Phantasm *** (1979, Angus Scrimm, A Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister) – Classic Movie Review 3,275

Don Coscarelli’s bizarre 1978 horror-sci-fi movie Phantasm is full of imaginative, surreal ideas, and has become a cult classic. Two boys and Reggie the ice cream man (Reggie Bannister) have to try to stop an eerie undertaker (Angus Scrimm).

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 Phantasm 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 in an Oregon small  town called Mike Pearson, 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 older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) and family friend 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 perhaps 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. The film is also rightly admired for its visuals, its surrealism and its highly unusual, inventive screenplay.

Enterprisingly, for the screenplay Coscarelli turned his teenage nightmare into his screenplay, which he altered and developed during filming.

It is an independent production, financed by Coscarelli, his father and local investors, with a cast and crew up mainly of amateurs and aspiring professionals. The film was shot over a year, in and around Chatsworth, California, followed by a long post-production and editing process.

It was made for $300,000, and became a hit, taking $22 million at the international box office after Avco Embassy Pictures acquired it for cinema distribution in the US and premiered it in Los Angeles on March 28, 1979.

The film was restored in 2015, supervised by Coscarelli and the production company Bad Robot, whose co-founder J J Abrams is a fan of the film. This was released in 2016 in cinemas and on Blu-ray.

Three sequels so far, all written and directed by Don Coscarelli: 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 was released on October 7 2016. This was written by David Hartman and Don Coscarelli, who also produced.

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

Angus Scrimm (born Lawrence Rory Guy; August 19, 1926 – January 9, 2016)

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).

Reginald Horace Bannister (September 29, 1945 – August 9, 2026)

American musician, actor, producer and writer Reggie Bannister is known best for his role as Reggie in the Phantasm film series.

He died on August 9, 2026, at his Crestline, California, cabin where he lived with his wife Gigi, at the age of 80.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,275

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/