Phantasm RaVager

Scrimm Sure

Phantasm RaVager
USA 2016 Directed by David Hartman
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Okay... so here we have what is, definitely, the final chapter in the ongoing series of Phantasm films and, like the others, it’s fairly fragmented and doesn’t hold that many easy ways to penetrate its mysteries... although it does have one of two specific endings that the audience can choose to latch onto as a sense of closure, should they require it.

Made 18 years after the last installment, reviewed here, and 37 years after the original movie that started them all, reviewed here, Phantasm RaVager is the only one of these five films not to be directed by Don Coscarelli... although it was produced by him and co-written by him with the director. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also spent every day on set overseeing the thing too but I’m not 100% sure of that.

The film... kinda... carries on where it left off but with Reggie giving us a recap as he has returned from the portal which he jumped into at the end of the last film. Mike is gone but, somehow, not presumed dead even though he was dying at the end of the last movie. Reggie is somehow still searching for him but his car is gone. It doesn’t take too long for the car to turn up, as stolen by a guy who, to my amazement, turned out to be film music journalist Daniel Schweiger... how does he keep turning up in these things? So Reggie claims his car and steals Schweiger’s clothes and drives off just in time to survive a double sphere attack in the first of the movie’s big action scenes. Schweiger isn’t so lucky... he gets balled up good.

After that we have Reggie wandering through various adventures and dimensions/time zones designed to keep the character... and the audience... completely disoriented as we move from one low budget set piece to the next. And, of course, the four stalwarts of the Phantasm universe... Reggie (as played by Reggie Bannister), Mike (as played by A. Michael Baldwin), Jodie (as played by Bill Thornbury) and the magnificent Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man are all reunited in some way or another throughout the movie. In fact, it’s Angus Scrimm’s last film as he died in early 2016, although he was at least able to see a cut of the film before he passed on, is my understanding. It’s kind of fitting that his last performance was in a Phantasm movie since The Tall Man, aka Jebediah Morningside, is the role that turned him into a classic, modern horror icon.

The film seems to have been somewhat hammered by some fans and, I suspect, this probably stems from the fact that one of the many realities presented... almost as a framing device for the story... is that the whole Phantasm series is just a manifestation of Reggie’s early onset of dementia, as he is dying in hospital. However, this idea gets played around with a few times and by the end of the story, such as it is, you don’t really know if that cop out is actually a genuine timeline or not so... I don’t think the film deserves the kind of negative reception it got, to be honest.

Indeed, there’s lots of good stuff here with the expected ‘new use of old balls’ when the sphere’s have more things happening with them to add to the goriness. Also, the balls seem to be a lot more dynamic this time around and I’m wondering how much of these were done as CGI for this one. Certainly some of the goriness and definitely the bullets squirting from machine guns seem to be cheap CGI effects. So we have a ball that has loads of spikes coming out of it and which basically blows people’s head apart. We also have really huge, bigger than a house size balls which can take out skyscrapers with hidden lasers.

Of course, they also go back to the classic head sticking, noggin drilling variety a few times because it’s a way of revisiting the iconic moment form the first movie... we even have it happening to a horse in this one... as played by Misty the Horse, apparently. So there are a fair few practical effects in this one too, it seems to me... although the sphere and bloody demise of said horse looks like a horse rolling around having fun with the gory elements CGI’d in after, to be honest.

One of the main, reoccurring ‘realities’ that Reggie is walking through is a post-apocalyptic version of the Earth where The Tall Man has already taken control of the planet, with the regulars reunited as a resistance against the dark lord’s domain. It makes for a nice exploration of the ultimate end game that The Tall Man has in store for us and this is also one of the alternative endings to the film which plays out almost immediately after the ‘closure’ ending of the film... but I don’t want to spoil that here.

There are also some new characters played by new actors and actresses but, also, there are a few other ‘returns’ here apart from the main four plus some of the props from previous films. Without giving too much away, there’s the brief but quite effective return of an iconic character from the very first movie and, in a mid-end credits scene, there’s the return of a ‘fan favourite’ character from the third film in the series. However, I won’t say more because, if you’re a fan of the series, you won’t want to know about these things before they happen.

All in all, this is not a bad last movie. Despite less than stellar reviews I think Phantasm RaVager holds up quite well with the others and certainly doesn’t lose that tone of ‘what the heck is going on’ that infused the previous movies. Nor does it dispense with the somewhat leisurely pacing of the prior chapters. It’s still very much, despite not actually being specifically directed by Coscarelli, 'a Phantasm movie' and it’s nice to see the films come to something of a natural ending, finally. The recent Arrow Films box set satisfies all the usual expectations of extras and even includes a sixth, bonus disc of even more documentaries and interviews. Like all the Phantasm films, this is not one you can really watch and make sense of on its own (not that you would make much sense out of any of them anyway, to be truthful... that’s part of the fun) so if you’re new to the world of the flying sphere’s then  you should definitely see them in order. If, however, you are already on board with these films then I would have thought that, if you allow the film to wash over you without questioning the choices made before it reaches its final destination, you would have an okay time with it. For me this one rounds out the series so... I’m good with it.

