Table of contents for #8: Authorized Phantasm Film Companion in RUE MORGUE

In early 2007, while finishing off a Phantasm retrospective cover story for Rue Morgue #65, I mentioned to various friends and acquaintances that I had recently interviewed Don Coscarelli. Given Phantasm’s late-’70s pedigree, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the most common response was, “Man, he must be ancient!” This was generally followed by a look of utter shock when I informed them that he was, in fact, just in his early 50s. Born in 1954 in Tripoli, Libya (his father, in the military at the time, was stationed there), and raised in and around Long Beach, California, Coscarelli recalls his early creative impulses being stimulated in rather unorthodox fashion by an odd neighbourhood attraction: a large construction site across the street from the family home. A seemingly…

Here in the West, and in most other parts of the world, we go to great pains and sometimes staggering expense to deny – at least aesthetically – that the dead are truly dead. Don Coscarelli has often spoken of his fascination with “the American way of death,” Western culture’s constantly shifting canon of funeral practices, its evolution driven by religion, mysticism, science, art, superstition and various obscure etiquettes accumulated over many centuries. He agrees that ours is not only a death-defying culture, but also a death-denying one. We defy death daily in ways no other intelligent animal would countenance, for reasons both legitimate and questionable; when the fragile vessel that is the human body succumbs to all this battering, we turn to medicine to stave off the inevitable as…

AS HOARY A CLICHÉ AS “LIVING THE DREAM” MAY BE, IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO SUM UP YOUNG A. MICHAEL BALDWIN’S EXPERIENCE ON THE SET OF Phantasm in the late 1970s. Plenty of thirteen-year-olds long to fire handguns, drink beer, steal sweet treats out of a moving ice cream truck, ride dirt bikes and learn to drive (in a 1971 Hemi’Cuda, no less). Few actually get the chance; fewer still get paid for it. “I didn’t know what we were making, really,” Baldwin says, with a nostalgic chuckle. “But I had a great time, an awful lot of fun.” Those experiences may have been firsts, but by the age of thirteen, Baldwin already had more professional acting credits in both film and television than most of the other principal cast…

EVEN BY PHANTASM STANDARDS, THE LEGACY OF THE LADY IN LAVENDER IS A TRULY ODD ONE – IN SOME RESPECTS, MORE SO THAN THE TALL MAN’S. She appears only in the first and fifth films, with less than four minutes of total screen time and only four lines of dialogue (three in the first film and one in RaVager, and that’s in the Tall Man’s voice). Regardless, she’s an indelible persona who’s garnered more attention than any other supporting character in the series. Kat Lester – Lavender’s mortal counterpart – is quick to agree it’s unusual. And she’s eternally grateful. “I’m humbled, because it’s not a large part,” she says. “In my acting studies, one really great drama teacher, Michael Shurtleff, always said that the size of the part really…

American muscle cars of the 1970s owe much of their iconic status to the movies and, to a lesser degree, television. Witness, for example, Smokey and the Bandit’s Trans Am, Steve Mc-Queen’s Mustang in Bullitt (also piloted several years later by Sean Connery in the Bond installment Diamonds Are Forever), the Dodge Challenger in Vanishing Point, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior’s improbably tricked-out Ford Falcon. On smaller screens, we’ve had the Duke boys getting ludicrous amounts of air weekly in a Charger Starsky and Hutch enforcing Casual Friday-style law in their Gran Torino, and, more recently, Supernatural’s Winchester Brothers fight monsters in a ‘67 Impala (the weapons-loaded ride is a direct reference to Phantasm by show creator Eric Kripke). The Plymouth Hemi’Cuda may have turned up in considerably less…

“TAKE FROM THE DRESSER OF DEAL LACKING THE THREE GLASS KNOBS, THAT SHEET ON WHICH SHE EMBROIDERED FANTAILS ONCE AND SPREAD IT SO AS TO COVER HER FACE. IF HER HORNY FEET PROTRUDE, THEY COME TO SHOW HOW COLD SHE IS, AND DUMB. LET THE LAMP AFFIX ITS BEAM THE ONLY EMPEROR IS THE EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM.”WALLACE STEVENS, “THE EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM” IN WHICH WE PICK UP EXACTLY WHERE WE LEFT OFF. THE SEEMINGLY VANQUISHED TALL MAN, WHO TURNS OUT TO HAVE BEEN MASQUERADING AS REGGIE’S LOVE INTEREST ALCHEMY (BASTARD!), HAS BOUNCED BACK, TURFED REGGIE OUT OF THE MISAPPROPRIATED HEARSE OUR HEROES WERE ESCAPING IN AND, AT SOME POINT BETWEEN PHANTASM II’S CLOSING TITLE CRAWL AND NOW, DECAPITATED POOR LIZ. FOLLOWING SEVERAL MORE MACABRE MELEES – FIRST AT…

