This is a movie with a pretty solid sense of spooky atmosphere in its first half. You're not really quite sure what's going on, but it's weird: a frighteningly tall mortician is stealing bodies, but we don't know why. The same mortician may or may not be some kind of shapeshifting ghoul who is deliberately luring men to their deaths (so they can steal the bodies, you see). And the closer our protagonists get to the truth, the more they are haunted by strange nightmares and even stranger cloaked figures, snarling and scurrying in the shadows.
But when our heroes finally heed the call to action... it gets silly. We trade the-fake-blood-is-ketchup for monsters where the fake blood is now mustard. We get killer bugs that look like dollar store Halloween party favors. Those cloaked figures have all the menace of an ankle-biting Jawa from Star Wars.
Is it on purpose? It kind of feels on purpose. The movie sort of revels in this absurdist vibe. It builds an almost dreamlike quality, which really gives Phantasm a uniquely strange tone. It's something you can both laugh at and kind of laugh with while also enjoying the creeps and the crawlies.
And it's got some pretty great music.
But when our heroes finally heed the call to action... it gets silly. We trade the-fake-blood-is-ketchup for monsters where the fake blood is now mustard. We get killer bugs that look like dollar store Halloween party favors. Those cloaked figures have all the menace of an ankle-biting Jawa from Star Wars.
Is it on purpose? It kind of feels on purpose. The movie sort of revels in this absurdist vibe. It builds an almost dreamlike quality, which really gives Phantasm a uniquely strange tone. It's something you can both laugh at and kind of laugh with while also enjoying the creeps and the crawlies.
And it's got some pretty great music.