Phantasm OblIVion

Balls To The Wall

Phantasm OblIVion
USA 1998 Directed by Don Coscarelli
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Sorry but there will be spoilers on this one... I want to talk about what Coscarelli does with the ending here.

So... only four years after the previous installment in this film series (you can read my review of Phantasm III - Lord Of The Dead here) we have the fourth and, what I expect many people thought would be the final one in the series... even though the ending is, to a certain extent, left on the usual style of cliffhanger.

The film more or less picks up where it left off, with Reggie Bannister’s character Reggie voicing a recap montage of the events of the previous movies. Then we carry on with the new ‘ballified’ version of Mike, played again by A. Michael Baldwin, driving into the desert on some kind of bleakly surreal quest and with Reggie, still pinned to the wall by the spheres. The action carries on with Reggie and Mike spending most of the movie apart, doing different things. And we have the rematerialising, manifestation of Mike’s brother Jodie, once again played by Bill Thornbury, being much more sinister and perhaps not as helpful as he might at first appear here.

Reggie’s character is pretty much in it to provide the action scenes as he speeds across the desert trying to catch up to wherever Mike is. There’s a nice sequence where he battles a kind of zombie policeman which ends in a vehicle explosion and that provides almost a running gag in the film on this one... there seems to be an abundance of exploding vehicles in this. Including the one that explodes after Reggie breaks the window of a newly rolled over car to drag out the lady trapped inside. When they end up in an old shack for the night, Reggie is back trying to get into the young ladies affections... although not as strongly as he was with the Roxy character in the previous movie.

We then get the scene that I’m sure many Phantasm fans had been waiting a long time to see. As she’s sleeping, Reggie notices the young ladies bosoms are heaving just a little too oddly underneath her nightgown so he quickly undoes the item of clothing to check out what’s going on and, sure enough, her breasts have turned into Phantasm balls which promptly fly around the room chasing Reggie. One even manages to drill through his hand as he tries to stop it gouging its way into his head before he destroys it with a tuning fork. I think it’s nice that Coscarelli has gone back to the tuning fork idea on this as it was a prominent part of the ending of the first movie, if memory serves, although if it was as effective as a weapon as it is here, you have to wonder why our heroes never thought of it before.

Meanwhile, Mike is on something of a philosophical pilgrimage through both the desert and different time zones via the tuning fork gateways. We see a lot of flashbacks throughout the movie but it’s especially clear, in one scene where Mike tries to end his own life and it flashes back to the events of the first movie, that Coscarelli must have shot a lot of unused scenes for that first film which never made it into the final cut. He makes good use of them here though, which is riddled with ‘new footage’ of the four main actors when they were much younger men.

The fourth actor I am referring to, of course, is Angus Scrimm who, once again, takes up his duties in the iconic role of The Tall Man and, also, we find out his real name... Dr. Jebediah Morningside. So the Morningside mausoleum in the first movie was named after him... retrospectively, I guess. As Mike visits Dr. Morningside in his past, we get a little taste of what his back story around the time of the American Civil War was and how, and why, he invented the portals to another world in the first place... so this is nice stuff and we get to see Angus do something a little different with the role in this one.

Of course, by the end of the movie, everything is so surreal and disjointed... deliberately so, I think it’s fair to say... that you have no real idea of what’s going on or why events are being allowed to play out in the order they are. Which is something of a modus operandi for the series, as far as I can see.

I talked about the use of flashbacks and while it’s immensely satisfying to see the same actors at various ages playing the same characters, there’s also one thing which Coscarelli does with them which, on reflection, is simple but it’s also quite special. There’s an element of this in a lot of the flashbacks but what he does very specifically at the ending of the film... after Reggie has jumped into another dimension to try and get help while Mike, the sphere extracted from his brain, lays dying on the desert floor... is finish the film on a flashback. Now I can’t remember if the scene the director chooses to end the film with is an unused scene from the first film or whether it was in there too but, it consists of the younger versions of Mike and Reggie sitting in Reggie’s car and driving. Michael hears an echo of himself from the future where Coscarelli has the sound of Mike saying he’s dying superimposed over the old footage and Reggie asks what the sound was. Now what it was originally supposed to be and why Mike has the wistful expression on his face, I don’t know, but the way Coscarelli remoulds the material to give it a much greater weight than was originally intended when the footage was initially shot nearly twenty years before, is kind of a special thing to do, I think. Making new connections with old scenes and giving them a meaning beyond what they originally had is something I’ve not seen that many film makers try before, to be honest.

And that’s me done with Phantasm - OblIVion for the forseeable future. It’s a film which disappointed me the first time I saw it but, approaching it now with the expectations a little lower allows the film to flourish more in my mind and I think, like the third movie, this stands up much better over the years than I expected it to. As with the previous movies... recommended to fans of the series but not really a good jumping on point if you’re a stranger to the Phantasm universe.

Well, now I’ve got this far I can see the possible jewel in the crown of Arrow's restored, Blu Ray box release... the debut of Phantasm RaVager, a recent film in the series which, with the death of Angus Scrimm back in 2016, I suspect really will be the last of the Phantasm films. At least in the form we know them in... I wouldn’t say a remake is out of the question at some point. So looking forward to reviewing that one here when I’m done. Thanks for reading.

