EDITOR’S NOTE: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Manwas first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 21, 1966 at 1 a.m. It also aired on October 30, 1971; October 7, 1972; September 15, 1973; June 29, 1974 and April 16, 1983 at the very late hour of 2 a.m.
Curt Siodmak (I Walked with a Zombie, Son of Dracula) made a joke to producer George Waggner that he needed a downpayment for a car and that they should make Frankenstein Wolfs the Meat Man. It was lunch. He was joking. Waggner called him to his office and said, “Go ahead, buy the car.” That’s how this movie, the sequel to The Wolf Man and The Ghost of Frankenstein got made.
Bela Lugosi plays Frankenstein’s Monster here, eight years after he turned down the role that made Boris Karloff famous. This follows up the Monster getting the brain of Ygor and speaking in his voice at the end of Ghost. In the original version of this film, the Monster would speak for the entire film — in a Hungarian accent — and audiences could not accept it. Also, the fact that the Monster was blind as a side effect of the transplant was negated and many of these scenes were cut.
Grave robbers break into the coffin of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) and remove the wolfsbane on his body, which turns him back into the werewolf that his father’s bullets put to sleep. He makes his way to Vasaria, the home of Dr. Frankenstein, who he hopes can cure him once and for all.
There’s also the plot of Dr. Mannering, Lionel Atwill’s Mayor and Baroness Elsa Frankenstein trying to destroy the Monster. As a kid, I booed these horrible humans and their attempts to make this movie boring by stopping these awesome creatures from causing chaos.
Lugosi turned sixty while making this movie and suffered from exhaustion, so he was often doubled for any of the strenuous parts of the film. This is also the last Universal Monster movie for Dwight Frye, who died the very same year.
Here’s something nice, at least. The German shepherd that played Bruno is dog Bruno, who he adopted after he played the wolf that attacked him in The Wolf Man.
This film was part of the Shock Theater package that started off the monster kid era. These 52 films are pretty much the foundations of pre-1948 horror. Trust me, I watched them all so many times that I can recite them when asked.
In today’s Marvel movie world, we just accept movies crossing over and universe building. These movies just made it happen. They’re so ingrained in our DNA that crossover movies — King Kong vs. Godzilla and Alien vs. Predator — pay tribute by using the music and scenes from this film.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Lust for a Vampire was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 5 1977 at 1 a.m. It also was on the show on December 30, 1978. It aired as To Love a Vampire.
After the success of The Vampire Lovers. Tudor Gates was hired to write the sequel, starting with a story he hadn’t finished for Mario Bava all about a girl school serial killer. Jimmy Sangster directed and didn’t like the fact that Hammer wanted a pop song “Strange Love” by Tracy. Also, British censors saw how many lesbian moments were in the first film and made sure even less would show up here.
In the deserted chapel at Castle Karnstein, Count (occultist, conjurer, DJ, sculptor, sheep farmer, writer, ballet dancer, flamenco guitarist and photographer Mike Raven) and Countess Karnstein being their daughter Carmilla (Yutte Stensgaard) back.
Richard LeStrange (Michael Johnson) has come to the area to write a book on vampires and this seems like the right place for it. He’s immediately seduced by Mircalla Herritzen, who is…Carmilla, subverting the lesbian mood of the first movie.
Lots of women lose their lives to the vampire and it all ends in fire, as all Hammer movies must. I like this movie, but I love the first and third movies in the trilogy. This would have been better, I feel, if Peter Cushing was able to be in it, as he was caring for his sick wife, and if Ingrid Pitt was the lead.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadismwas first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 24, 1974 at 11:30 p.m. It also aired on Saturday, January 24, 1976.
I can’t believe that this movie aired on regular television.
This has some great AKA titles, such as The Blood Demon, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, Castle of the Walking Dead and Crimson Demon in Rhode Island, as the word blood was banned from ads. Hemisphere Pictures released it on a double bill with The Mad Doctor of Blood Island, which was called The Mad Doctor of Crimson Island in bloodless areas.