…ERIC STANZE? ST. LOUIS-BASED INDEPENDENT HORROR FILMMAKER WHOSE CREDITS INCLUDE RATLINE, IN MEMORY OF AND THE CONTROVERSIAL RAPE-REVENGE FILM SCRAPBOOK. “THE TALL MAN REPRESENTS THE STERN, UNCOMPROMISING AUTHORITY FIGURE THAT IS DEATH. YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH HIM, YOU CAN’T NEGOTIATE WITH HIM. HE WILL TAKE YOU EVENTUALLY. THIS CAN BE VIEWED IN A NEGATIVE, GLOOM-AND-DOOM LIGHT. OR IT CAN BE CONSIDERED A REMINDER TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND REALLY LIVE YOUR LIFE BECAUSE WE ARE ALL HERE FOR A FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME. MATERIAL POSSESSIONS WON’T GO WITH US WHEN THE END COMES, AND TIME WASTED CAN’T BE RETRIEVED. WHEN ‘THE FUNERAL IS ABOUT TO BEGIN,’ WE’D BETTER HAVE MADE THE MOST OF OUR DAYS BEFORE THE TALL MAN ARRIVES.”…

“DADDY’S RIFLE IN MY HAND FELT REASSURIN’ HE TOLD ME, RED MEANS RUN, SON, NUMBERS ADD UP TO NOTHIN’” – NEIL YOUNG, “POWDERFINGER” IN WHICH our recently orphaned tween protagonist Mike Pearson witnesses some strange goings-on at the mortuary in his small Oregon town and becomes convinced that the local undertaker is stealing and reanimating corpses. Mike’s older brother Jody, initially skeptical, eventually gets on board and the lads enlist their best friend Reggie, a guitar-slinging ice cream vendor, to help them investigate. Before long, they realize they may be in over their heads against the Tall Man – a time-travelling, dimension-jumping, shape-shifting supervillain – and his minions: a mysterious blonde seductress, a platoon of killer dwarf creatures, a mute mortuary attendant and an airborne, brain-drilling metallic sphere. But there’s…

With the death of Angus Scrimm, the Phantasm family lost the face of its franchise. Scrimm was as gentlemanly in real life as he is menacing on screen as the Tall Man; Known for his warmth and wit off screen, he remained especially close with members of the Phantasm cast and crew, who share some reminiscences here. PAUL PEPPERMAN: (Phantasm Producer) He was thrilled that this [the father in Jim the World’s Greatest] was the biggest role he’d had in a movie but unfortunately the penalty for him was having to put up with these guys who didn’t know what the hell they were doing, just experimenting and learning. So he’d sit off and read his books. He became really reclusive. Phantasm was nothing compared to how long it took…

TO CALL REGGIE BANNISTER ONE OF THE LEAST CONVENTIONAL ICONS IN OUR BELOVED GENRE’S LONG AND HOPELESSLY CHEQUERED HISTORY IS the acme of understatement. It also means he’s perfectly suited to the Phantasm series, itself one of the most unorthodox touchstones in the horror film canon. Whether you ask those closest to Bannister or even casual acquaintances, they’ll tell you that of all the Phantasm regulars, the Regman is the one whose offscreen persona is closest to the character he plays: equal parts Everyman and likeable eccentric, unassuming but always down for an adventure. “What you see is what you get,” A. Michael Baldwin testifies. “He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s just always been a warm and generous man, kind and funny, and a hell of a musician…

Two now-iconic tropes from the Phantasm series have entirely accidental connections to Star Wars. Don Coscarelli has frequently been unjustly accused of lifting the design for the Tall Man’s killer dwarf creatures from the Jawas of George Lucas’ somewhat better-known film of the same period. It’s understandable, given the films’ respective release dates – May 1977 for Star Wars and June 1979 for Phantasm – but the truth of the matter is that Phantasm, which had a much longer production schedule, was actually in the works before Star Wars’ release, making it impossible for Coscarelli to have seen Lucas’ film prior to working on his own. However, another awkward design similarity was avoided while Phantasm was still in production, this time pertaining to the silver spheres’ onboard weaponry, which by…

IN WHICH Mike, released from the mental hospital he’s been confined to for seven years, initially can’t convince Reggie that the Tall Man was anything more than a PTSD-induced delusion. Reggie changes his tune when his own wife and daughter are murdered, and the two friends light out to hunt down their nemesis or die trying, painfully aware that the latter scenario is the more likely by far. Heading into the wilds of eastern Oregon, our friends always seem to be one step behind their adversary, encountering a succession of ravaged ghost towns with tell-tale plundered mortuaries. They pick up beautiful hitchhiker Alchemy, who’s heading to Perigord, the next town on their route; arriving in the near-deserted hamlet, they also find Liz, with whom Mike has had a psychic connection…

“It’s very rare that you meet stunt guys who are genuine fans of horror movies,” Coscarelli begins. “But when I was introduced to Bob Ivy, he was truly excited to get onto a Phantasm movie. He had seen the first Phantasm in the theatre and was a big fan of it, which was definitely different. And Bob and I started talking about how I wanted to do a pipe ramp – a rather dangerous car stunt where they put this pipe at an angle and the car hits it and is shot up into the air. I was invited to another film set to witness Bob performing a similar pipe ramp stunt where, with great skill, he jumped a Jeep off the ground and right through a parked boat and…