Phantasm III - Lord Of The Dead

Rocky Ball Boa

Phantasm III - Lord Of The Dead
USA 1994 Directed by Don Coscarelli
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Okay so... onto a rewatch of the third of the Phantasm films in my revisitation of the series due to Arrow’s new Blu Ray set from last year.

Phantasm III - Lord Of The Dead was not bankrolled by a major studio this time around, although Universal did help by distributing it for Coscarelli once it had been filmed. Which means it had a substantially smaller budget than the previous one, by about half a million dollars according to the IMDB. Now, for many film series out there that wouldn’t make much of an impact but with small budget pictures like this, it’s basically had one sixth of the budget of the previous one slashed from it. Still a staggeringly great amount compared to the original Phantasm (reviewed by me here) but it’s still a big hit to take, I reckon, after the budget of Phantasm II (reviewed by me here).

That being said, one of the positives from that process is that, without studio insistence on recasting, A. Michael Baldwin returns to the role of Mike which he portrayed in the first movie (and all remaining sequels). And, of course, we have Reggie Bannister back as Reggie... and Bill Thornbury back as Mike’s deceased brother Jody. Yeah, I know, it’s a Phantasm film so just because a character is dead, doesn’t mean he can’t be alive as a manifestation inside one of the spheres... it gets kinda tricky in the storyline but ultimately it makes more sense than a lot of the other elements of the Phantasm movies, that’s for sure.

I remember seeing this one for the first time decades ago when a DVD set collecting the first four films came out on DVD and thinking that this third one was pretty poor. Well, I would have to say that, as the years have gone by, they’ve certainly been kind to this movie. Maybe it’s the sense of nostalgia taking over but I found this one a heck of a lot more entertaining this time around. And a lot more interesting too, it has to be said.

The film, despite being shot six years after the previous one, carries on right where things left off at the tail end of Phantasm II and, it does it a lot more seamlessly than I remember, to be honest. After a car crash and the main female lead of the last film being killed... thrown away in a way that really didn’t seem fair to the importance of the character and her perceived role in the storyline, Reggie and Mike are finally reunited... once Mike has woken up in hospital from a coma and survived another attack by minions of The Tall Man (played once again here by the inimitable Angus Scrimm, in the somewhat iconic role which most people associate him with).

However, after the reappearance of dead Jodie in the first of many helpful manifestations, we have Mike once again kidnapped by The Tall Man. Reggie ends up pursuing the trail to yet another small town which has been drained of life by the aliens and encounters three villainous thugs who lock him in the trunk of his own car before driving off in it. They plan to end Reggie’s life but, luckily for our hero, they first go to raid a house which is being defended by a lone kid called Tim, played by Kevin Connors. This really is a Home Alone kind of situation right here because within a few minutes, young Tim gets all ‘our Macaulay Culkin goes up to 11’ on their asses and kills all three in violent ways (they don’t stay dead for the whole movie, of course, as their ‘undead’ forms will provide trouble for the gang later in the film). He’s also a crack shot so when he rescues Reggie, seeing as they’re pretty much in the same boat, Tim joins him in his quest...after some shenanigans where Reggie tries to find him some responsible adult supervision first.

Reggie and Tim’s next stop is... another Phantasm style mausoleum where they pick up another ally, Rocky, played by Gloria Lynne Henry (who apparently returns as this character in some way for the fifth film in the series... unless it’s just flashback footage). After seeing her friend murdered in the classic ‘Phantasm ball, head stick and drill’ routine, she ends up joining our heroes... again, after some more shenanigans which I can only assume are put in to give credibility to the character.

The rest of the film pretty much alternates between battles and rescues involving two or more of the five main protagonists (including Jodie) and various attempts by Reggie trying to sleep with Rocky. The film is actually pretty nicely done with some strong compositions in places and some nice colour palettes from time to time. The performances all work pretty well and there are some interesting moments where the Phantasm universe is somewhat expanded. So we have a ball with a retracting eyestalk, for example... also a golden ‘superball’ with the spirit of The Tall Man in it at one point.

All in all the pace never really lets up, which is something a good B-movie will know how to do and I’m also pleased to say that, like the original film, nothing really ever makes that much sense for that long. Certain scenes might have you questioning things in a good way and others... well, they won’t. But it all feels like the Phantasm brand so there’s nothing wrong here. The director even utilises unused footage from the first movie as flashbacks in some cases here (unless I’m just remembering things wrongly). The music by Fred Myrow and Christopher L. Stone is pretty much a needle-dropped cut and paste job from the previous movies but it doesn’t seem out of place here, to be honest.

Definitely recommended for fans of the franchise but not something I could see you getting hooked into as a jumping on point for the uninitiated. I’m now very much looking forward to rewatching Phantasm OblIVion and then finally checking out Phantasm RaVager so, you know, look out for those reviews sometime soon.

Phantasm II

Ballrats

Phantasm II
USA 1988
Directed by Don Coscarelli
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

And so, onto the second of the Phantasm movies from the new Blu Ray set which Arrow released earlier last year.

