Phantasmic movie4/8/2023 ![]() ![]() In the brief moment where he was worried about his brother leaving him, he was easy to sympathize with. There was an innocence to him that made you want him to succeed. He had a sort of charisma to him that you couldn’t help but like. It was basic 80’s acting if that makes sense. This begs the question, do the Tall Man’s powers only work if his victims are afraid of him, and if so, this leaves more unanswered questions as to what he is that makes it hard to follow the story if you don’t already know the surprise ending. He is faced with various obstacles that seem to fade if he lets go of his fear. This lesson comes up again later when Mike is running from the Tall Man. The only way to subside this pain is to let go of his fear. He is then made to put his hand in a box that causes him pain. He goes to a fortune-teller to ask about his brother leaving and is reassured that Jody won’t leave without him, which I guess was supposed to resolve that issue, but it made it seem redundant. ![]() The second point is Mike’s fear in general. He is apprehensive about this, and it is set up as if it could be a source of tension between the brothers, but it is never brought up again after it’s first discussed. The first is Mike’s fear that Jody will move away without him. There is a problem with consistency concerning two plot points that are presented to be important. That being said, there needed to be a better setup for the ending. I thought it was okay that we were left as clueless to the menace as the characters were. Aside from the too ambiguous ending, I wasn’t upset at the lack of explanation. They make for an exciting and unique feature that stands out from all other horror films. These spheres are never explained either, but perhaps they don’t need to be. The Tall Man uses flying orbs that latch onto victim’s faces and then proceeds to drill into their skulls and shoot their brains out. We are given no formal explanation of what the Tall Man is, but there are indications that he could be extra-terrestrial. The need to stop the Tall Man pushes the film forward, but the resolution may leave something to be desired. You find out at the film’s end that it was all in Mike’s dream. Feel free to skip to the last paragraph for my final rating if you don’t want any. I will warn you now this article contains spoilers. The whole film is a bit bizarre, but I believe that was Coscarelli’s point. The Tall Man is stealing corpses to convert them into dwarfish slaves! When Mike brings his brother proof of the strange conspiracy, they put their lives at risk trying to put an end to the Tall Man’s scheme. What he finds there is something entirely beyond the imagination. ![]() ![]() When Jody doesn’t believe him, Mike breaks into the funeral home in the dead of night to discover the truth for himself. After the burial of a friend, Mike spots the Tall Man lifting the 500 LB casket into a hearse by himself, stealing the body from its grave. Set sometime after their parents’ deaths, the 13-year-old Mike is being raised alone by his older brother Jody. Phantasm, directed by Don Coscarelli, is a science fiction horror film from 1979 that revolves around two brothers and the mystery surrounding a figure known only as the Tall Man. ![]()
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