Phantasm *** (1979, Angus Scrimm, A Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister) – Classic Movie Review 3275

The 6′ 4″ evil screen villain Angus Scrimm (aka Lawrence Rory Guy), most famous as The Tall Man in Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm (1979) and its sequels, died at the age of 89 on January 9, 2016. His big-screen debut was in Jim, the World’s Greatest (1976), directed by then 18-year-old Coscarelli. As the Tall Man, he wore suits several sizes too small and a pair of special boots with lifts inside to make him appear even taller.

Writer-cinematographer-director Don Coscarelli’s bizarre 1978 horror-sci-fi movie is full of imaginative, strange surreal ideas, even if it fails to put them together entirely successfully. However, Phantasm has become something of a cult horror classic over the years and has spawned four sequels.

A Michael Baldwin plays a teenage boy called Mike who follows his older brother to a funeral, where he witnesses an eerie undertaker (Angus Scrimm) lift a coffin single handedly. He decides to investigate and discovers that the undertaker, along with his flying metal spheres with sharp arrows that drain the blood from the head, is shrinking the corpses to half their normal size, reanimating them as dwarf slaves and taking them off to another dimension where he hails from. Mike, his brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) and Reggie the ice cream man (Reggie Bannister) have to try to stop the undertaker.

This fairly ludicrous plot is saved only by the superior attention to detail in the set pieces, in particular from the prop department. Phantasm is fairly low on suspense and credibility, but it is boosted with a few good thrills and scares, and Scrimm is impressive and truly creepy as the cadaverous alien undertaker and grave robber The Tall Man with his arsenal of terrible weapons.

Three sequels so far: Phantasm II (1988), Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) and Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998). Scrimm has made a fifth film, the David Hartman-directed Phantasm: Ravager, which is confirmed for a 2016 release.

The 4K Bad Robot-commissioned Phantasm transfer is ‘pretty much done’ in January 2016 and also ready for a 2016 release. Don Coscarelli confirmed an impending Blu-ray release for the 4K Phantasm, and said that aside from a new video transfer, the film will be carrying a new 5.1 audio mix.

As a teenager, Scrimm worked as an usher in a cinema where he learned by heart all of the dialogue of the movie playing there, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). He was a devotee of classic black and white horror films such as Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3275

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