Like the first movie, which I reviewed here, Phantasm II is one of those films where the first thing I’ll think about each time it comes up in conversation is the old UK TV spot with, in this case, the really cool copy line... “The ball is back.” Which, when I think of it now, probably isn’t that cool a copy line but it meant something to us all back then and so it’s still a fond memory. I don’t think I saw this one myself until a little way into the 1990s on cable television (which we had around these parts back at that time) but I remember liking it quite a lot. It’s always been my favourite of the films but, I have to say that on this viewing, the film disappointed me a little, truth be told... although it was still a lot of fun watching through it.

Phantasm II is an unusual sequel in that it’s the only Phantasm film, as fas as I am aware, that had a fairly big budget (comparative to the other movies in the series)... but it turns out that’s a bit of a mixed blessing. The first film was pretty jumpy and hallucinogenic with a big double punch at the end of the movie in terms of leaving the audience completely unsure as to whether or not the main body of the story was actually real or a dream. Of the three main protagonists of that film, Mike’s brother Jody (played by Bill Thornbury) is not in this film at all and that, therefore, would back up the idea that the whole film was taking place in the mind of Mike. Except we had that ending where The Tall Man came back and pulled Mike through the opening above his bed. Since this film carries on directly from there, without Jody, it seems to be sticking with that idea except... Mike can remember everything that happened in the first film and, of course, more of all the same happens here. So that makes no sense.

To make matters more confusing, although Jody is the only one of the three main protagonists not back here, the original actor who played Mike, A. Michael Baldwin, is only seen in the flashback footage at the start of the movie. The resolution to the end sequence of the first move is played with somebody else as Mike and we only see her back (which is good because, you know, Mike is not a girl). For the rest of the film, which takes place almost ten years later (so this movie is set in real time in terms of the number of years between the two), Mike is played by James Le Gros. Coscarelli was forced to go with a different actor due to the demands of the studio who put the money up. It wasn’t an easy decision and they also wanted him to drop the actor Reggie Bannister... who plays the third of our regular protagonists, Reggie... but Coscarelli was able to keep Reggie in here. This is a very similar situation to that faced by Kevin Smith when he was asked to have a different actor playing Jay in the second of the Jay And Silent Bob movies, Mallrats. Luckily for Jason Mewes, Smith was able to keep him in and the rest, as you probably know if you’re a regular reader and cinephile, is movie history. A. Michael Baldwin would be reunited alongside both Reggie and Bill Thornbury for the remaining Phantasm films, of course.

One of the interesting aspects of Phantasm II is that it’s almost a very linear, easy to decode narrative compared to what came before (and what came after, if memory serves). My understanding was that this was another studio demand and this makes it somewhat unique in the canon of the Phantasm movies. That being said, although it’s mostly got a linear narrative on it, there are still some bizarre jumps... not least of which is a certain main character who returns back to life wearing the body of another character for the end scene. When you try and put the timeline of this story together... which is basically a road movie with Mike and Reggie ‘tooling up’ and going on a quest to find a girl who’s ‘astrally linked’ to Mike while The Tall Man leaves various traps for them in ghost towns... you find that this makes the total body of the Phantasm films even more vaguely surreal and hallucinogenic in context, which I’m sure was not the intention of Universal studios in this case.

The first two thirds of the movie, with Mike and Reggie joined by two female companions on the way... Mike’s ‘dream girl’ Liz, played by Paula Irvine... and Alchemy, played by Samantha Phillips, plays as almost a return to silent movie acting with dialogue very much kept to a minimum and a fair amount of stealth mode ‘sneaking around’ in the various towns left in the wake of The Tall Man. Why the police have not bothered to investigate that several small towns are now deserted because The Tall Man has crushed them down to be alien dwarf slaves is anybody’s guess, mind you.

In the last third of the movie, the gore factor very much kicks in and the extended chase/fight sequences are seemingly never ending. Here we see numerous variations on the famous flying spheres of death from the first movie and, if anything can be gleaned from the different incarnations of these strewn about the movie it’s the fact that the array of weapons seems somewhat contradictory and outmoded by various different spheres. For example, when character actor Kenneth Tigar comes up against a sphere, the object in question loads up a spinning blade and takes off one of his ears when it rushes past his head before returning to the more familiar mode on the next approach and affixing itself to his forehead with the two front, retractable blades before drilling into his skull and throwing his blood out through a back channel.

Later on, we are also acquainted with a ball that has three mini buzz saw style blades which eats its way through a man’s back before hacking its way up and through the front of his mouth. And then we have a sphere which can fire lasers out of it... which I believe is something which is revisited on a larger scale in the fifth movie, Phantasm: Ravager, which is the only one I’ve not yet seen (lucky for me it gets its premier UK release in this new Blu Ray set). There are also such set pieces as Reggie and a bad guy having a ‘duelling chainsaw’ fight and a scene where the iconic Tall Man, played as always by the late Angus Scrimm, is embalmed alive with a strong acid which causes his eyeballs to explode from their sockets as his body caves in on itself... not that this over the top death turns out to slow him down any, of course.

