first came out. Good and bonkers.
|
|
|
Post by TutuAnimationPrincess on Dec 31, 2020 0:23:43 GMT
I just saw this film for the first time this past Halloween. Definitely a unique experience among horror films in many ways. The actor who plays the tall man passed not too long ago and from what I've seen he was the nicest old man ever. I can't quite put this one among the legendary classics, but I suppose it's a must watch of the genre just the same.
|
|
|
Post by wmcclain on Dec 31, 2020 14:01:01 GMT
I have reviews of some other shoestring, indie horror films worth seeing if you like that sort of thing:
Carnival of Souls (1962) Night of the Living Dead (1968) Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973)
I'll post a review a day.
|
|
|
Post by forca84 on Jan 1, 2021 4:17:09 GMT
I've only watched part 1 and found it okay. I have a friend who loves it. I never bothered with the sequels. Part 1 is probably due for a re-watch one day.
|
|
|
Post by masterofallgoons on Jan 8, 2021 13:42:36 GMT
I've seen all of them, and I don't think I could tell you what any of it's about.
But, I love the atmosphere and imagery, and some of the ideas are pretty cool. They're all very dreamy and intriguing and that whole feeling worked well, but I think I'd have to watch them again in order to actually figure out what was literally going on.
|
|
|
Post by quagsjonny on Jan 11, 2021 6:33:18 GMT
I just watched 'Bubba Ho-Tep' with mute and King commentary. Bruce gives huge props. I watched Phantasm again after. Crazy film, a literal nightmare :-)
|
|
|
Post by petrolino on Jan 24, 2021 16:25:49 GMT
Cool movie.
|
|
mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,052
Likes: 3,300
|
Post by mgmarshall on Jan 25, 2021 12:01:30 GMT
I actually just did a full-franchise rewatch a few months back. For me, the first one is a minor classic. It's one of those movies where you can just feel every bit of DIY love and effort that went into it, and for the budget they were working with, there's some genuinely impressive and inventive results on display. The production design on the mausoleum and the gate-room is gorgeous and unforgettable. Angus Scrimm makes himself into an iconic movie monster just by walking slowly and grimacing. The rest of the cast, while a touch amatuerish, lend the movie a certain kind of realism and a likeable humanistic core amid all the dream logic and surreal effects and monsters. The sphere is just great, even if the matting effect used to realize it in the first movie is kinda crude and obvious. (They actually augmented that shot with CGI in the most recent Blu-ray/DVD release. That sort of thing usually bugs the crap out of me, but they only made that one change to a single 10-second shot and it's pretty unobtrusive, so I didn't care all that much.) And hey, even with their limited resources, they still managed to blow up a car. I respect that.
Now, the sequels on the other hand, are really a mixed bag. It should be stated right off that Coscarelli resisted doing a sequel for years, and turning Phantasm into a high-stakes, continuity-driven franchise really doesn't jibe with the surreal, dreamlike thing the first movie was going for. It pretty much throws that out from the first sequel on. That being said, I actually highly recommend Phantasm II and Phantasm III. They make for a hell of a fun action/horror/comedy double feature that's very much in an Evil Dead II-sorta vein. Reggie Bannister (in addition to Angus Scrimm) pretty much carries both movies, emerging as a Bruce Campbell-esque horror hero, and it's a role that fits his personality like a glove. I love that bald, shotgun-toting, zombie-slaying ice cream man.
Phantasm: Oblivion, while it has some interesting ideas and an effectively bleak, mournful tone that harkens back to the original, is irreparably harmed by the very obvious fact that it's only half a movie that was made to drum up money for Coscarelli's planned Phantasm 1999 A.D., which never truly got made. A preponderance of stock footage and a dearth of action are the order of the day in this one, and the whole thing just feels flat and dry, much like the desert it spends 80 percent of its runtime in. But hey, you do still get to see a lady with spheres for boobs, so there's that.
And then there's Phantasm: Ravager. Ouch. Well, it's a valiant effort to salvage the post-apocalyptic idea that would've been Phantasm 1999 A.D.; and it's certainly nice to see the whole cast together for what will surely be the last time in light of Angus Scrimm's passing. But the lack of any real kind of budget just so utterly fails this thing. So much bad CGI. So much bad green screening. SO MUCH. The production values rob this one of feeling like a real movie at even a single point in its runtime, despite it trying its damnedest to feel like some grand finale to the franchise. Instead it feels like we went back to this particular well a few times too often.
|
|