Drected by Harald Reinl (The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle, The Return of Doctor Mabuse), it’s based on The Pit and the Pendulum, kind of. It’s also about Count Regula (Christopher Lee), who is charged with the murder of twelve women and then drawn and quartered. And beheaded. And he gets better.
Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor, Assignment Terror) and her lawyer Roger Mont Elise (former Tarzan Lex Barker) have been invited to the Blood Castle. She plans on getting her inheritance and he wants to learn who his parents were. They also meet a profane monk named Fabian (Vladimir Medar) and hear the story of Count Regula, who demanded revenge on his enemies before he died.
The Baroness and her maid Babette (Christiane Rücker, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks) are abducted by hooded men while riding through the woods filled with human body parts hanging from trees, a horrific scene that is made even more frightening by its low budget high concept lunacy.
Once everyone is trapped in the castle, the Count’s servant Anatol (Carl Lange, Creature With the Blue Hand) brings Regula back with his face destroyed. Behind a mask, he claims that he will take his last victim, the Baroness, and become alive. Everything goes nuts, as the Baroness not only is placed into a snake-filled hole painted with “The Last Judgement” from “The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, she’s also menaced by scorpions, spiders, bugs and vultures. It gets amazing because every time you think that they can’t top the last animal, another jumps on her. Roger escapes from the pendulum, saves Babette from an iron maiden water trap and uses the iron cross of the Baroness to destroy the bad guys.
This movie is absolutely incredible. Like, I get excited just thinking about it.
October 17: A Horror Film That Takes Place During a Camping Trip
Julie McConnell (Jessica Morris), Jason Hathaway (Justin Ross Martin), Dean (Michael Stone), Whitney Chambers (Tracy Pacheco), Brad Thomson (David Smigelski) and Tobe (Patrick Cavanaugh) are working this summer at Camp Placid Pines for Patrick (Peter Guillemette), despite killings by Trevor Moorehouse in the past and a warning a strange man — as is always the way — named Henry (Bobby Stuart).
A game of Bloody Murder ends with Jason dressing as Trevor Moorehouse and hurting Brad, but Dean is the one he really destroys when his best friend discovers that he’s getting with his ex Whitney. Soon, everyone is either getting killed by the masked killer or they’re being accused of his crimes.
In case you wondered, does a movie that has a hockey masked killer at a camp have anything new to say about the slasher film, the answer is in no way possible. Bloody Murder Directed by Ralph E. Portillo, who also made Malibu Summer, this film looks ugly, has nothing to add or appear to have learned anything from any of the films made before it and is pretty much a Crystal Lake movie except that there’s no way they were getting the license. There’s a sequel and I know that I’ll watch it because I’m odd like that.
17. BORED OF EDUCATION: Stegman says school ain’t just for makin’ money, it’s also a great place for a story to unfold.
Jennifer Baylor (Lisa Pelikan, Ghoulies) takes care of her father Luke (Jeff Corey), a man obsessed with religion and who can’t cook for himself. When she was seven, she accidentally killed a preacher’s son with the snakes that she can mentally control and has refused to be near them ever again, even if her father begs her again and again to help at his pet store.
Somehow, she goes to Green View School. Everyone else is rich and protected by Mrs. Calley (Nina Foch). As for Jennifer, her only friends are lunchlady Martha (Lillian Randolph) and a teacher by the name of Jeff Reed (Burt Convy) who sees just how horrible of a school this is. Jennifer is targeted by the richest of the rich kids, Sandra Tremayne (Amy Johnston). This includes taking her clothes when she’s naked in the shower and being photographed unclothed and the only other girl who stands up for her, Jane (Louise Hoven), being assaulted by Sandra’s man Dayton (Ray Underwood).
The part where Sandra deserves death — well, she did deserve something, but this is as far as it gets, let me tell you — is when she buys Jannifer’s favorite pet store cat, kills it and leaves it in her locker. Then she kidnaps Jennifer and throws her in a car, then leaves her tied up as cars circle her. At that point, every snake in the city comes to Jennifer’s aid, killing everyone left and right in a scene of cathartic snake revenge right out of a Category III movie. At the end, Mrs. Calley is bit by a snake from her desk and Jennifer and Jane laugh.