The film has an ending which, without giving it away, mirrors the ending of the first film somewhat. A part of this sequence was reshot in a different location for the trailers so that, presumably, when the sequence finally happens in the movie, the audience wouldn’t anticipate it occurring when it does. It’s not the most satisfying ending, it has to be said but, it kinda works and, although it’s very much a ‘big studio’ B movie, it certainly fits in with the style of the others to a fair extent.

Phantasm II is not, as I used to think, the best of the Phantasm movies. I still have a soft spot for the first and, although that one feels a little more dated than this one, I think that first one has a lot more charm than this one. It’s still an excellent ‘alcohol and donuts with friends night’ kinda movie, however. I’m glad to have this one on Blu Ray and thanks, once again, to Arrow for doing such a good job with this release and presentation... which has more extras than you can rattle a lethal sphere of death at.

Phantasm

Sphere Pressure

Phantasm
USA 1979
Directed by Don Coscarelli
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

When J. J. Abrams produced and directed the first of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, the chrome look of one of the character costumes reminded him of the iconic chrome/silver ball in the Phantasm series of movies and so he named that character Captain Phasma. I’m just recounting this story by way of demonstrating how well loved and how far reaching these particular low budget horror movies are. When you watch the first one nowadays it maybe seems a bit dated but still retains its quirkiness and I think, if I were truly watching this for the first time now, then I would possibly be wondering what all the fuss was about. However, Phantasm has been with me for a not inconsiderable chunk of my life and its something I like to come back to every now and again and, this newish Blu Ray box set from Arrow Films was a good excuse to do that. Not only does it have another model sphere, smaller and closer in size to the real thing than the excellent DVD box set of some years ago, plus a little book full of photos and information... it also has the long awaited fifth movie from the end of 2016, Phantasm Ravager, making it’s UK premier here. So I was very excited for this new, restored boxed set.

My first experience with Phantasm in the UK was the TV spot used to advertise its first cinema run back in 1979, contrary to what the IMDb is now telling me in that it says this movie didn’t even get a release over here until 2016. But I clearly remember the TV spot at the time with the main teen protagonist running from one of the lethal chrome balls, flattening to the ground and letting it pass over his head. I also remember the tag line in that advert, with the voice saying at the end... “If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.” I just confirmed my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me by phoning my friend @cultofthecinema, who remembered the posters being out on the tube at the same time and I remember them front of house at my local cinema. So, yeah... sometimes the IMDB can get it very wrong.

Of course, I was only 11 years old in 1979 so it wasn’t a movie that I would have been allowed to see at the cinema. It was an 'X' movie anyway but I remember that, by then, my head was perpetually filled up with lots of science fiction stuff such as Doc Savage, the Flash Gordon serials, Doctor Who, Space 1999, Star Trek, Sinbad, The Six Million Dollar Man, Logan’s Run comics (the actual movie was a 'AA' when it came out in 1976 so I was too young but, again, in addition to the comics there was the short lived TV show), Star Wars, James Bond, Battlestar Galactica and... well, you get the picture. I mention this in passing to indicate that, even though my mind was on other things, the TV advertising for this was very much a ‘thing’ and the imagery found in even those short ads was quite haunting.

I don’t think I came into contact with the movie itself until the late 1980s or early 1990s and it would have almost certainly been a TV print. Probably uncut but maybe not. I’ve seen this movie maybe another three or four times since then and, every time I watch this one, I am always surprised by the ‘just about hanging together’ and surreal nature of the experience. The film stars A. Michael Baldwin as the teenage Mike and the plot deals with how he and his brother Jody, played by Bill Thornbury, team up with their friend Reggie (played by Reggie Bannister) to investigate the local funeral home Morningside after their mate has died and strange, inexplicable stuff is happening around town. In fact, Mike and Jody’s friend is stabbed by The Lady In Lavender (played by Kathy Lester) in the opening sequence of the film and it’s then that we also get our first flash of a shot of one of the film’s longstanding icons.

That icon being one Angus Scrimm, who is probably best known for playing The Tall Man in all the Phantasm films and who is recognisable in costume and saying his catch line “Booooooy!” in a way transcendent from the films which made him such a famous figure in low budget horror. Scrimm died in January 2016 and his last two films were Phantasm Ravager and Dances With Werewolves. It’s always good to see Scrimm turn up in stuff unannounced (like this director’s film John Dies At The End, which I reviewed here) but it’s in this film where it all begins for him as far as being a larger than life horror personality is concerned. Seeing him strutting his way through the beautiful, vertical shapes and tones of the Morningside Funeral Home is still something special... probably more so when you’re seeing it in the context of the larger body of work that is the Phantasm series.

Phantasm is a great film and, sure, it has its other great icon the flying spheres. We only see it in two scenes in this original. The first being the scene which was used for the trailers and TV spots where Mike is being held by a guy with the sphere flying towards him... the blades come out but Mike bites through the other guys hand and wriggles out from his grasp just in time for the ball to land on the other guy’s forehead, fixing itself by its twin bayonet blades before unleashing a high powered drill to burrow into the victim’s head while a hole opens out in the back to eject the blood. One might possibly, the second time you see it, be asking yourself why such a bizarre and elaborate method of killing is required in the first place but the first time you see it, you’re probably too distracted by the novelty to care. The only other time we see the ball is in a much later scene where... oh, okay, I don’t want to give away everything.

