The story begins with Jody and friends mourning the death of their friend Tommy (whose death scene we also see). Jody's little brother, Mike, has been banned from the funeral, since he fell apart at the last funeral they took him to- his parents'. (Seriously, you'd think they'd be a bit more understanding.) Mike follows Jody everywhere and we find out that he's totally paranoid about his older bro leaving him to pursue his musical career. This later becomes unimportant. Anyway, I guess Mike likes to hang out at the mausoleum/cemetery because he witnesses the undertaker stealing coffins before they're put in the ground.
OH and by the way, the funeral home is completely marble and granite with a lot of pillars and busts of ancient Greeks. It makes a pretty fantastic juxtaposition with all the blood. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.
So Mike continues to follow Jody as well as creep around the cemetery. He sees the undertaker around town. Waaaay too much creepy rock music is played. The same track. Over and over. It reminded me of how often "Shake Your Tail Feather" was used in Bad Boys II. I guess it was to suggest something eery or creepy or mildly scary was coming up... but usually the acting failed to make anything seem eery or creepy.
(SPOILERS START HERE) Anyways, we find out that the undertaker, or "The Tall Man," is turning the dead into zombie dwarves to send to his home dimension. They use them as slaves there. (It makes total sense! Because of the gravity! And the heat!) The scene in which they find all this out is one of two cool scenes of the movie. Mike, Jody, and their ponytailed ice cream man/friend Reggie enter a completely white room with blue barrels stacked to the ceiling and two chrome poles about waist high. They discover the zombie dwarves in the barrels and Mike falls into another dimension through the two poles. This other dimension setting is generally bleak and pretty badass to include in the movie, much like the land outside the house in Beetlejuice, you know, with the giant worm thing that tries to eat Geena Davis? I wish they had included more of the other dimension as well as more scenes in the marble/granite mausoleum. These settings were sterile and creepy and really did much more for the movie than that terrible guitar riff playing over and over again ever did.
The best part of Phantasm was the silver orb that flew around killing people. It definitely took some awesome special effects skills to pull this off and was also seems to have paved the way for some more complicated killing techniques in horror flicks to follow.
Basically, this little guy flies around like an unassuming, unmanned futuristic handball until WHOAH ARE THOSE SPIKES?!?!?! It attacks its victim's face, then sticks out the little drill between the victim's eyes and sucks out their blood.Like this:
Judging from photos I found while searching for those above, Phantasms II-IV continue the use of killer orbs of doom, which is the only thing Joey, my boyfriend, had remembered from when he saw Phantasm IV as a kid. He actually described this series as, "the one with that guy who had the scary orbs." You'd be amazed at how well that statement sums up this movie.
BIG SPOILER: This movies uses the lamest ending EVER- the "It Was All Just a Dream... OR WAS IT?" ending. *sigh* The only way this ending ever works is if the character's sanity has somehow been in question all along. The best example of this is Rosemary's Baby, which also happens to be the one movie guaranteed to always scare the shit out of me. Of course, we actually find out in the end whether or not Rosemary's paranoia is founded in reality. The makers of Phantasm did find a way to make three sequels to the movie, so maybe we find out what the hell actually happened in this first movie in one of those.
Oh, and did I mention that The Tall Man can change into a beautiful, blonde, large breasted woman at will? Just... wow.
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