Welcome boys and ghouls to another Halloween and when else would be the perfect time to unleash a gleaming silver orb full of death and carnage ? Anchor Bay Entertainment surpasses themselves yet again on the packaging side of things for the shiny ball of death in the
'Limited Edition Phantasm set' , or for those not brave enough, there is an impressive shiny silver
'Digi-pack' . Both house five discs, packed to the bloodied brim of gore drenched contents, aimed to please every twisted gorehounds desires.
With the recent interest in Don Coscarelli due to his excellent genre defying 'Bubba Ho-tep' and the talk of a possible 'Phanatsm' remake and/or sequel, it seems another perfect reason for unleashing the tales of the Tall Man on the world again.
Back in 1979 when the post-'Halloween' audiences were craving more thrills and chills, a little movie snuck out there that would be so whacked out and freaky that word of mouth would eventually make it into a hit. Coscarelli wrote, produced, directed and edited 'Phantasm' at the grand old age of 24. It had all the ingredients to be a midnight fav, from its low budget origins, a creepy horror icon in the making, its crude but effective gory effects, and an ingenious otherworldly plot, gave it the 'something different' banner that seemed like a breath of very fresh air to a suffocating cinema audience.
Mike (Michael Baldwin) and Jody (Bill Thornbury) have been recently orphaned and are called back home due to the untimely death of their older brother Tommy (Bill Cone). Still thinking that this might be a tad too much to take for the 13 year old Mike to handle, Jody tells him to stay at home. Like any teen he is not about to do as told, so he sneaks off on his motorbike to watch the proceedings from afar under the cover of some bushes. It's here that things seem a miss. An eerie tall man (Angus Scrimm) picks up the casket containing his brother as if it were weightless toy. Now the games begin...
Mike lets curiosity get the better of him and returns to Morningside, in the middle of the night of course. Here he meets more than he bargained for as flying silver sphere whizzes its way through the mortuary hallways to deadly effect, and the Tall Man and his mini minions, looking like frenzied Jawas from the dunes of Tatooine, are on hand for a chase too.
Out of breath and carrying a severed finger that turns into a bug from hell, Mike enlists the help of both his brother Jody, and Jody's best friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister), a hippie ice cream salesman, to go face to face with the evil Tall Man and his nefarious plot. It seems the midgets are actually those stolen from their recent graves, shrunken and reanimated for some otherworldly purpose. Intergallactic grave robbers are in town and it's up to the threesome to fend them off for the sake of humanity.
Anchor Bay has delivered the goods here, this is the best looking print EVER for this flick, cleaned up and restored making me think I was watching a different movie from those grainy VHS prints, in its proper ratio and sounding damn good too, giving the options of Dolby Digital 2.0 channel, 5.1 and DTS, tracks which makes great use of the excellent and spooky score by Fredric Myrow.
With the success of 'Phantasm' , a sequel was spawned, with a bigger budget, slicker and bloodier special effects, but the Production Company wanted a more 'named' cast so out goes Michael Baldwin and in comes James LeGros (Near Dark, Ally McBeal ) as Mike, just beating a young Brad Pitt to the role. The snappily titled 'Phantasm II' hit the screens in 1988, but more cash, bigger effects and slicker production values does not make for a better movie. Out goes the sci-fi overtones of the first and this one goes for the gore. Some nice effects too but the movie is far from the charm or scares of the original.
Starting off replaying the off-kilter ending of the first but expanding the scene we are head to head with the Tall Man (the spooky Scrimm reprising his role), where Mike just barely escapes his clutches but spends the next seven years in a psychiatric hospital. Now released, he goes to visit his friend Reggie (again played by Bannister) and off they travel into the sunset to find the Tall Man seeking vengeance. Reggie hams it up and acts like ‘Phantasm's equivalent of the 'Evil Dead's Ash, complete with shotgun and chainsaw. Eventually they get to the town of Perigord where the Big Dude is sucking its very life from it. They meet the lovely Liz (Paula Irvine), who seems psychically linked (?) with Mike, the girl of and in his dreams it seems. <!--page-->
Another head to head round with the Tall Man and his mini minions is at hand with more killer spheres than before.
This is really a poor sequel to the imaginative first and we hope that the series will be resurrected in 'Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead' in 1994....
But those hopes are dashed in what becomes the worse offering in the series... we are lulled into a false sense of security as Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury are back, but the plot goes so overly convoluted it goes way beyond any comprehension. In the opening minutes things are flung into complete chaos. Liz, the heroine from Part 2 is unceremoniously off'ed and the Tall Man (Scrimm again) has abducted Mike, so that leaves Reggie with his quad barrelled shotgun to save the day. Hitting the road in his search for his friends it is not long before Reggie is knee deep in trouble, but he makes a few new friends along the way. First up is the plucky, gun slinging kid Tim (Kevin Connors), who saves his neck from a band of looters, and then there is feisty ex-army gal Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) who has just witnessed her mate fall foul by one of the lethal drilling shiny spheres.
So where do Mike and Jody come into this I hear you cry ? The Tall Man is up to more tricks than normal in this episode, Jody has been transformed into one of those zapping spheres, or rather his brain has been inserted into one, which flies out to help the good guys. Mike on the other hand seems to be on a journey of discovery, with the help from his brother's ball, he learns what his enemy is up to and Coscarelli tries to answer many of the unanswered questions made in the previous instalments.
The effects in this one get better too; it's just a shame about the plot, in trying to solve the previous riddles it makes its way for a head ache instead.
Moving on swiftly to 'Phantasm VI: Oblivion' from 1998, which stops another nail being hit into the franchise coffin. This is a much better attempt to get back to the elements that made the first one work so well. It may come as no surprise then that around half of this movie is actually of discarded footage from Part 1, so when we see the characters in the early flashbacks, it is indeed the same cast. Clever stuff, and it works too. This one abandons the over the top gore quota of the previous sequels and cranks up the sci-fi aspect again, flinging in time travel escapades just for the fun of it ! Mike tries to go back to stop the Tall Man before it all started and Coscarelli has a playfully fun time.
If that was not enough, each disc comes with its own set of extras, ranging from camp introductions by Scrimm to audio commentaries to deleted scenes and more. Each of these titles are available separately but only in the 'Sphere set' and 'Digi-pack' will you get disc five, containing the excellent Jake West documentary ‘Phantasmagoria’ and a wealth of other exciting and blood drenched gems such as the interview with make up effects Greg Nicotero. For full details of the extras, check out our database.
The sphere set is strictly limited, but this is the coolest looking DVD set going around, so get it while you can !
'Phantasm Digi-pack' is available to buy now via
AmazonUK , and as of yet there has been no US release date given.
All titles are available separately, and available in the US.
'Phantasm Limited Edition Sphere Set' is available to buy now via
AmazonUK , and as of yet there has been no US release date given. Also for UK readers, we are giving one of these killer orb sets in our
competitions page , so just fill in your details and Good Luck !
You can read more about the DVD in our
database .
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