Phantasm (1979)

The first time we watched Phantasm was in the spring of 1979, at the flea pit Eros cinema in Piccadilly Circus that specialised in films of the Russ Meyer variety and other sexploitation trash classics and, indeed, the cinema that John Landis had in mind when shooting the “porn cinema” scene in London for. The Eros features in the background any grainy 1970s postcard shot or millions of photographs taken daily by tourists from the furthest flung parts of the world. The cinema’s selling point was its location and pretty much nothing else. It was thrust prominently onto Piccadilly Circus under the famous Neon Billboards on the corner of London’s theatre district on Shaftesbury Avenue.

For millions of starry eyes tourists embarking in London for the first time from lands afar and not so “liberal”, The Eros served as the perfect Venus Fly Trap for those easily seduced and lured into the less than immaculate nor exceptionally comfortable or inviting basement hole. The place reeked of seediness, but half the fun of watching “these” dirty movies was to be experienced and savoured in the atmosphere and, once in a while, depending on the screening, the diverse audience of wonderful Midnight Cinema Freaks. This was a special occasion for the cinema, even if they didn’t realise it. Several of the best horror writers and analysts were probably sitting in that flea-pit cinema at that screening. Mark Kermode and Kim Newman, almost surely.

The seating was barely above 100 seats if even that. Though this was the film’s UK premiere and it had garnered quite a bit of a following Stateside, it was not an occasion for the established media guns. I doubt very much if the British press was represented at all.

Phantasm arrived from across the pond with a reputation and a fantastic poster—one of the best. The poster sets the tone perfectly for this particular movie, and the images are stunningly designed and presented with immense skill. The poster features the terror and the intriguing significant elements of the film in a hellish aura that is nightmarishly scary and warped. There has not been a better poster from a horror film in modern times.

Horror films have always been the preferred choice of cinema in our household. When my brother arrived with an advert that heralded the film’s arrival at a midnight screening, it didn’t take much to convince us that this was an event we could not miss at any cost.
We arrived at the cinema well in time and joined an audience of horror geeks and eager beavers lined up to get a bite of this new entity, creating waves and ruffling a few feathers along the way. It had been making a dent in Variety’s Top 50 Box Office earners chart despite being a film of a minuscule budget with no big guns to fire up the media.

Yet, as with the best and most memorable horror films, word of mouth drove its surprising success. The last movie to have blazed its way to glory had been John Carpenter’s excellent Halloween. This film had similarly arrived with no fanfare to the English shores but had grown from nothing into a movie with more legs than any other. Halloween, fuelled by nothing but word of mouth, ran and ran for months and months in London, with the Box Office growing each week as word got out of its stunning mastery.

Phantasm followed a similar trajectory, if not perhaps quite as successful. Yet, something about this non-entity catapulted it from being just another cheap horror flick to a movie that has slowly but surely turned into a classic of humongous proportions.

The reaction that opening night was one of dumbfounded bewilderment. There was a feeling in the audience of having the rug pulled out under their feet as they collectively reeled from the events unfolding on screen, not knowing what to make of it.
To even attempt to describe the events or plot of the film is akin to explaining one of those dreams you sometimes have when you have been on some heavy medication. Vivid and full of disjointed images that individually make little sense but, as a whole, somehow manage to click together to create something deliriously surreal. Unlike any that came before it and in the nearly 40 years subsequently has no peer in the bizarre.

Yet, the film has endured, and its appeal has crossed generations, casting its deranged allure far and wide. Phantasm commands legions of dedicated followers and has spawned numerous sequels and delighted millions with its aura and its daring to take a route that no film has ever taken before it or since. Writer-Director Don Coscarelli, just 22 at the time, crafted a film as unique as any that has ever been created within the horror genre or any genre for that matter, even if its narrative leaves most viewers befuddled like never before. Quite simply, there has never been anything quite like it.

Armed with confidence and the memory of the film fresh in my mind from the night before’s restoration screening, perhaps the time has finally arrived, so here goes.

The film revolves around the misadventures of two brothers who have recently lost their parents (somewhat mysteriously), and they are coping for themselves though two difficult years have passed. The younger of the two, Jody, is just 13 years old, and his main worry and preoccupation are with the fear that his elder brother Mike is about to abandon him and move on, leaving him to cope on his own. Naturally, he is hugely concerned and has taken to stalking his brother to ensure he doesn’t leave him behind. The opening scene introduces us to a romantic couple making out in the Cemetery surrounding the wonderfully macabre and daunting-looking mausoleum named “Morningside”. As the couple reaches the climax of their tryst, the blond beauty reaches for a sharp dagger and brutally stabs poor Tommy. We move swiftly to his funeral at the Mausoleum/cemetery with the kid brother watching the proceedings from a distance using binoculars.

When the ceremony is over, Jody is stunned to watch a rather Tall, imposing figure (the legendary and fabulously named Angus Scrimm) lift the coffin as though he was lifting a piece of tissue and shoving it single-handedly into a hearse. Then, moments later, he was seen stomping down a street in the most stupendously menacing manner. Meanwhile, there are some weird sounds, similar to growls, from nearby, and we can see some hooded figures hiding behind gravestones, seemingly waiting for the right moment to pounce. Jody flees in shock, realising all is not as it should be, and when the Tall Man glowers in his direction, he takes a tumble from his bicycle, unlike when Carrie unseated the fat kid in De Palma’s classic for daring to taunt her with “Creepy Carrie”.

Later that night, while the younger brother swigs a beer and works on the family car in the garage, he hears the strange growling sounds again, convincing him that something or somebody is most definitely out to get him. Mike, the elder brother, remains unconvinced. Jody, unwisely letting curiosity get the better of him, breaks into the Cemetery late at night. It explores the elongated and ominous corridors when chased by a man looking like an irate Donald Trump. The latter then tries to hold him down violently when a judiciously timed bite to the arm saves the day because flying at speed down the corridors is a silver sphere that sprouts an arrow and hones in on its target with deadly and fatal accuracy; the forehead of the Tall Man’s henchman. The sphere then unleashes a drill that bores into Trump with bits of nasty rubbery flesh flying in all directions and gloriously spouting a few jets gushing blood. Undoubtedly, it was one of the most memorable and iconic deaths of all time in horror cinema.

Having survived that, Jody is confronted by the Tall Man and runs for it, slamming a metal door on his hand. Then he hacks the Tall Man’s fingers off, which ooze a fluorescent jelly-like substance, and they continue to wriggle and twitch like a lizard’s tail detached from its body. Quick-witted, Jody captures a finger in a little wooden box and heads home with evidence by which he can finally convince his brother of the terrible dangers they are confronted with. He also believes his parents went the same way: the hands of the Tall Man. Mike reacts with incredulous horror as the finger morphs into a furry spider puppet creature that continues violently, trying to snap and bite its way out of captivity.

The finger-turned spider thing is finally subdued and minced to a pulp in the waste disposal unit in the sink. It’s a brilliant sequence of events, terrifying, heart-stoppingly gruesome, weird and hilarious. Gradually, they discover that the Tall Man is thriving on murder and having his victims embalmed and then squashed into dwarfs and housed in small cylinders. After that, they are transported through the “Gates of Hell” to a netherworld where they are enslaved by a magnificent grand scheme instigated by the master of ceremonies, Angus Scrimm, AKA The Tall Man.