Director Brice Mask was a Disney background artist and was produced Ruby. He wasn’t tired of ripping off Carrie, so we got Jennifer. This was written by the same writer, Steve Kranz, who was joined in the scripting by Kay Cousins Johnson, who was an actress before starting as a writer.
Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.
Today’s theme: Creepy twins
Daisy and Violet Hilton were born joined at the hips and buttocks, sharing the same blood circulation but no major organs. Their mother was a barmaid and when the owner of her bar, Mary Hilton, met them, she bought them outright. She controlled them with physical abuse and ran their careers until she died and their contracts were given to Mary’s daughter Edith Meyers and her husband Meyer, a former balloon salesman. In their San Antonio mansion, they beat the sisters into learning how to play jazz.
In the early 30s, they legally emancipated themselves with the help of Harry Houdini and went into vaudeville and then burlesque, even doing some limited exotic dancing that audiences did not react well about. Violet dated musician Maurice Lambert and despite applying in 21 states for a marriage license, no one would marry them. Around this time, they also appeared in the movie Freaks.
A few years later, Violet married actor James Moore — who was gay — as a publicity stunt. Daisy was also pregnant and gave her child up for adoption. She was also married to a dancer named Buddy Sawyer — also gay — for ten days.
This movie was made in 1952 — directed by Harry L. Fraser — and told the story of their lives. Well, except for the fact that Violet never shot a man that was in love with Daisy. It’s kind of a not true story, because they use the name Dorothy and Vivian Hamilton.
Their manager sets them up with a gun shooting expert named Andre Pariseau (Mario Laval) who is supposed to date Dorothy, who falls in love with him. The problem comes in when Andre still has a lover, Renee (Patricia Wright).
Yet because their marriage would be bigamy, they can’t get married until they meet a blind clergyman. Andre tells her on their wedding night that he can’t live this kind of life, but Vivian knows that he’s going back to the other way, so she shoots him dead. A judge has to decide what to do, because if he condemns Vivian to death, he’ll kill an innocent woman. The movie then asks you, the viewer, what you would decide.
The Hiltons had a hot dog stand — The Hilton Sisters Snack Bar — and their last public appearance was in 1961 at a drive-in double feature of Freaks and Chained for Life in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their tour manager had taken their money and left, stranding them. They applied to work at a Park’n’Shop grocery store and only asked for one salary. The owner, Charles Reid, was a religious man and hired them both and built a special desk for them so that customers couldn’t tell they were conjoined twins. The shop owner’s church also provided them with a small home and they devoted themselves to work and that church for the rest of the decade.
In early 1969, Daisy caught a horrible case of the flu and died. Four days later, Violet died as well. She never called for help, realizing that she couldn’t survive without her sister.
At their funeral, Reverend Jon Sills said, “Daisy and Violet Hilton were in show business for all but the last half dozen years of their life. In the end, though, they were cast aside by the glittery and glamorous world they had been part of for so long. In the end, it was only ordinary people who showed they cared about them.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Astounding She-Monster was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 7, 1964 at 1 a.m. and December 3, 1966.
Released as part of a double feature with Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, American-International Pictures’ The Astonishing She-Monster is all about what happens when a gang kidnaps a rich heiress and just happens to run into an alien woman who emerges from a meteorite. You know, everyday stuff.
Nat Burdell (Kenne Duncan, the “Meanest Man In the Movies”), Esther Malone (Jeanne Tatum, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow) and Brad Conley (Ewing Miles Brown, who produced Blood From Dracula’s Castle) kidnap wealthy society girl Margaret Chaffee (Marilyn Harvey, who appears as Dr. Sapirstein’s receptionist in Rosemary’s Baby) and hide out to wait for the ransom to come rolling in.
