Phantasm
![Watch film Phantasm — Phantasm (1979) Original Trailer [FHD]](https://www.acmodasi.in/amdb/images/posters/k/b/MSllmfcG2B85.webp)
Short description
Mike, a teenage boy who has recently lost his parents, lives with his older brother Jody and follows him to a funeral at the town cemetery. There he sees a tall, sinister figure lift a coffin single-handedly and drive away with it in a hearse. Jody dismisses the story, so Mike returns to the cemetery after dark and enters the mausoleum at its centre. Inside he finds strange, unearthly activity and a flying silver sphere belonging to the stranger, and he becomes convinced that unknown forces are taking the dead for a purpose he cannot name.
Don Coscarelli wrote and directed the film, his first feature, and went on to make The Beastmaster, three further Phantasm instalments, Bubba Ho-tep, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and John Dies at the End. The cast includes A. Michael Baldwin as Mike, Bill Thornbury as Jody, Reggie Bannister as Reggie and Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man. Paul Pepperman and Dac Coscarelli produced.
Made independently in the United States by New Breed Productions and released through AVCO Embassy Pictures in March 1979, the film runs 89 minutes and blends horror with science fiction. It took about 12 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for a low-budget independent. On IMDb it holds 6.6/10 from 45,000 votes and on TMDB 6.5/10 from 812 votes; a critics' rating of 6.4/10 from 50 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film's screenplay was written in three weeks by Don Coscarelli in seclusion at his mountain cabin.
- In Australia, distributors were forced to change the film's title to The Never Dead due to a popular Australian sex comedy called "Phantasm" (1976).
- The film was shot using Panavision cameras. To save money allocated to him by his father for filming (around $300,000), Coscarelli rented expensive equipment on Fridays, used it on weekends, and returned it on Monday, paying only for one working day of rental.
- The film contains several references to Frank Herbert's book "Dune," for example, a bar named "Dune."
- The initial runtime of the film was 3 hours.
- Don Coscarelli’s mother worked on costumes and makeup.
- The interiors of the funeral home were built inside an old warehouse along with Paul Pepperman – the film's co-producer and a long-time friend of Coscarelli. The exterior of the house was filmed in Oakland, California, at an old Victorian mansion that was also used for the horror film "Burnt Offerings" (1976) and for one of the James Bond series, "A View to a Kill" (1985).
- The roles of the gnomes were played by children.
- Scrimm was 193 cm tall. To appear even taller while filming as the character of Tall Man, he wore costumes several sizes too small and platform shoes. His role in "Phantasm" secured him a steady acting career in film and television.
- Don Coscarelli said in an interview that he wanted to embody death itself in Verzile.
- Don Coscarelli's and Reggie Bannister's parents appeared in the funeral scene.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