Quite apart from these two great icons of modern horror... The Tall Man and his silver spheres... we have a movie which, in all honesty, jumps about a bit, doesn’t make a lot of sense, has tuning fork portals, shrunken slave midgets which look like Jawas (but which were conceived well before the Star Wars lookalikes made it to the screen... the film shoot was lengthy and even the principal photography took a year of weekend filming to finish), a black box of mind pain and a possibly even more painful guitar duet played by Reggie and Jody. it’s disjointed and surreal in places but, for most of the time, manages to maintain a semblance of holding itself together... although every time I get to the ‘double ending’ of the first movie, I’m reminded how this doesn’t seem to make any coherent sense and am baffled how they managed to pull off even one sequel... let alone another four.

Oh... and it’s also kind of brilliant in its own, low budget way. Conjuring up an atmosphere fairly unique to this franchise and managing to inextricably be both dated and timeless at exactly the same moment. We also have Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave’s haunting and fairly minimally spotted score which seems to be almost trying to catch the same kind of progressive and relentlessly driven tone of things like Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells from The Exorcist, Goblin’s score for Suspiria and John Carpenter’s Halloween theme... although it’s a more laid back version of ‘relentlessly driven’, to be sure. And yes, I know that makes no sense but it’s also a good term for the movie itself, with it’s slow and rambly but ultimately eventful pacing... driven but also laid back.

Arrow’s new Blu Ray transfer is the best I’ve ever seen the film looking and, as it’s Arrow, you get a package with gazillions of extras on each of the five discs... not to mention a sixth bonus disc with even more extras on it. If you are into horror movies or even if you are into weird or off-key tales of science fiction, which this movie is as much as it’s a scary movie, then you should definitely check Phantasm out if you’ve never seen it before. It’s strangely addictive and it’s something you can go back and have a look at every few years and probably see something new or, at the very least, something you’ve forgotten, in it. Am really looking forward to continuing my revisitation of the Phantasm universe as I delve deeper and put my hand back into the Arrow box of fear. Keep your forks tuned.

Phantasm Exhumed

Tall Tales

Phantasm Exhumed - The Unauthorised Companion  
by Dustin McNeill  
Harker Press
ISBN: 978-0692203156

Okay... this is actually a pretty groovy book, as far as ‘story behind the movie’ publications go.

I’ve been aware of the Phantasm movies since seeing the original TV spot trailers over here in the UK back in the 1970s. When I finally got to see the films themselves, I loved them... although it took me a while to catch up to the third and fourth movies. The director, Don Coscarelli, has gone on to do some amazing works such as Bubba HoTep and John Dies At The End (reviewed here) but these films are special because there’s always such a long gap between each one and, with one notable exception for the second of the films, the director always manages to assemble the same core cast for the sequels. I understand the fifth movie, Phantasm: Ravager, is almost ready for release... 17 years after the last one and, really, I’m quite looking forward to seeing where that one takes things.

Now, I have to say, ‘unauthorised’ editions... as in those books which are not sanctioned or approved by the film company or director, like this one... can be a bit of a double edged blade when it comes to the quality of the thing. The big minus on these things tends to be that there’s usually no official or easy access to any of the facts and documentation about what the author is trying to write about. The usual plus side is that the writer can sometimes uncover the not so pleasant side of things which a director or studio definitely would not want to see the light of day.

Dustin McNeill’s book, Phantasm Exhumed - The Unauthorised Companion, is quite unusual in that, in terms of my first point, he seems to have had a lot of access to all the cast and crew and a fair amount of documentation. Everyone except Don Coscarelli himself, it would seem. But everyone of any importance other than Coscarelli seems to have given up hours of interview time and personal memorabilia and information in an effort to assist the writer in his efforts to exhume the story behind these widely loved movies. The book even, in fact, has a foreward written by The Tall Man himself, Mr. Angus Scrimm... so there’s obviously a lot of love for the writer here. One wonders if this one was originally going to be an authorised version but then hit a snag?

Another thing which this ‘unauthorised edition’ doesn’t do, which again flies in the face of convention, is to say anything bad about the director in any way, shape or form. No sordid revelation or any bad behaviour is unearthed here and this does back up a lot of what I’ve heard about Don Coscarelli in the past... he’s a great guy to work for and make a movie with... and that’s more than backed up with accounts by all the people who have worked with him in the pages here. Since he’s obviously a great guy and there’s no hidden agenda, it seems to me, behind the writer’s loving account of the making of these films... my best guess as to why this is not an authorised edition is that maybe Coscarelli is planning on bringing out his own book on the subject some day? That’s all I can think of because... he comes off really well in Phantasm Exhumed.

Being as this is not made with director or studio approval, one thing the book doesn’t seem to have in it is any selection of actual stills from the movies themselves but, frankly, this is more than made up for with the absolute abundance of behind the scenes photos throughout the book which the author has obviously had permission to use... presumably donated by the many people he’s interviewed for this project. Fans of this series of films will find this tome fascinating for this and it’s actually much better, I think, than actually having a bunch of shots which you can probably get from other sources online. There are also nice photos of various premieres, panels (such as a Fangoria panel) and the odd poster artwork as it appeared advertising a Phantasm film in the context of, say, a newspaper, scattered throughout the pages of this book.