Meanwhile, a geologist named Dick Cutler (Robert Clarke, The Hideous Sun Demon) watches a meteor land in the forest. He misses the fact that a glowing blonde in a skintight leotard — that ripped during filming — which is why she backs out of every room instead of turning around — has emerged and that she can kill with just a touch.
So, in an amazing coincidence, the gangsters end up in Cutler’s cabin. One of them chases after the alien woman, who quickly dispatches him with radiation before taking out the other gangsters one by one.
Only Cutler and Chafee remain, but he’s one of those 1950s scientists that can come up with a solution no matter what. He someone deduces that the alien’s body is made up of radium and platinum, which he uses to come up with the perfect acid solution that instantly disintegrates her.
The jokes on him, as she was holding an invitation from the Master of the Council of Planets of the Galaxy for Earth to join the Council. Only now do they realize that she only killed in self-defense and their actions may have doomed our world.
Ronnie Ashcroft directed this, but he had help. Yes, he brought along Edward D. Wood, Jr. who wanted to title this movie Naked Invader. While it was originally planned as a $50,000 production with a seven-day shooting schedule, the final product only cost $18,000 to make and was sold to AIP for $60,000. Most of the actors were paid $500 a week and several actually made decent residuals as it played for at least four years in theaters and drive-ins. So it’s not a great movie, but it is a happy story, right?
This movie promises you an alien femme fatale, but really only delivers a mute alien in high heels and a skintight outfit killing men. Actually, I’m all for that, when you put it that way.
Thanks to Andrew Chamen for catching that I had the title wrong.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Frankenstein 1970was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 5, 1963 at 3:00 p.m. It also aired on Sunday, July 12, 1964 and Saturday, May 4, 1968.
Howard W. Koch produced the Academy Awards show on eight occasions. He also made this movie, Jungle Heat and The Girl in Black Stockings with Mamie Van Doren. And along with Telly Savalas, he owned a horse named Telly’s Pop that won some big races.
Things have come full circle, I guess, for Boris Karloff as now instead of playing Frankenstein’s Monster, he’s Baron Victor von Frankenstein. After being abused by the Nazis for not aiding them during World War II. Now he’s back to being a scientist but in need of money, he allows a crew to make a horror movie at his family’s castle.
I have no idea how much money he’s getting paid, because it’s enough to buy an atomic reactor and make a clone of himself that starts killing members of the film, his butler and then absorbs himself.
Mike Lane, who plays the monster, would also play the role in The Monkees and on the TV series Monster Squad.
With a set borrowed from Too Much, Too Soon — the autobiography of Diana Barrymore that has Vampira in it — you can spot the Maltese Falcon as a decoration.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Black Sunday was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 16, 1965 at 1:20 p.m. It also was on the show on December 2, 1967; August 30, 1969; June 20, 1970 and July 10, 1971.
This was Bava’s directorial debut — although he had already directed several scenes without credit in other films. By 1960’s standards, this is a pretty gory film, leading to it being banned in the UK and chopped up by its US distributor American International Pictures.
In the 1600’s, the witch Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele, creating her legacy as the horror female supreme) and her lover Javuto are put to death by her brother. Before she is burned at the stake and has a metal mask hammered to her face, she curses their entire family.
Several centuries later, Dr. Thomas Kruvajan and his assistant, Dr. Andre Gorobec (John Richardson, Frankenstein ’80) ae traveling to a medical conference when their carriage breaks down. Of course, they’re in a horror movie, so they wander into an ancient crypt and release Asa from her death mask and getting blood all over her face.
That’s when they meet her descendent Katia (also Steele), whose family lives in the haunted castle that of the Vajdas. Gorobec instantly falls for her and really, can you blame him?
All hell literally breaks loose, with Asa and Javuto coming back from the dead, possessing Dr. Kruvajan and concocting a plan to make Asa immortal by stealing Katia’s youth. Can good triumph against evil? Can you kill a vampire by stabbing wood into its eye socket? Which one is hotter, good or evil Barbara Steele?
