Fortress of Horror 15 - Phantasm

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Definitely one of my favorite movies. I want a Harry Potter/Phantasm mashup where the Tall Man is head of Slitherine and he replaces the Snitch with The Ball during a Quidditch game.

The movie scared the fuck out of me when I was a kid. The Ball shooting blood out the back was terrifying for some reason.

I liked the zombie gnome dwarves.

SuperflyTNT wrote: The movie scared the fuck out of me when I was a kid. The Ball shooting blood out the back was terrifying for some reason.

Because it totally is! It's so weird. How did he come up with that shit is beyond me.

Yeah, the zombie dwarves are weird, too. Everything about it, very strange.

I like Phantasm, but I don't love it. Some great imagery strung together with a weak plot and some dreadful acting. A couple of elements from Phantasm show up in the Ptolus setting that I used for my big D&D campaign.

Phantasm II is not as good as Phantasm, though there is a fight scene where both combatants have a chain saw.

The acting is pretty rough. Plot in a horror film always gets a pass with me if it has great imagery and atmosphere, which it certainy has.

Phantasm is one of my favorite films of all time. Easily top ten. Yes, up there with Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, There Will Be Blood, etc. There are very few films as personal, homespun, and bonkers as it. I like it better than Halloween, I like it better than all the Evil Deads, I like it better than a lot of the other late 1970s/early 80s American horror pictures.

It has a really resonant theme- the whole thing is about a kid coming to terms with the reality of death. There's much to be about the imagery of death in it (mausoleums, graveyards, hearses, coffins, etc.) and the off-screen death of the parents looms over the entire story. I think one of the most weirdly powerful moments is when Mike (who spends an awful lot of time in graveyards) sees the Tall Man single-handedly pick up that coffin and throw it in the hearse. Without warning, Mike sees this dude exhibit the strength of six men, and it's like this quite moment of awe. It's how this movie works at its best, crossing the line into surrealism and un-reality at will.

There's so much inventiveness and heart in the film that I'm willing to forgive a lot of the more slipshod elements. The ball is just an INSANE concept, totally bizarre and unique. That thing flying through the white mausoleum, sticking in the guy's head and then spraying blood like a spigot is one of the great horror images. But then you get this goofy, down-home guitar jam with Reggie and Jody that you just know was some spur-of-the-moment BS that they decided to do on the shoot day.

When I first saw it, I was maybe 13 or so...and it was the first time I can remember a movie directly, specifically referencing other genre stuff. So you had these very specific references to Dune, of all things. And then at the end, there was this genre twist that wasn't like ANYTHING else going on in 1979. The only other film from that era I can think of that even attempted to "go cosmic" was the tragically underrated Watcher in the Woods.

And that music, it's go good. And that freaking Hemicuda, that is the greatest car ever.

Phantasm is one of the rare movies that captures the experience of having a nightmare rather than the experience of someone trying to explain a really intense dream they had to you.

Phantasm was in theaters the same summer as Alien, and suffered in comparison.

Look, I love Alien. I love the movie, the story behind it, the scarce yet crazy merchandise that came out around it...I love every iota of that movie.

But the plot of Alien? It's non-existent. It was also made by a major studio. Of course it's going to be the more thorough of the two, but I'd argue Phantasm is just as inventive and has more heart in the making of it.

Phantasm used to scare the hell out of me until I finally saw it. The trailers scared me and the box in the video store always really scared me cuz I couldn't understand it.

...crapping on Alien?!!

Not at all. But let's not harp on Phantasm for having a weak plot (which it doesn't in the context of what it's trying to accomplish) and then put Alien on a pedestal for being any better in the plot department.

...but Alien is a masterpiece. Who brought up plot anyway ? Knocking on the plot of Alien is like knocking on the plot of Mad Max or Gravity. It's like saying Cindy Crawfords knees were too sharp.