Phantasm

Plot

Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost his parents, afraid to lose his brother follow him to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lifting a coffin on his own. Mike decides to investigate, and discovers that the Tall Man, protected by his flying spheres, is shrinking dead bodies down to half their normal size and reanimating them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother, and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man.

Why watch

Mike, a young boy grappling with the recent loss of his parents, witnesses the Tall Man lifting a coffin with supernatural ease at a funeral. As he delves deeper into the mystery, the film unfolds in a nightmarish landscape where childhood fears take grotesque form. Watching it feels like being trapped in a fever dream, where the boundaries of reality blur and the familiar becomes terrifyingly alien.

Cultural context

If you liked this