One of the things it does do very well and diplomatically is talk about the replacement of Michael Baldwin’s main character Mike with James Le Gros, at the studio’s insistence, for the second movie (made eleven years after the first) before he returned to the franchise as Mike for the subsequent films. Although Le Gros refused, after much toing and froing it would seem, to participate in this book, it seems clear that Baldwin takes the studio’s rejection of him for the second film fairly philosophically and any anger he might have had has long since faded. It would have been interesting to hear Le Gros’ side of the story but it appears everybody involved seems to have forgiven everybody else about that particular casting decision, which I understand Coscarelli wasn’t exactly crazy about himself. The only real ‘not so happy’ thing here being the story of one of the special effects men not being retained for some of the installments and the slight bitterness there. Alas, that individual is no longer around to tell the tale from his side of things.

The book is pretty much any fan of the series’ delight and there isn’t much more you could possibly want from it. Every aspect of each of the movies from pre-production design, building the effects, cast and crew remembrances of specific days (and nights) on the set, musical scoring and even the way the releases were distributed and received by the general public is covered in this book and I really learned a lot from it. I never realised, for instance, just how hugely successful and profitable that first, extremely low budget movie was around the world. I was similarly surprised to find out that Phantasm II actually tanked big time and it really took a lot to get the third and fourth move made on very limited budgets. It’s a real tribute to the people who worked on these movies that they were able to even get these made at all, in all honesty.

The book also covers some interesting projects which never got finished such as a big budget, effects laden Phantasm remake by Roger Avary and takes us right up to some stuff which has been shot under another guise and which may, or may not, be included as part of the up and coming Phantasm: Ravager (aka Phantasm V) movie... for which, judging by the IMDB entry on this one, Coscarelli (now producing and not directing) has managed to once again magically assemble the majority of the original cast for... which is no mean feat when you consider that some of these people are not best known for acting.

Now, if you’re a regular reader here you’ll know that I’m fairly critical of a lot of books written about movies and their history... but Phantasm Exhumed - The unauthorised Edition is a labour of love and I have to say, even if it hadn't been as well put together as it undeniably is, there isn’t a hell of a lot of competition for it out there in terms of collected writings on the Phantasm films. So, basically, if you’re a fan of these Coscarelli movies and you are interested in knowing a bit about what went down on the films as they were being put together, Dustin McNeill’s book is a definite necessity for your shelf full of ball-laden, Phantasm memorabilia. Just remember to duck if you see anything bright and shiny out of the corner of your eye as you read.

Frighten Brighton August 2012

Brighton, Crisp and Even

Hello all.

When I first started up this blog, just over a couple of years ago, I used to semi-regularly feature a diary column which pointed out various up and coming events that film fans, cinephiles and selective rabid mad beasties might find interesting to attend. I kind of lost my way, or at least lost interest, in doing that Fresh From The Diary kinda column after a while, mostly I think because I stopped having the financial resources to regularly attend such things. However, I have been quite regretful of late that I let that regular column slide, to be honest.

Luckily, the organisers of the Classic Horror Campaign sent me an email about their forthcoming Frighten Brighton Horror Festival and it was like a virtual, bloody poke in the eye to get these kinds of things up for people again. Now I’ve not been to any of their Frighten Brighton editions before but I do know it will be a good day out for fans of classic horror movies.

How do I know that?

Well, I have been to some of their double bill screenings at The Roxy in London and, even if the movies aren’t always some of my favourites (although they often are), I can safely say that the atmosphere created by the two co-hosts Cybershizoid and Scare Sarah is always conducive to a more than convivial atmosphere.

So there’s that plus... what’s this?

Wow. They’ve got the sultry, knowledgable, Goddess-like and sexifying Emily Booth there as a guest at the show. Someone I’ve always wanted to meet in person... although I know I would probably go “all shy” and drool on myself by accident if I were ever in the same room with her. She’s done a lot of stuff in her time and she’ll always inhabit a fond spot in my heart. She’s worth the extremely “value for money” price of admission all on her own, I suspect.

But, in addition to the gorgeous Emily, they also have a stall of horrifying merchandise from Hemlock Books (horror film books, magazines and dvds etc), some “too ghoul for school” horror prizes up for grabs and, not to forget the main event, five incredibly cool horror films which are all must sees... at least in my book. And at £5 per film or the uber-cheap all day £15 pass to all the ghoulish goings on and shivering shenanigans at the Komedia in Brighton that day... you’d be a braindead zombie not to get yourselves down to the show.

Here’s my few words about the five films they’re showing... and don’t worry, no big spoilers in here.


Mad Love 1935
This is Peter Lorre’s first US production, if memory serves me correctly, and it’s yet another adaptation of The Hands Of Orlac. Yep, that’s right, the old template story about what happens when you graft the “criminal” hands (eyes, wig, various bodily appendages, depending on which version of the story you happen to be viewing) onto the body of an innocent and they take on a sinister life of their own, so to speak.

