Phantasm

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I have the first three on VHS, and OblIVion on DVD.

What do you think about it? Anyone else familiar with it? News about fan-related info? Theories concenring he origins and nautre of the tall man.

[pyro]

They had a print at the 24 hour horror marathon I went to on Saturday... that I didn't tell you about.... I have no idea why.... I guess I forgot.....  really seemed like something you would have been interested in but for some reason it didn't occur to me....  hmmm....

[MrTorso]

I love Phantasm. One of my favorite flicks.

[Chaos]

It's an awesome little movie. I'd love to see it again.

[mrbakasan]

I've always loved the second one.  I came on Showtime (I think) a couple of months ago and it was the first time I had seen it in years.  I went back and tried to watch the first and the third, but I didn't find them as enjoyable as I used too.  For me Reggie Bannister is the best part of the series.

[Steve-O]

Phantasm was the first horror film I remember seeing.  In the theater.  When I was seven.  For weeks, I had to peek around corners before turning them, in order to check for flying silver balls.  As a result, it holds a special sort of power over me, that even its relentless seventiesness can not dispel.

I remember when it finally became available on video when I was thirteen or so.  I was already a horror junkie by that point, and had seen dozens of films far worse than Phantasm, but I recall being hesitant to put the tape in the player.  It took a real force of will to finally turn the damned thing on.  Of course, it was much less scary than I remembered it, but still far scarier than it should have been.

I've never gotten around to checking out the sequels, though I've heard some postive reviews.

[Chaos]

Phantasm was the first horror film I remember seeing.  In the theater.  When I was seven.  For weeks, I had to peek around corners before turning them, in order to check for flying silver balls.  As a result, it holds a special sort of power over me, that even its relentless seventiesness can not dispel.

I remember when it finally became available on video when I was thirteen or so.  I was already a horror junkie by that point, and had seen dozens of films far worse than Phantasm, but I recall being hesitant to put the tape in the player.  It took a real force of will to finally turn the damned thing on.  Of course, it was much less scary than I remembered it, but still far scarier than it should have been.

I've never gotten around to checking out the sequels, though I've heard some postive reviews.

Ah, you describe that sensation so well. This kind of feeling is EXACTLY the reason that Gremlins was so scary for me... I saw it when I was very little, and it slightly traumatized me (and yet at the same time fascinated and compelled me), so it has a special place in the darker part of my heart, even though it's utterly campy and hilarious when I watch it now. Also, despite how pathetically awful the special effects are, the scene from Tim Burton's Batman where Joker fries the guy with a hand buzzer and the scene from Howard the Duck when the alien guy puts his feelers out of the guy's mouth in the truck continued to creep me out until I was about 15, because I saw them for the first time when I was so young and impressionable.

[dignan]

I got all four movies on DVD in the collection that comes in a replica sphere.  Pretty cool.  I remember after watching all four of them in a row that I had some sort of theory, but I'm not sure what it was now.  Something about how Mike and Reggie are actually dead, and died in the first movie.  Or at least Mike is dead.  For the life of me I can't remember what in the movies supports that, but I'm pretty sure it's all there. 

[pyro]

In the first one Reggie has that bout with that dwarf at his ice cream truck then randomly appears in the funeral home and then is stabbed by the woman outside of it and left to die.... and Mike falls out the back of the car and then randomly gets up again.... that's all I can really remember about possible deaths at least, no hidden messages I can think of....


But when going to wikipedia to check that Mike was in fact the kid I found out that Phantasm V comes out next year

Phantasm V is the upcoming 2008 sequel to the Phantasm series and follows the events after Phantasm IV: Oblivion. It will star the original cast: A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, and Angus Scrimm.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I have the 4-dvd ball sphere but the content dvds are the wrong region for my dvd players.

*weeps*

Yay Phantasm Five!

[whoopdefndo]

Not to be the resident doo schnozzle, but don't get your hopes up on Phantasm 5 yet. According to imdb.com, Anchor Bay is part of the production team, but they're still looking for money. And since none of the subsequent Phantasms ever make crazy money, it might take longer than 2008. It took years to scrounge the money for Oblivion, and in the end, they didn't get very much of it, and it shows.

I still own the original DVD release of Phantasm via MGM. Will upgrade eventually, especially since I now have a HDTV and the old release isn't 16x9, but the one I have is autographed by Reggie Bannister, and I'm just enough of a nerd to let that trump double-dipping right now. I have 2 and 3 recorded off cable, and the official release of Oblivion. Imaginative series hampered by their low budgets, and let's face it, Scrimm's advancing age isn't making him look any more menacing. When you can pick up and blow air at your bad guy and watch him glide away, it's hard to be too scared, y'know? But I really respect everything they try to do to keep the series alive...

And if you haven't seen it yet, Don Coscarelli's "Incident on and Off a Mountain Road" is hands down the best installment of the Masters of Horror Series.

[MrTorso]

I have the 4-dvd ball sphere but the content dvds are the wrong region for my dvd players.

*weeps*

Yay Phantasm Five!

Find a phillips DVDP5960 and enjoy region free goodness.

[Chaos]

I have the 4-dvd ball sphere but the content dvds are the wrong region for my dvd players.

*weeps*

Yay Phantasm Five!

Find a phillips DVDP5960 and enjoy region free goodness.

Or search google for "DVD Converter" and find the "X to DVD Converter" program, copy the entire contents of the DVD onto your computer, and feed those DVD files into the XConverter, which will output them in PAL or NTSC format as you define, then reburn to a new disc. That way your cost is roughly 26 cents instead of however much a region-free DVD player costs. It's also a great program for compiling videos from a digital camera onto a DVD to give to your non-computer-savvy relatives.

[Steve-O]

Or, look up your DVD player model number in one of the many online databases of region-free codes such as this one and find out if your existing player can be made region free.  An awful lot of them can be forced to ignore the region code by simply keying a sequence of buttons in on the DVD remote.

That'll save you not only the cost of a region free player, but also the time and effort required to convert the DVDs.

[Chaos]

Good point!

I still like my option the best though, because it's the least legal of them all.