Spooky goings on at the Morningside Mortuary, where the mysterious Tall Man is reshaping and reanimating corpses, his secret guarded by a deadly flying sphere that sprouts blades like the devils-own Swiss army knife.
Truth to tell, there are probably more genuine scares in your average Buffy episode, but Don Coscarelli's original Phantasm is more ambitious in terms of story and visuals than you'd expect from a 70's low budget horror flick, while Angus Scrimm's ''less is more'' approach to his portrayal of the Tall Man saves him from being the kind of pantomime turn Freddy and Jason would become.
This new collectors set contains the original feature and it's three sequels along with a fifth disk of extras. For once you're getting some in-depth background material amid the trailers, photo galleries and puff pieces that usually pad out these special editions. Whole package comes in a groovy silvered plastic sphere. Nice.
Oh, and there's a Bond connection here as well; the exteriors for Morningside Mortuary were shot at the Dunsmuir Estate in Oakland. The Victorian mansion was also used for Stacey Sutton's house in AVTAK.
