Smorgasbord of Crappola 
MOVIES
 

PHANTASM
(1979)
Starring Angus Scrimm




This is one bizarre movie.  Shot with a very low budget, it has the feel of a B movie, but it's really quite good. 

A young boy witnesses strange happenings around the local mortuary, including robed midgets resembling Jawas, a flying silver orb with a taste for blood, and the eeire "Tall Man", whose blood is thick and yellow, and whose fingers have minds of their own.  With the help of his older brother and the town's ice cream man, Reggie, the boy tries to figure out the Tall Man's secret.

The plot isn't very solid, and the action jumps back and forth, side to side, from reality to fantasy and back again.  It's difficult to make sense out of, maybe even impossible.  As for the special effects, they haven't aged too well, but they are still mildly creepy.  The real stars of the moive are Angus Scrimm as the mysterious, nightmarish Tall Man, and the silver sphere, whose blood draining scene is the one most people remember from this film.
 

Quality: 4.0  Visuals: 7.0  Intensity: 6.0 Gore: 4.5 
OVERALL RATING: 5.4

reviewed 1999