I recently purchased the Anchor Bay 'Phantasm' boxset for 30 quid, and have just sat through the four films, commentaries and all.
Me and the original 'Phantasm' go way back. Like a lot of people posting here, I saw it as a kid, and images from it have stayed with me ever since.
Viewing it now (and I have seen it numerous times throughout the intervening years, but not for a while), I'm struck by the extraordinary eccentricity of the film. It plays like a melancholy children's film interrupted by moments of goofy silliness and grisly surrealism worthy of Bunuel. It's extremely well made with excellent photography and editing (all done by writer/director Coscarelli), and a beautifully textured musical/sound effects track. Commentators here have complained about poor acting and shoddy special effects, but I can't agree. I find the performances to be effectively low-key, especially Michael Baldwin as the child protagonist, who is pretty much perfect. The visual ideas are so inventive and odd that the budgetary limitations imposed on their execution have minimal detraction.
The print of 'Phantasm' presented here is superb, and matted at 1:85:1 (16:9). The sound is also very impressive, with 2.0 stereo and 5.1 mixes. There are some great extras, most notably a 100 minute 'making of' documentary, called 'Phantasmagoria', which tells you pretty much everything you could wish to know about the film and it's sequels. At one point there is even a shot of the invoice presented to the producers by the manufacturer of the silver sphere!
The documentary also reveals that a rough cut of the film ran for nearly three hours. 'Phantasm' has always looked like a film that had pieces missing, which only adds to it's mystery. A lot of the footage that was removed involved character detail and back story, and samples can be found in both the 'deleted scenes' section of the disc, and as interpolations during 'Oblivion', the third sequel. I enjoyed this stuff immensely, and whilst it's removal was correct, I would very much like to see Coscarelli's original cut.
The 'hanging tree' sequence, which involves a suspended tall man whispering exhortations to Mike to cut him down, is particularly brilliant. It's wonderfully atmospheric, and feels like something from a Grimm's fairy tale. It can be seen in 'Oblivion'. In fact, I would recommend the fourth film purely on the basis of the 1979 footage. It is cleverly used, with the final shot of Mike and Reggie in the ice cream truck being extremely effective.
The original 'Phantasm' works because of it's almost total ambiguity. For me, it's best read the most obvious way - as the dream within a dream of a child attempting to comprehend the enormity of death. Sure, there are moments that don't work, but there are also sequences of great power. Mike's initial night-time exploration of the mortuary is shot and edited with pristine elegance.
Whilst I enjoy the three sequels to varying degrees, I find them to be basically inessential. Visual tropes and action sequences are repeated ad nauseam throughout (flipped and exploding cars appear to be a recurrent obsession), and the slapstick gore style of the 'Evil Dead' films seems (unfortunately) to have been a major influence. There is, though, an engaging dopeyness to their approach if you enter into the spirit of the proceedings, and Coscarelli always knows how to frame and cut his action.
Me and the original 'Phantasm' go way back. Like a lot of people posting here, I saw it as a kid, and images from it have stayed with me ever since.
Viewing it now (and I have seen it numerous times throughout the intervening years, but not for a while), I'm struck by the extraordinary eccentricity of the film. It plays like a melancholy children's film interrupted by moments of goofy silliness and grisly surrealism worthy of Bunuel. It's extremely well made with excellent photography and editing (all done by writer/director Coscarelli), and a beautifully textured musical/sound effects track. Commentators here have complained about poor acting and shoddy special effects, but I can't agree. I find the performances to be effectively low-key, especially Michael Baldwin as the child protagonist, who is pretty much perfect. The visual ideas are so inventive and odd that the budgetary limitations imposed on their execution have minimal detraction.
The print of 'Phantasm' presented here is superb, and matted at 1:85:1 (16:9). The sound is also very impressive, with 2.0 stereo and 5.1 mixes. There are some great extras, most notably a 100 minute 'making of' documentary, called 'Phantasmagoria', which tells you pretty much everything you could wish to know about the film and it's sequels. At one point there is even a shot of the invoice presented to the producers by the manufacturer of the silver sphere!
The documentary also reveals that a rough cut of the film ran for nearly three hours. 'Phantasm' has always looked like a film that had pieces missing, which only adds to it's mystery. A lot of the footage that was removed involved character detail and back story, and samples can be found in both the 'deleted scenes' section of the disc, and as interpolations during 'Oblivion', the third sequel. I enjoyed this stuff immensely, and whilst it's removal was correct, I would very much like to see Coscarelli's original cut.
The 'hanging tree' sequence, which involves a suspended tall man whispering exhortations to Mike to cut him down, is particularly brilliant. It's wonderfully atmospheric, and feels like something from a Grimm's fairy tale. It can be seen in 'Oblivion'. In fact, I would recommend the fourth film purely on the basis of the 1979 footage. It is cleverly used, with the final shot of Mike and Reggie in the ice cream truck being extremely effective.
The original 'Phantasm' works because of it's almost total ambiguity. For me, it's best read the most obvious way - as the dream within a dream of a child attempting to comprehend the enormity of death. Sure, there are moments that don't work, but there are also sequences of great power. Mike's initial night-time exploration of the mortuary is shot and edited with pristine elegance.
Whilst I enjoy the three sequels to varying degrees, I find them to be basically inessential. Visual tropes and action sequences are repeated ad nauseam throughout (flipped and exploding cars appear to be a recurrent obsession), and the slapstick gore style of the 'Evil Dead' films seems (unfortunately) to have been a major influence. There is, though, an engaging dopeyness to their approach if you enter into the spirit of the proceedings, and Coscarelli always knows how to frame and cut his action.