------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Rating : 5/10
Directed By : Don Coscarelli
Michael Baldwin (Phantasm III : Lord Of The Dead)
Reggie Bannister (Cemetery Gates)
Angus Scrimm (Phantasm III : Lord Of The Dead)
Supplied By : Anchor Bay Entertainment
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Apr. 10, 2007
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PLOT Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost his parents, is afraid to lose his brother. This fear causes him to follow his brother to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lift a coffin on his own. Mike decides to investigate and discovers a horrible world where the Tall Man, along with his flying spheres, shrink the to half their normal size and reanimate them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother, and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man. |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| THE REVIEW Paranoia surrounds a young teenage boy named Michael in Director Don Coscarelli's PHANTASM. It seems that life is having it's ups and downs for young Michael, as he recently lost his parents and most recently lost a good friend named Tommy - so is biggest fear is losing his only surviving, closest relative, his older brother Jody. Since this fear stays with him, he usually finds himself following Jody - even to places he's not supposed to, like Tommy's funeral. Outside the parlor Michael spies in the bushes with a pair of binoculars, it is through those that he spots something particularly strange going on. After the services, the boy sees a mysterious man single-handedly load the casket belonging to Tommy, curious, Michael later sneaks into the Morning Side mortuary to investigate and uncovers some even more bizarre findings. He tells his brother of his discovery, only to be brushed off, as Jody sees it as a product of Michael's vivid imagination. But soon the two, along with their friend Reggie(whom is an Ice Cream vendor), they discover that the mysterious man, in which Michael saw in turning the dead into dwarfs, abd is using them as slaves in another dimension. When thinking about this film, the first word that comes to mind to describe it is "strange", and explaining it in a review is a difficult thing to do. At the beginning of the film, understandably, Jody doesn't believe him when Michael tells him of the things he is seeing, and honestly the things he does see are so out there, that if you were in Jody's shoes you probably wouldn't believe the poor kid either. Things like a tall hulking man with brute strength, 3 foot dwarfs wearing cloaked robes, and flying silver spheres equipped with drills, all consume this film. Each of them odd, having nothing in common, the last place you'd think to see them is in the same film, and sometimes even at the same time in the said film. The unorthodox plot is accompanied by that "70's feel" that one who watches film's from that decade have grown to recognize - but like some of the 70's flicks, PHANTASM is one of those that takes awhile to really take off and fly, and at times can be dull to sit through, In the middle of it all PHANTASM as a level of cheesy moments as well such as a scene in which the severed finger of the mysterious Tall Man, once kept in a box by Michael, suddenly turns into somewhat of a huge killer flying insect. It is almost pure hilarity as the 3 characters try and find it off, of course these cheesy effects are used sparingly due to the film's obviously low budget. However there are a few rewarding things left to find in PHANTASM, such as an awesome score by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, and a rather creepy performance by Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man, and although unexplained, you are not told of their purpose, but the flying Drill Balls, still remain the most memorable thing about this series of films to me. In this DVD release, Anchor Bay presents the film for the first time (for a Region 1 release in Anamorphic widescreen (16x3). Included are a bunch of extras such as Commentary with the Director, Don Coscarelli and the film's stars, Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm and Bill Thronbury, a "Making Of", TV spots and deleted scenes. Being honest PHANTASM is not exactly my favorite series, nor have I ever been fully intrigued by it's story, but there are some things about it that I find entertaining, but unfortunately they are in a sea full of things in which I didn't like. |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| GORE
METER 3/10 The gore is really light here. We get some stabbings, and a drill ball that drains the blood of a victim, not much happening in the gore department but the Drill Ball is something very memorable. |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| MUSICAL
SCORE 7/10 I loved the score used in PHANTASM, I believe the film's theme is almost as good as Carpenter's original HALLOWEEN theme. |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM In the beginning stages of the film, it seems to work plot-wise as we watch Mike uncover the mystery surrounding the mortuary. It is when the mystery is discovered that the film, gets tangled in the film's bizarre characters and begins to lose some stream and becomes dull at certain points. Not really my type of film, but I did find it to be decent. This DVD will be released April 10, 2007 |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| STILLS | ||||
|