It can’t be an easy gig. That’s the kind of thing you hear countless times when a new James Bond is announced, or perhaps you heard it back in 1980, when AC/DC confirmed that they had found a new singer to replace the suddenly deceased Bon Scott. As we go to press it’s impossible to say whether Phantasm: RaVager director and co-writer David Hartman will fare quite as well with Phans in the long run as Daniel Craig or Brian Johnson did with their respective audiences, but the early signs are positive. Of course, Craig and Johnson weren’t personally invited on board by the people they were replacing, which is pretty much the best endorsement the new guy could get, and one which, in this case, forced Phans to at…

Of this much I am certain: long, strange trips don’t get much longer, stranger or trippier than Phantasm. But you probably knew that already, didn’t you? After all, horror fans are a pretty obsessive lot by design, and none more so than Phans. If you’re obsessed enough to buy (let alone write) a book about this or any other horror film franchise, it’s safe to say you’re probably dug in pretty deep already. I’ve heard more than one person say that 1979’s Phantasm was the first horror film that genuinely scared them. That wasn’t actually the case with me – of the handful that had truly struck fear into my heart by the time I was in my teens, I’d be hard-pressed to say which was the first – but…

Aside from Angus Scrimm, the core group of actors who first came together in 1979 to make Phantasm have two things in common: all are musicians, and none initially had any idea that they were about to launch a cult sensation. Meeting each of these people – beginning with Reggie Bannister ten years ago, and the rest more recently while I worked on this book – has been a privilege; each, in his or her own way, is warm and accommodating, always happy to discuss this strange and wonderful creation they’re so proud to be part of, even if it means answering the same question for the thousandth time. It’s a highly diverse collection of personalities, temperaments and lifestyles, and yet a striking common thread here is the tremendous affection…

WHEREAS REGGIE BANNISTER HAS DIVIDED HIS LIFE MORE OR LESS EVENLY BETWEEN MUSIC AND ACTING, BILL THORNBURY IS A MUSICIAN WHO stumbled into acting. Thornbury was born and raised in Kingsburg, California, a blink-and-miss-it hamlet twenty miles southeast of Fresno. (It’s also the birthplace of Slim Pickens, and no, they never met.) By his early twenties, the aspiring country and western singer/songwriter had established himself as a session musician; his teen-idol looks also made him a natural for television work, which his agent soon convinced him to turn into a sideline. “I was singing background vocals with CBS,” Thornbury says, “and my first agent expressed interest in representing me for television commercials, although the first job was actually a role opposite Linda Blair.” To this day, the 1975 NBC movie-of-the-week…

IN WHICH Oscar winner and lifelong hardcore Phan Roger Avary joins forces with Don Coscarelli to create the most kickass, outrageous, over-the-top, epic, ultra-violent, apocalyptic, explosive, mind-blowing, ultimately-ultimate Phantasm sequel ever…and it doesn’t get made. Seriously. Roger Avary thinks he’s a bigger Phan than I am. Well, who’s to say? He wrote a screenplay. I’m writing a book. The one certainty is that we are two souls (both Canadian, in fact) sharing a single pathology; this is evident when the usually press-shy director and screenwriter (whose resume boasts Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Killing Zoe, Natural Born Killers and Rules of Attraction) happily talks my ear off for over an our on the phone from his hotel room in Beijing one winter’s night. After all, the subject is Phantasm. When I…

“THOUGH THEY GO MAD THEY SHALL BE SANE THOUGH THEY SINK THROUGH THE SEA THEY SHALL RISE AGAIN THOUGH LOVERS BE LOST LOVE SHALL NOT AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.”DYLAN THOMAS, “AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION” IN WHICH Reggie reclaims his’Cuda from a dorky thief, dodges spheres in a desert highway melee and hooks up with Dawn, a ravishing redhead who takes him to her rural digs to recuperate. The respite is curtailed by another sphere attack, which ends spectacularly badly for Dawn, her Bulgarian farmhand Demeter and a hapless horse. But things take an even stranger turn as Reggie suddenly finds himself in a psychiatric facility, visited by his old friend Mike, who tries to convince him he’s suffering from early onset dementia. Exhausted and depressed, Reggie…

John W. Bowen first saw Phantasm during his teens at a drive-in double bill with John Carpenter’s Halloween. His therapist thinks this explains a lot. He has been a reviewer and feature writer for Rue Morgue magazine since 1999; his popular column It Came From Bowen’s Basement has been a monthly feature in the mag since 2007, winning the 2012 Rondo Award for Best Column His work has also appeared in the Toronto Star, Kingston Life Magazine, the Kingston Whig-Standard and the collection Horror 101 With Dr. AC (edited by Aaron Christensen), and he was a guest commentator for John Kenneth Muir’s book Horror Films of the 1990s. He has also been a professional musician since his late teens. Born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in Kingston, Ontario, John now…