This is a pretty special movie because, in addition to the incomparable Peter Lorre, you have the original Universal Doctor Frankenstein Colin Clive (a direct relation of the original Clive of India, who he played once in a movie) in the film and the whole, stylistic delight is directed by former Dracula cinematographer Karl Freund, who imports his direct experience of shooting early silent German Expressionism into the mix. A real visual treat with a characteristically delirious performance by Lorre. Truly not to be missed.


Cat People 1942
Next up is the equally unforgettable Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur under the legendary influence of his producer, Val Lewton. This film had two sequels and one official remake (not to mention a fair few, um, homages?) and it certainly deserves its reputation as a classic scare movie. It’s the movie from which the term “a bus”, meaning a scary shock or sting, was named after and the scene with the bus in this film will certainly give you a start if you’ve not seen it before... as would a similar scene in the same director and producer’s later film, The Leopard Man.

Unusual in a way in that it’s a post-Hay’s Code movie that actually involves the act of sexual intercourse as the driving factor which fuels the fear of the main protagonist Irena (played wonderfully by Simone Simon in both this and Curse Of The Cat People), with a lot of 1940s “beating around the bush” in terms of not mentioning or showing the actual act of... erm... beating around the bush. It’s visually brilliant and subtly moody, as all the RKO horror films had to be in able to compete with the larger budgeted Universal productions at the time.


THEM! 1954
After Cat People we have my personal pick for best, or at least most fun without laughing, of this batch with THEM! Although I expect the audience will be doing a lot of laughing at this one too. Especially when the authorities are puzzled over why something large and ferocious has been after big stockpiles of sugar!

It’s no secret that this movie involves early atomic bomb scare, mutated, giant ants and, frankly, it’s a absolute classic example, and one of the better made, of that interesting little sub-genre. Starring James Whitmore, who I always see as a kind of poor man’s Spencer Tracey, and Edmund Gwenn, who I always think of as a poor man’s Leo G. Carroll (Carrol appeared in the giant Tarantula movie a year later), it’s probably the best “giant anything” movie ever made, I reckon.

Fans of ALIENS should see some similarities as the movie starts off with the authorities finding an orphaned, unspeaking little girl who has survived an attack by... something. And further similarities like seeking out the giant insect’s nest and battling them with flame throwers. I’m not, of course, suggesting Jimmy Cameron actively stole anything from this film... but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this movie was already in his blood when he made the sequel to A L I E N. I’m sure it’s just an “homage” guys and gals!

Also, look out for the casting in a “blink and you’ll miss him” scene featuring a young Leonard Nimoy as a radio operator. You see? It would be totally illogical for you to miss out on this movie!


The Plague Of The Zombies 1966
The giant ants are followed by a Cornish army of the undead in the Hammer classic, The Plague Of The Zombies. It’s been popularly believed and repeated over the years that George A. Romero’s classic Night Of the Living Dead was the first movie to feature an undead creature rising up from out of the earth. Well prepare to put paid to that modern myth when you see the very same thing happen in a movie which pre-dates Romero’s by two years (actually I believe the first time this was seen in a film was in one of the 1940s Universal Mummy sequels.. but can’t remember which one off hand).

This is a pretty good, atmospheric Hammer Horror and, even if it wasn’t, it’s got Jacqueline (My names Servalan, I’ll be your dominatrix for this series of Blakes 7) Pearce and the wonderful, “whoop every time you spot him in a Hammer movie”, Michael Ripper in it. What’s not to like?


Phantasm 1979
And then, to finish up the day, they have the first of director Don Coscarelli’s four (and counting, five is in the works now, apparently) Phantasm films. If you’ve not seen this before, you’ll think you’ve been smoking something funny all day by the time you get halfway in. Phantasm is actually a really interesting and, definitely, warped film. I still remember the 1979 TV spots of this from when I was a kid. It’s got a really great and unique atmosphere going for it and, apart from all the on screen weirdness, it’s got two great pieces of horror iconography on show too.

Yeah, that’s right. Two. It’s not that often you associate classic horror icons with 1970s cinema but Phantasm is the one which will change your mind.

For starters, you’ve got those wicked, flying killer balls which fly onto your forehead, sticking into you by the two strikingly ornamental blades, before a little drill pops out the front and drills into your skull, jettisoning the associated blood from the back of the ball in a quite ostentatious manner. One of the great horror moments of the 70s.

Added to which you have the irreplaceable Angus Scrimm as... da, da, daaaaa... The Tall Man. Seriously, another horror icon! Partially modelled by the actor on Boris Karloff’s turn in the first Universal Frankenstein movie, the character is a huge visual presence in the history of the modern horror film and has appeared, always played by Scrimm, in all the sequels to date. It just wouldn’t be Phantasm without The Tall Man in attendance.


So there you have it. Five great movies, merchandise and the stimulating presence of the legendary Emily Booth. Get yourselves there people!

Frighten Brighton takes place at noon on the 11th  August at Komedia in Brighton with more details on how to book a ticket at these three links...

http://komediabrighton.ticketsolve.com/shows/126525115/events

http://frightenbrighton.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/horror-by-the-sea/

https://www.facebook.com/events/290663814344396/

Frighten Brighton. The ball is back!