Viewed at the time of its release as among the better of the slew of low-budget horrors to emerge in the late 1970s, Phantasm continues to attract a cult following. If you’ve got £80 or so to spare you too could own one of Tall Man’s butchering orbs, surely one of the happier consequences of the current strong £:$ rate. But is it deserving of such accolades?
Well yes and no. If (like me) you sit down to watch it with high hopes then you’ll probably come away disappointed. One of several flaws is a real mismatch between the dialogue and the characters, which means that the ten-year-old lead ends up with lines that Samuel L. Jackson would be proud to deliver. At times the humour element of this masks the wider problems with character development. More often than not it doesn’t. As a result we’re left with the oddity of young and mildly annoying Michael investigating the oddities afflicting his town almost single-handedly. It’s okay though, as it turns out he’s well trained in the use of most fire-arms and is also a hell of a driver.
These might seem like glib points (and common enough features of horror films), but they really bite when combined with the turgid pacing of the first two-thirds of the film. As a result Phantasm never really gels together, and the problem is you really feel it. Thus, the usual filler scenes (here involving the adventures of an ice-cream vendor turned wannabe rock star) seem to overly dominate the plot.
It’s a real shame because Don Coscarelli obviously had some interesting ideas. Working with a minuscule budget he does manage to craft some pretty impressive set-piece scenes. The revelation of the other-worldly link is beautifully rendered and offers a nice respite from the otherwise dated feel of the film. The premise underlying Phantasm is novel enough to attract attention in itself, which is why it’s even more annoying that it’s never fully utilised or explored beyond a sneaking glance of the Tall Man’s den. The Tall Man himself is quite rightly the public face of Phantasm, providing as he does tantalising glimpses of what might have been had the character been properly deployed. Angus Scrimm dominates the screen, even if he does look like David Walliams.
There’s just about enough in Phantasm to keep genre enthusiasts going, but the general viewer will probably be left wondering what all the fuss is about.