Movie of the Week: Phantasm

 
"...the happy ending is The Tall Man prevails! He's our hero. It's a weird thing. It'd be sad if The Tall Man lost."~ Don Coscarelli

A young man named Jody attends the funeral of his friend, the victim of a bizarre murder. Jody's younger brother, Mike, watches the funeral from a hillside through high-powered binoculars. After the guests have departed, Mike watches a funeral attendant put the unburied casket into a waiting hearse. Looking to expose the strange ongoings at the mortuary, Mike breaks in at night. There he discovers spectral creatures in habiting the embalming cellar. He also finds a silver sphere with razor-sharp protruding daggers that flies through the air and drains the blood from its victim's heads. Mike tells Jody what he found, and they join forces to discover the truth about Morningside Mortuary.

Here's the trailer:



Taglines:
If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead!
Beware the ball, beware the tall man, beware the never dead.
Where the dead are no longer that way...

Fun Trivia:
The mansion used for the exterior shots of the mausoleum was also seen in the James Bond Film A View to a Kill (1985).

Several references to Frank Herbert's Dune, including a bar named "Dune" and a scene where Mike is forced to insert his hand into a black box that inflicts pain as part of a test.

The "ball" scenes were simple special effects. The sphere was being guided around a   corner by a fishing line. The sphere was thrown from behind the camera by a baseball pitcher and then the shot was printed in reverse. The ball attaching itself to the man's head was filmed by sticking it on his head, then pulling it off, and printing the shot in reverse.

The impressive, stone-looking interior of the mausoleum was actually constructed of plywood and marble colored plastic contact paper.


Title was changed to "The Never Dead" for Australian audiences as not to confuse it with the popular Aussie sex comedy Fantasm(1976).

Don Coscarelli rented all of the filming equipment used to make this movie, always on Fridays so he could use it all weekend and return it on Mondays, all the while only actually having to pay one days rental on the equipment.

Fun Quotes:
Jody: Now, remember: you don't aim a gun at a man unless you intend to shoot him. And, you don't shoot a man unless you intend to kill him. No warning shots. Hey, you listening to me? No warning shots. Warning shots are bullshit. You shoot to kill, or you don't shoot at all.

The Tall Man: You play a good game boy, but the game is finished, now you die.

Reggie:The ice cream is gonna be flyin' fast and furious.

The Tall Man:[shouts] Boooy!

Visit the official Phantasm website here.
Visit Reggie Bannister's official website here.

One of the scarriest horror movies I've ever seen, great movie! ~Becca

A fun paradoy of Phantasm called Bratz-tasm