Slow news day, and watching the Saints game and a movie would have kept me up too late. If I wouldn't have fried (technically steamed my DVR), I'd at least have wrestling to go on about. To make this blog worthwhile, I guess I better dig up a bad movie review I wrote on some scratch paper at work.
Maybe, not a bad movie. My bitching about "Surf Nazis Must Die" will not accomplish anything. It is the garbage that the mainstream that you must be warned about, and I don't have any of those lying about. How about "Phantasm?" That seems an essay which will be more fun to type than another socialist blog. At least at this hour.
Perhaps the most under appreciated horror franchise is "Phantasm." It had as many sequels as most from the late 70s-early 80s boom, but this critic was only aware of the films through "USA Up All Night." Being associated with the censored soft core made it so I had no interest in the series history until the notoriety of it director's Bruce Campbell classic, "Bubba Ho-Tep." This Campbell connection and there being no little dolls or undersized monsters (at least that I was aware of), this is the kind of spooky that I should not skip.
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Weird things have been happening at the local funeral home since Tommy's apparent suicide, or at least young Michael thinks so. The lonely teenager who virtually clings to his older brother Jody swears that he is being stalked by the giant funeral director and his zombie dwarfs. Obviously, he is telling the truth about this evil Tall Man, and after successfully convincing his brother and their best friend, Reggie The Ice Cream Man, they set out to solve the mystery that may even involve their parents, and all of the recently deceased.
"Phantasm" is a brilliant translation of a bad dream. That is David Lynch's goal, but auteur and "Beast Master" helmer Don Coscarelli makes the chaotic nature of a dream make sense. Honestly, without additional sequels, this film make no sense, but it comes to a clear conclusion, something we always hope for when we wake up.
There are some brilliant moments presented by Coscarelli, most notably the the scenes in the crypt and that his presentation of mayhem is as restrained as "John Carpenter's Halloween." Again, what makes the film unique is that it successfully throws creepy concepts together and gives our protagonist a chance to survive. This could have been the first and only horror movie that could have had a successful NES translation.
"Phantasm" is a simple horror film that delivers shocks, and can be appreciated by anyone with and overly active imagination. With its nightmarish environment and relative lack of gore, it could make a great double feature with "Inception." This is a rare mind bender in an American genre and era that kept horror way to simple.
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