A note from reader Edgar Soberon Torchia: “The blood from Dr. Kruvajan’s hand does not get all over Asa’s face. While fighting a bat he breaks the glass covering her face in the tomb. The blood in a piece of glass elegantly falls drop by drop into the empty cavity of Asa’s right eye.”
Thanks for setting us straight!
A lover of Russian fantasy and horror, Bava intended this film to be an adaption of Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 horror story “Viy.” However, the resulting script owes more to Universal Studios-style gothic horror. AIP cut or shortened the branding scene, blood spraying from the mask after it was hammered into Asa’s face, the eyeball impaling and the flesh burning off Vajda’s head in the fireplace. And in the Italian version, Asa and Javutich are brother and sister in an incestuous relationship.
Black Sunday has left quite an impression on fans and filmmakers alike. Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula contains several shot-for-shot homages, as does Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. And Richard Donner based the cemetery scene in The Omen on the moment when Barbara Steele appears with her hounds.
For a director who is so well known for his work in color, Bava has just as much skill in black and white. The sets were actually created in monochrome, with no color, to add to the dark mood.
My favorite scene in the film is when Bava creates a split screen effect where Steele’s two roles come together, as Asa intones, “You did not know that you were born for this moment. You did not know that your life had been consecrated to me by Satan. But you sensed it, didn’t you? You sensed it… That’s why my portrait was such a temptation to you, while frightened you. You felt like your life and your body were mine. You felt like me because you were destined to become me… a useless body without life.”
On the latest episode of The Cannon Canon, Geoff didn’t just ask for someone to explain what Phantasm is all about. He specifically gave me an assignment to do this.
This feels like something I’ve been preparing for my entire life.
As I said back when I covered every single Phantasm movie, I probably watched Phantasm II every single day once it came out on VHS. Imagine my surprise when the first movie doesn’t have anything from the second one, instead being one long nightmare without cool preparing for battle scenes and quad shotguns.
Now, I can draw on my knowledge and my untold watches of these films to do some good for the world. It all pays off, all that time in my room when other teenage boys were fumbling around in the back of cars with girls.
I mean, it pays off. I think it does.
Here’s what I think this series about in question and answer format.
What is Phantasm about?
Each of the movies in the series is very much a different film so this is a difficult question to answer.
But for a very basic overview…
After the death of their friend Tommy, Jody and his brother Michael discover that their small town’s mortician is actually an otherworldly villain known as the Tall Man. They attempt to stop his harvesting of dead bodies with the help of their best friend, Reggie.
Sure, that makes sense. But as you probably already know, this is a really confusing series.
What is the first Phantasm really about?
In Cameron Gorman’s Collider article Phantasm Makes No Sense – and That’s Why It’s Great, there’s an interesting theory: It’s a movie about grief. Jody and Michael have lost their parents, so the only way that the teenage Michael can deal with their loss — and the idea that his brother will soon be leaving town — is by inventing his own villain, the Tall Man, whose unexplained nature is less frightening than the idea that death can happen at any time.
By the end, however, the darkness goes even more dim as it turns out that Jody has been dead all along and the events of the movie have all been Micheal trying to use horror to make sense of why he’s lost his entire family and is now alone.
Or maybe not.
Seriously, throughout, I feel like there are so many ways to see these movies that the explanation I offer is just mine. You’re going to see your own film your own way.
Because if it’s not a dream, then explain why the Tall Man reappears at the end.
Mike tells Reggie that he’s worried the Tall Man will come back. The ice-cream-selling guitarist replies, “Hey, you had a dream. Just a nightmare. Mike, that Tall Man of yours did not take Jody away.” And then the Tall Man really is real.
Each movie seemingly ends like an old movie serial. We see the heroes surely die, the bad guy is still alive and that’s it. And then, there’s a sequel. It may take a decade. But there’s always another story. If you go with the dream logic theory, that covers you.
Who is the Tall Man? What’s he all about?
