Having just watched it for the first time, I must say I've seen few films that combine the good, the bad, the derivative, and the head-scratchingly bizarre in such equal measures as Phantasm (trailer).
The low-budget 1979 "classic" horror film concerns restless small-town heartthrob Jody (Bill Thornbury) and his little sister Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), whom Jody's been raising since their parents' deaths. After the mysterious death-by-cemetery-sex of Jody's friend at the hands of a homely trollop (Kathy Lester), Mike grows suspicious of the town's eerie mortician (the awesomely named Angus Scrimm)—generally referred to as "the Tall Man," but to me he's Captain Underbite. Eventually Mike convinces Jody and their friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister), a creepy, guitar-playing, pony-tailed ice cream man, of the otherworldly danger posed by the funeral home and its mysterious owner.
First, the good. Phantasm is no mere slasher. The characters aren't just cannon fodder waiting to be murdered, but people whom the film takes the trouble to spend time with and explore outside of the context of the threat. You really buy the bond between Jody and Mike, Jody's longing to get away and start his life, and Mike's fear of losing the last remaining member of her family. Of course, Phantasm isn't really a family drama but a horror film, and the horror aspects are generally executed pretty well too. I can't help but think its $300,000 budget was a blessing in disguise, as it made sure that most of the tension and scares would come from what the audience can't see, creepy sounds and dark woods and hallways. I found that it was when I could actually see what was going on that the scares were less effective and often downright laughable, as with—Phantasm fans are going to hate me for this—the iconic flying chrome face-drilling, blood-spurting sphere-thing. (Here's a suggestion to writer and director Don Coscarelli: Just because something was scary in a dream you had doesn't necessarily mean it'll be scary on film.)
While some elements of the film, like the aforementioned sphere-thing and the labyrinthine halls of the funeral home, are quite unusual, a shockingly high number are very derivative, if not outright rip-offs. The biggest single victim of this is Dune (hence the post's title, along with the fact that all the creatures have thick, yellow, mustard-like slime for blood). Not only is the murder-sphere suspiciously similar (in function if not appearance) to a hunter-seeker, but while visiting a fortune teller Mike basically undergoes the "humanity test" administered to Paul, putting her hand in a box and undergoing extreme pain until she shows mental self-mastery. To top it all off, the fortune teller's granddaughter practically quotes the Litany against Fear when she tells Mike, "Fear is the killer." (The scene at the fortune teller's serves no narrative purpose but to convey Mike's anxiety about her brother's leaving and her need to conquer fear, both of which could've been conveyed without introducing extraneous characters and apparently genuine magic.)
The overall setting and tone seem like they could be straight out of any number of Stephen King novels: a small town, a contemporary setting (i.e., the '70s), a supernatural threat that's either unknown to or disbelieved by the general populace. (As I've said before, I've never actually read a King novel, but I've seen enough of the film adaptations to know to stay out of small-town Maine.) In addition, Phantasm features a homicidal, apparently driverless car (a hearse, naturally) à la Christine. Captain Underbite's horde of three-foot-tall zombies in hooded brown robes look just like Jawas. (Though Coscarelli gets points for making them more like the "genuine" zombies of Haitian voodoo, reanimated corpses obeying another's will, than the all-too-prevalent Romero-style zombies.) And the theme song is strongly reminiscent of those of The Exorcist, Suspiria, and Halloween, though, to be fair, that probably has more to do with '70s horror's affinity for repetitive piano-plinking than with Phantasm ripping anyone off.
As the previous paragraphs no doubt indicate, Phantasm is a pretty weird film, and its weirdness reaches a dizzying crescendo as the end draws near . . .
