The late 70's produced lots of drive-in trash and low budget horror crap, their only goal to show lots of gore and T & A. Needless to say, you're not going to run into too many Elizabethan actors in this genre. Which is good, cuz Elizabethan actors were all men (except for Gwyneth Paltrow), so seeing their T's and A's wouldn't be as appealing. But I digress...
Phantasm kicks some major ass. From my little intro, I'm sure you can tell that I think the acting blows. In fact, it both sucks and blows. The main characters are Mike, his big bro Jodi and Jodi's bandmate, Reggie. Mike is played by Michael Baldwin (no relation to the Baldwin Brothers, not even Daniel), and he just might be the most annoyingly bad child actor I've ever witnessed. He almost kept me from liking the film, but I decided, "Eh, what the shit? Why am I giving a crap about a child actor in an ultra-cheap horror flick?" So I made peace with myself and said screw it. Just try to disregard the acting by anyone in this movie, and you'll enjoy it much more. The horror itself is pretty good-- with some sawed-off half-man Jawa midget looking bastards, Creepy Angus Scrimm as the graverobbing Creepy Tall Man, some chick in a lavender dress that screws guys in the cemetery and then stabs them, dismembered fingers that turn into crappy looking rubber flies, and some badass flying steel balls that drill into your forehead and spray gallons of blood out the other side for a hilariously long amount of time. The movie is also littered with synth music, awful 70's clothes, and some continuity errors that I guess could be explained by the ending... I don't know. I do know that ya gotta give props to Reggie. The guy acts like shit, and you still come out liking him best. He's such a tool-- a bald ice cream man with a ponytail that is all about the ladies, but maybe that's why he's so charming. In the sequels, he becomes even cooler, with funny one-liners, an awesome gun and an ability to kick monster ass.
Besides the acting, my only other complaint about Phantasm is the ending. Why even try to do a twist? This is the kind of movie that makes you go, "What. The. Hell." But, it doesn't hurt the film too much, and you may like it more because of it. It really just left me bewildered.
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