According to the Phantasm wiki, the Tall Man is either:
Jebediah Morningside, who started as a mild-mannered 19th-century mortician. After years of burying dead people, he became fascinated by the connection between our world and the world of the dead. He made a machine that allowed him to travel through time and space. After his first journey, he came back changed forever and became the Tall Man.
The Red Planet, a living planet twenty times bigger than our sun that exists out and above time, space, reality, gravity and narrative lines. He takes on a human form to go to Earth to kidnap people for the purpose of transforming them into monsters.
His weaknesses are cold and tuning forks. The reason for the latter being harmful is because he travels to our world via the Dimensional Fork. It consists of two short chrome poles standing right next to one another that are humming at all times. The sound of another tuning fork disrupts him. That said, when the Tall Man dies, he is instantly replaced by another one. He also has a disease inside him which can kill humans on contact.
So who is the Lady In Lavender?
Tommy, whose death starts this whole thing in motion, was killed by a gorgeous blonde known as the Lady In Lavender. Well, she’s the Tall Man. Or some aspect of him. Yes, the same Angus Scrimm can transform into the much more pleasing form of actress Kathy Lester. She usually seduces men, then stabs them. In the first movie, she’s knocked out by a tuning fork, which is also the weakness of anyone from the Tall Man’s adopted home dimension.
In Phantasm V: Ravager, Reggie goes back in time to the 19th century and meets the Lady In Lavender, who is co-joined to Jebediah Morningside, the dude who will become the Tall Man. He later finds her inside a mausoleum and her face becomes demonic when he doesn’t sleep with her. He then shoots her with a shotgun.
So maybe she’s part of the Tall Man. Or maybe not.
When people are fucking the Lady In Lavender, they’re fucking the Tall Man. Right?
Let’s not kink shame. But yeah. Totally.
What’s Reggie’s deal?
Don Coscarelli wrote that Reggie is “every guy’s guy, every man’s friend, the guy that would throw himself on the flames to the door of hell to save a friend.”
He’s an ice cream seller who will just drop in to write a song.
I’ve always through that Reggie sells more than just ice cream, which is how he can so easily roll with the wildness of these movies. He’s also one of those weed friends that will hang out just to see what happens and also has strange skills that seemingly do nothing to help anyone, like being able to make four-barrelled sawed-off shotguns. Where does one gain those skills? Vo-Tech?
In the first movie, Reggie dies when he finally gets to get laid. That Lady In Lavender again. But then he’s alive and takes Mike on a road trip, because after all this, why not? The same thing happens in the second movie, because Alchemy ends up being another of the women that the Tall Man uses to attack men. Somewhere in here, Reggie got married and had a child, but the Tall Man’s Lurkers blew them up real good. In the third movie, Reggie goes it alone for a long time before reuniting with Mike, just in time to get trapped by one of the Sentinels, the steel balls. The fourth movie has the Tall Man playing a final game with Reggie as they chase each other for the entire movie. And in the fifth film, there are two Reggies. One is dying in a nursing home and the other is in a post-apocalyptic future where the Tall Man has won.
As they say on The Cannon Canon, we’ll get into that.
Tell me about Jody.
Jody and Reggie had a band with Tommy. They learn that the Tall Man has turned their dead friend into a Lurker, one of his smashed-down Jawa-like servants. By the end of the first movie, it comes out that Jody has been dead all along and Reggie promises to be Mike’s brother.
After being dead in the second movie, Jody returns as a damaged silver ball in the third movie. He can speak to Reggie and tells him “Seeing is easy. Understanding takes a little more time.” He promises to return when he can. In the fourth movie, he reveals that he died in the car wreck after being stabbed by his brother. And in the fifth, Jody is said to be dead, but shows up for Reggie’s funeral while he has transformed the Hemicuda into a Battlecuda and rescues Mike and Reggie, happy that they are a threesome again.
And Mike?
Mike survives the end of the first movie and ends up being a second actor for the sequel, James Le Gros, instead of A. Michael Baldwin, who is in the other films. He’s destined to find Liz, a girl who dreams of him, but she dies at the start of the third movie. By the end of that movie, the Tall Man’s miniature maniacs have eaten Liz and Mike has yellow blood like the Tall Man, as well as a sphere inside his head.