— SPOILERS AHEAD, BOY! —
So Jody and Mike (independently) infiltrate Captain Underbite's funeral home, where they run into Reggie, previously thought dead, who's already released some of Captain Underbite's still-living prisoners, who then ran off "like scared rabbits." The three proceed into the Hall of Purple Plastic Drums—it's a white room lined with stacks of . . . purple plastic drums (containers, I mean, not instruments)—where Mike is sucked into some kind of portal and sees a long line of Jawa-zombies doing something amidst a red-skied, wind-swept landscape. Jody and Reggie manage to pull her back, and Mike then explains that Captain Underbite is reanimating corpses to use them as slave labor on another planet, and that they're so short on account of the planet's greater gravity and heat. (How she learnt all this, I have not a clue.) The lights in the Hall of Purple Plastic Drums then go out, and Mike is attacked by Jawas. The next we see of them, Reggie is alone in the Hall of Purple Plastic Drums, while Jody and Mike are now inexplicably outside the funeral home, separated. There they are stalked by the knife-wielding homely trollop, who's actually Captain Underbite in another form. (In which case, the fact that she (he?) murdered Jody's friend at the beginning was an act of kindness of sorts; I can't imagine he'd want to go on after finding out he'd just banged Angus Scrimm in a cemetery.) Just then, though, Reggie (who, as a musician, knows all about tuning forks) touches two tuning-fork-like bars in the Hall of Purple Plastic Drums, causing them to stop vibrating (or at least humming). This harms or weakens the homely trollop in some way. While Jody and Mike are still wandering around outside looking for each other, Reggie escapes from the Hall of Purple Plastic Drums, runs out of the funeral home, and sees the homely trollop lying on the ground; he goes over to help, and she promptly stabs him to death and transforms back into Captain Underbite. Jody finds Mike, tells her that Reggie's dead (which he can apparently diagnose from some distance away, at night), and they escape back to their house, where they promptly split up (brilliant!). Captain Underbite shows up and chases after Mike, but she manages to conquer her fear and follow her brother's overly complex plan of luring Captain Underbite out into the woods, tricking him into falling down a thousand-foot abandoned mine shaft, and rolling a boulder onto it to block it up. Safe at last . . .
Except that it was all a dream! Mike wakes up to a fate worse than death where Jody was killed in a car accident and she's being raised by Reggie, the—just to reiterate—creepy, guitar-playing, pony-tailed ice cream man. (You better get Child Protective Services on speed-dial, kid.) After a little cuddle by the fire with Reggie, Mike goes to her room . . . only to find Captain Underbite there, who pulls her into a mirror! Roll credits.
Phantasm was clearly a labor of love for Coscarelli and the rest of those involved. It was produced on a shoe-string (it's really remarkable how polished and professional it looks, considering), was filmed on week-ends over the course of about a year, and once completed was threatened with an X rating before the M.P.A.A. relented. (Hey, Phantasm and Blue Valentine have something in common!) As with a lot of low-budget independent films, the passion and personal vision are almost tangible. Though to a great extent I'm impressed with its uniqueness—and especially the crew's ability to bring that uniqueness to life as well as they did for what's chump change in the film industry—I also think its greatest weakness is that uniqueness, that personal vision. To anyone accustomed to how stories have been told for the past few tens of thousands of years, the plot of Phantasm makes no sense. A murderous, shape-shifting, superhumanly strong mortician/alien/demon/monster/whatever? Three-foot-tall hooded zombies as interplanetary slaves? A chrome sphere that flies around a funeral home killing people? A severed finger that bleeds mustard and turns into a giant flying beetle? A magical fortune teller for no apparent reason? An heroic ice cream man? It was all a dream? Coscarelli clearly had a lot of story to tell (the original version would've run three hours) and a lot of ideas for both the drama and the horror, many of which sound interesting individually, but which don't really cohere in any rational way. Phantasm is probably among those instances **cough** Star Wars prequels **cough** Southland Tales **cough** where a well-meaning filmmaker exerting total creative control over a film wasn't ideal for the final product. Nevertheless, I can't help but recommend it for anyone interested in genuine scares, suspense, and a crazy, one-of-a-kind cinematic trip.
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