Phantasm (1979)

There are tall men, and then there's the "Tall Man". I actually saw the trailer, or preview, if you like, for Phantasm while awaiting the start of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in December of 1978. And I remember the trailer quite well, considering that the upcoming film looked scary as the word itself. The part in the trailer that really got to me was the scene in which the main antagonist, the Tall Man, played by Angus Scrimm, is standing outside of some kid's bedroom window (at night) looking in over the kid's head. It freaked me out ... Completely out. And being a horror film buff - even then at such a young age - I'd immediately said to my mother who had been sitting next to me: 'Ooh, ma, I wanna see that movie!' Phantasm looked horrifying ... And I loved horrifying movies. My mother...

PHANTASM is an uneven work, too fantastic to be genuinely scary but ferociously unique and fascinating on numerous levels.

I think at the forefront there was a desire here to create a warped and entirely original Universe where nothing is as it seems and anything can - and probably will - happen. Logic is quickly cast aside and indeed has no place in the crooked landscape that PHANTASM paints. Into this bizarre, surreal.......even Dali-like twisted cosmos, are thrust a group of characters who - perhaps even by virtue of their acting inadequacies - seem somehow as much a part of the fabric of that Universe, even in their struggles to survive and make sense of it.

For me, PHANTASM has a hypnotic effect for all those reasons. Flying sphere drills, a gender bending alien cemetery keeper,...