Podcast: Phantasm
Dreamy and weird, Don Coscarelli's first horror movie hides an unexpected depth
Bring Me The Axe! Horror Podcast
Episode 87: Phantasm
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Bring Me the Axe! is a comedy podcast celebrating the best (and worst) horror from a time when the video store ruled the night. Every other week, brothers Bryan and Dave White (and the occasional guest) heed the call of nostalgia and evaluate the classic 70s and 80s horror movies they loved in their childhood to determine whether the movies are still relevant today or should be allowed to fade into obscurity.
This week we go back to 1979 for a look at Don Coscarelli’s dreamy, stream-of-consciousness horror movie that introduced the world to The Tall Man, Reggie The Ice Cream Man, and the mirror-plated Sentinel Spheres. It’s Phantasm! Is this a horror movie? Well, yeah. Of course it is. But is there more going on here than meets the eye? Also yes. Though the movie is a bit of a mess and an exercise in that moment when a struggling young filmmaker decides to take the easy to road to success through cheap thrills it also hides a deeper dimension about loss, grief, and a boy entering adolescence, a time when the world suddenly becomes simultaneously more exciting but also more dangerous.
In this wild adventure, young Mike and his brother Jody find themselves in the crosshairs of a sinister entity masquerading as a mortician at a nearby funeral home when they stumble upon his terrible secret: The Tall Man is not of this world and is stealing the dead to resurrect them as little dwarf slaves for reasons? Aided by their guitar-playin’ ice cream selling buddy, Reggie, they take the fight to the funeral home to stop what could be a full-blown invasion of Earth by an army of the dead, aided by their terrifying flying death machines, the Sentinel Spheres!
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