听 The eternal question of why characters in horror films often commit such blatant follies only gathers added weight with "Phantasm". Available on DVD, this tale of a young boy's (Michael Baldwin) foray into the Morningside Mortuary is as funny as it is scary.
13-year old Mike hides in the bushes at the funeral of a close friend of his brother. At the end of the ceremony Mike witnesses a creepy mortician known as 'The Tall Man' (Angus Scrimm) virtually lobbing the casket single-handedly into the back of a hearse. Despite the viewer wishing otherwise, Mike decides to break into the basement of the mortuary to investigate further. There he encounters the wrath of The Tall Man and his murderous flying silver spheres, which puncture people's heads and drain their blood.
Thankfully, Mike is able to make his escape but returns with his older brother Jody to investigate the deadly morgue. More fool them because once inside they are under attack from frightening hooded dwarves who turn out to be former townsfolk. They've been compacted into drums and turned into miniature zombies who are sent to The Tall Man's planet as slave labour.
That's not a plot spoiler. Indeed you may actually find that explanation helpful. As writer and director Don Coscarelli has a healthy disregard for plot development and is only too happy to leave major questions unanswered. Despite this attitude to film-making he still crafts some excellent sequences of tension and horror, often with a darkly humorous lining. Ideal for Halloween viewing or a dark night, there's plenty of creepy fun to be had here, not least from the fabulously demented Tall Man.
"Phantasm" is on 麻豆官网首页入口1 at 1.10am, the early hours of Saturday 17th February 2001.
