THE EXPLOSIVE REVIEW

Starring: Angus Scrimm, A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester, Terrie Kalbus, Kenneth V. Jones, Susan Harper, Lynn Eastman, David Arntzen, Ralph Richmond, Bill Cone, Laura Mann, Mary Ellen Shaw, and Myrle Scotton.

Directed by: Don Coscarelli.

Story:
24 year old Jody Pearson and his 13 year old brother Mike Pearson are residing in a small suburban town where death happens very often, that includes both of their parents too. Jody and Mike, along with their ice cream vendor friend Reggie, begin to suspect The Tall Man as being responsible for the plague of deaths. Before you know it, The Tall Man’s minions begin haunting and pursuing Mike, forcing him to try and convince his older brother of what’s going on. Once he successfully does so, the three of them discover an odd white room with containers inside the mausoleum, there happens to be a gateway in this room that leads to another planet (or dimension perhaps?) which Mike momentarily enters and sees the dwarfs that have chased him throughout the whole film being used as slaves.

Characters:
*The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm): A supernatural undertaker who is capable of turning dead people into dwarf versions of zombies and orders them to do his work.
*Mike Pearson (A. Michael Baldwin): Jody’s younger 13 year old brother who is the main protagonist and pretty much is ahead of everyone else in terms of knowing what’s really going on.
*Jody Pearson (Bill Thornbury): A 24 year old musician who is raising his 13 year old brother Mike. Their parents recently passed away.
*Reggie (Reggie Bannister): An ice cream vendor who teams up with Mike and Jody in their suspicions of the supernatural mortician.

Overall:
Although “Phantasm” has long since become a cult classic and has many redeeming things about it, it comes off as possibly being one of the most boring films of 1979 (not to say I was alive in that year, but it certainly gives off that impression). The film is about an evil figure known as The Tall Man (Scrimm) who is a supernatural undertaker of sorts that turns the deceased into these ‘dwarf zombies’ whom he commands to do all of his dirty work. We come to learn that The Tall Man was formerly a mortician.

The film does engage in some visually stunning special effects - such as a silver sphere sequence which caused the film to initially be rated X by the MPAA because the scene involved a man urinating on the floor from a wound in his forehead before his corpse falls to the ground - and some rather creepy chase sequences involving The Tall Man and the main characters. Overall, the movie does have some interesting story concepts but the tone of it all is rather repressed and boring, especially the music. I know that the director was trying to pull us into the film’s world of a town that is plagued by death and the deceased, but accompanying it with repressive horror music isn’t going to enhance the film’s quality any further.

Rating: **1/2

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