According to the Phantasmwiki, Mike discovers he has powers such as telekinesis and the ability to conjure dimensional forks. He attempts to commit suicide but then he learns that in 1979, he and his brother were going to hang the Tall Man and Mike saved him.
When Mike goes back in time in the fourth movie, he inspires Jebediah Morningside to create his machine that turns him into the Tall Man, who early said that his life is the main dimension of the Tall Man and that they are connected forever. He’s able to kill the Tall Man with a bomb but another one soon arrives and removes the sphere, killing Mike.
In the last movie, Mike wheels Reggie around the nursing home yet can remember being in the post-apocalyptic world.
What are the silver balls?
The Sentinels are the weapons that the Tall Man uses to suck out brains. They come from a dream that Don Coscarelli had. There are several varieties:
Silver ball: Made from the brains of dead human beings — which are inside the ball, the bodies are turned into the mindless crushed Lurkers — these are the guardians of the Tall Man and also keys that he uses to open doorways.
Gold ball: The two gold balls in the movies have had the Tall Man and Mike’s brains in them. They have much better defenses and are much smarter.
Black ball: When Jody’s brain is put inside one of the Sentinels, it becomes black, which is a symbol that he is independent.
Red ball: A bomb.
Giant ball: Used in the last movie to blow up cities.
Do any of these movies actually work together?
During the third movie, Don Coscarelli said that he had run out of ideas after finishing the script and had no clue which direction the story would take in case there was a fourth edition. He jokingly added that if a Phantasm IV was ever filmed, it would actually be just to make money out of it.
There are two more movies. Fill in your own blank.
Break down your theories — in short a way as possible as this is already eighteen hundred words — on each movie.
Phantasm: A low budget film that gets magic right the first time. Nothing has to make sense — it’s very Italian in that way — and you can either watch it as a horror movie with a straight-ahead story fo trying to stop an evil undertaker or a movie that tries to make sense of death. What is strange about it is how many scenes just feel thrown in — the bug that comes flying around, the magic trick finger with yellow blood, the Dune fortune teller and her granddaughter who never show up again, the song that everyone chills out and jams on, even the ending — but it’s the rough edges that make it so great.
Phantasm II: Universal wanted a new franchise that had the things they saw that worked. Not the dreamy artiness, but the gory balls and the improvised weapons. That’s what they got. And in 1988, well, this was what I wanted so badly. It’s got so many wild and bloody moments, metal anti-religious moments and the Tall Man saying, “You think that when you die you go to Heaven… you come to us!”
I was beyond obsessed with this movie.
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead: Sadly, this feels like running in circles compared to the first two movies. Liz getting killed ruins a lot of the second movie, ala Hicks and Newt being dead when Alien 3 kicks in. It’s not a bad movie, but there’s not much here that you need to see again. I do like Rocky, who is the only female character that doesn’t become evil.
Phantasm IV: Oblivion: The third film was not well thought of, so Coscarelli went back to the low budget weird horror of the original. There was also a lot of lost footage that was found, so that all added up to make the fourth movie.
I wish we had gotten the Roger Avery-written Phantasm’s End AKA Phantasm 1999 A.D, which has this awesome summary: “The year is 2012 and there are only three U.S. states left. Between New York and California is the wasteland known as the Plague Zone. Unfortunately, the evil Tall Man controls that area. Since many people are dead, the Tall Man is able to make thousands of dwarf slaves for his planet daily in the Mormon Mausoleum. Besides him, the other residents are “baggers,” human-like creatures that are infected by the Tall Man’s blood, the dwarves, and, of course, the silver spheres, all trying to break out of the barrier that contains them and into the real world. A group of hi-tech troops are sent in to destroy the red dimension where the Tall Man gets his power. Reggie follows so he can find Mike after a series of nightmares he had. Will they be able to finally destroy the Tall Man for good?”
