Let's discuss "Phantasm" (1979)

It is good

It is a film riddled with idiosyncrasies that somehow manage to coalesce into a total nightmare on film. It really captures the way in which kids/young adults view the world, and how they pick up on the strangeness of things that often go unnoticed by the adults around them. It's peculiar to the extreme, yet there is still a very human element at its core in the relationship between the two brothers. I've never seen anything else like it.

A truly sui generis horror film. Bona fide classic. It holds up.

Great soundtrack, too! Very eerie and spooky.

Watched it again recently, after seeing it like 100 times, and it’s truly a disturbing, horrifying film mixed with a fair dose of silliness and levity. I was 12 when it came out, and it freaked me out big time. Angus Scrimm was the ultimate boogeyman. Truly scary as fuck moments like the first time you see the silver sphere go flying, the tall man chasing Mike through the morgue, and showing up at his house twice, once at his front door, and then crashing through the window. Not to mention the ending and the dwarves crashing through the mirror at Mike. The sequels got progressively worse, and didn’t have the atmosphere, darkness and dread of the first one.

What's this movie about?

Is this the one with the orbs?

[quote]What's this movie about?

About 90 minutes.

Absolute staple on HBO in the early 80's.

R6 IMDb is your friend.

I didn't know this before, but Phantasm was apparently filmed intermittently over the course of an entire year. It really was a homegrown project for Don Coscarelli, and his family assisted the production in numerous ways (his mother even made some of the costumes). I'm sure this contributed to some of the weirdness/disjointedness of it all, but in the end, the film works wonderfully in its own bizarre way.

R10 I’ve heard this too. But it got put together in a great way for such a low budget. The last shot of Scrimm in the mirror at the very end you can tell his hair is shorter than the rest of the movie.

I prefer "O Fantasma" (2000.) Plus, you get an explicit blowjob.

The silver ball was a really cool original addition to the horror movie world.

I absolutely consider this to be one of the best horror movies, right up there with Candyman and Hellraiser. I am going to have to watch it tonight, thanks OP!

Michael Baldwin grew up to be a pretty handsome man. I don't know what he looks like these days, but he was pretty hot in the '90s.

Was Angus Scrimm family? Never married, no children. Worked as a journalist and wrote liner notes at Capitol Records prior to becoming an actor (he even won a Grammy for his liner note contributions to an album in 1974). A lifelong bachelor, or possibly one of us?

R4 I think it's one of the most underrated original scores for a horror film I can think of. Unforgettable. It has a similar sound to the music you hear in a lot of Italian horror films ("The Beyond" comes to mind).

Scared the absolute shit out of me as a kid.

I saw it again about five years ago abs it still creeped me the fuck out.

And I gate that their friend was killed and turned into one of those zombie things

What about the sequels? Do they hold up? Worth watching if you’ve only seen the first one?

R19 the first sequel is closest in style and atmosphere to the original, but it’s just so so. Coscarelli couldn’t get it made without a bigger name for Mike, so James Le Gros was cast. A. Michael Baldwin held no grudges and came back for 3-5. Part 2 just didn’t have that low budget, renegade style of filmmaking that 1 did, but at least it took place in a new funeral parlor and graveyard. Once they left the funeral parlors and graveyards for the rest of them, it just wasn’t the same. I barely remember 3-5, just a few bits and pieces. 3-5 are worth watching I guess if you have some time to kill and so you can say you saw all of them. But I’d stick with 1 and 2.

Sounds like Reggie is not long for this world.

This thread got me to watch it again tonight. It’s included with an Amazon Prime subscription among other platforms.

That house has been used in so many movies.

R22 yes, the Dunsmuir House. It was famously featured in Burnt Offerings a couple of years before Phantasm was released