Bruce Campbell would have been in that.
The scenes with Jennifer’s breasts being silver balls and Mike ends up in a deserted future Los Angeles where Jody tells him it’s not safe to be out too long due to a disease come from the Avery script.
This movie feels like it’s trying to find an explanation by confusion. It’s all one unending over and over again reality where the Tall Man causes Mike to spend his life trying to stop him and he ends up creating him.
Phantasm V: Ravager: I think that there was such a demand for a final film, it just had to be made. According to the book Phantasm Exhumed, it was originally a spin-off web series that was titled Reggie’s Tales. This footage was eventually expanded with new footage that featured appearances by main cast members and became the fifth movie.
When I watched this again, it felt like it had too many echoes of Bubba Ho-Tep. It makes me question if we want to see our heroes become old and infirm, as I had to watch it happen to my father and spent years trying to talk to someone who was no longer there.
Anyways, I feel like this is some ancient parable.
Here’s how it works.
Phantasm is a kid trying to make sense of death while over the course of the other movies trying to do everything it can to stop death from claiming him, his family and friends.
By Phantasm V: Ravager, it’s now an old man, looking back on life and accepting the inevitability of death.
Are the movies connected at all?
Other than the fact that the same characters are in all of them, it feels like the main connection is using the same footage. They are all in their own subgenre:
Phantasm: Surreal dream logic art horror
Phantasm II: Action horror
Phantasm III: Lord of theDead: Comedy horror with some Raimi
Phantasm IV: Oblivion: Low budget return to the surreal dream logic horror but made by someone who isn’t in the same place they were 20 years ago.
Phantasm V: Ravager: Fan film with a budget.
Have the Phantasm characters shown up anywhere else?
Angus Scrimm did this Adult Swim ad.
Farewell to the Alamo Drafthouse: In this short video, footage between the Tall Man and Mike was teased years before the last movie. It may have actually been footage from the Steven Romano scripted Phantasm Forever that would have had Mike waking from seemingly being in a coma for years with Dr. Morningside at his side. Rocky was to return and Ashley Laurence from Hellraiserfame would have appeared. But how about this: A. Michael Baldwin’s Mike and James LeGros’ Mike would have faced off.
Mike Tyson Mysteries: The episode “Mystery On Wall Street” has one of Mike’s drivers get abducted by Phantasm (Jeff Bergman), who is the Tall Man.
What movies reference or are influenced by Phantasm?
Arrebato has a movie theater advertising this movie.
Troll 2: The dream feel and mirror smashing at the end feel way too close to be not an influence. Also Claudio Fragasso is not above just taking things from movies and I say that with peace and love.
In the Mouth of Madness: The tagline for Sutter Cane’s book The Hobb’s End Horror is “If this book doesn’t scare you to death, you are already dead. ” Phantasm‘s tagline was “If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead!”
Spider-Man 2: Doc Ock’s pincers in one scene are shot to look like one of the Sentinels. Maybe that’s payback for Sam Raimi’s ashes showing up in Phantasm II.
In the Strangest Places: A character is named Phanni and the fortune teller scene is remade.
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens: The silver Captain Phasma is named for Phantasm.
Satan’s Slave: This Indonesian movie is a loose remake.
Supernatural: The Winchester brothers driving in a Chevy Impala chasing demons feels a little bit indebted.
Charmed: In the episode “Wrestling With Demons,” Mr. Kellman (Ron Perlman) shows up to use the Sentinels and Buff Bagwell, Booker T and Scott Steiner wrestle in Hell.
What songs sample the Phantasm theme or parts of the movie?
The line “The funeral is about to begin” is in Marduk’s “Hearse,” “Mortician” by Mortician, “7th Angel” and “Funeral Procession” by the Electric Hellfire Club, Splatterhouse’s “Maggot Sermon” and Cold War’s “Scars Left As Evidence.”
“Stomp the shit out of the Tall Man” is in “Guilty of Being Tight” by Municipal Waste
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