omen
Drilled
Posts: 13
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Post by omen on Sept 20, 2008 22:56:50 GMT -5
Such fun recollections...at such atmospheric locations! I have probably seen the first movie about a million times at this point, but it still has a power and a presence that most films just don't have after "that many'" viewings. I remember when the film first came out in stereo (the laserdisc release!) and it sounded so GOOD, I just wanted to turn it up real loud, and so I did. Ha ha ha! I mean really REALLY loud. roddmatsui I was a Laserdisc owner, I was introduced to this format by my Japanese Neighbor who swore by the format. After a weekend of Watching Halloween and Phantasm I bought his older Pioneer unit for $150.00 They sold for over $500.00 new at that time. it was the first time watching a widescreen home video and the sound and video quality was simply amazing. A few years later DVDs came out and killed the laserdisc market. I miss my Laserdisc collection which included Phantasm 2 as well
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Post by roddmatsui on Sept 21, 2008 8:34:11 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I remember how much fun it was when laserdiscs were happening...they were sort of like the vinyl of video...cool packaging and the media on this monstrous 12" disc. A video pizza if you will!
The discs tended to be expensive, and most of the ones I bought, I bought when the format was going bye-bye and the rental stores were selling off their obsoleted stock.
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Post by OblivionGoon on Sept 22, 2008 20:26:42 GMT -5
Here's hoping you had goosebumps yesterday at the fortuneteller's. I think you did. We had fun! Jeesh... you Phans and your "Phantours". ^ Jealous^
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Post by imperfectflesh on Oct 1, 2008 10:22:46 GMT -5
I've watched the first Phantasm flick well over a hundred times since that first, fateful night I caught it on HBO in 1980.
What keeps bringing me back to it is its weird, dreamlike quality. It's not your typical cookie-cutter movie. It's almost as if Coscarelli somehow managed to get a camera inside someone's head to film their nightmares.
This whole movie is like a nightmare--weird things happen, but in the back of your head, you just know they make sense somehow. I think the soundtrack really adds to that feeling. I've never heard a soundtrack before or since that has the ability to reach into you and grab your lizard brain and say, "Be afraid!" quite like this one does.
The thing about this movie...it's hard to explain. In a world full of knock-offs, torture porn, and idiotic remakes, Phantasm delivers a freaky-weird originality that, once you get a taste of it, all you want is more.
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Post by roddmatsui on Oct 4, 2008 10:48:42 GMT -5
Very good description, imperfect...the original film has a quality that seems to exist in no other films...a tangible flavor, a tonality, a vibratory frequency perhaps, that is totally unique. I think it lingers through many repeat viewings but is "clearest" the first few times one sees the film...at least, that's the way it was for me. The first few times I saw it, the movie seemed really alive...
Some of it exists in the simplicity...the clean, simple, minimal details, crisply photographed...instead of buckets of gore and rubber monsters, there is "one" sphere sailing down clean faux marble hallways; "one" severed finger oozing yellow blood, neatly contained in a box; two metal poles vibrating in the center of a solid white room (with black lines around the walls mainly to allow you to see the shape of the room). In this case, the budgetary limitations were cleverly used to create images of unnatural simplicity.
It's very different from the chaotic visual tendencies of the typical low-budget horror film. It's similar, in a lot of ways, to the visual control John Carpenter exhibits in his earlier films.
Even the villain is classy and clean, and speaks but a few words.
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Post by tannerboyle on Feb 26, 2009 2:13:08 GMT -5
I dunno.
I bought it sight unseen, and liked it very much the first time I saw it.
But, I didn't really have the urge to watch it again until just a couple of weeks ago.
I've watched it maybe 8 times since, and love it more and more with each viewing.
it's got a strange, surreal '70s feel to it that I love....like the original Halloween.
Hell--I think I'll throw it on right now! ;D
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Post by thevagabondgawain on Feb 26, 2009 18:01:58 GMT -5
In my opinion, absolute best horror movie soundtrack of all time. Not to mention all this weird s**t is happening in a small town to people who look like your neighbors definitely helps with the suspension of disbelief. Makes you wonder what really goes on at the local mortuary after dark. . .
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Post by gopher in heat on Feb 26, 2009 18:42:55 GMT -5
I totally agree! Welcome to the forum, by the way.
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cusackclass
Drilled
Little brother, I can't stop him but maybe I can slow him down.
Posts: 40
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Post by cusackclass on Feb 28, 2009 21:03:24 GMT -5
I guess what makes Phantasm stand out for me is the 70's surreal Italian feel to it, very much like how "Burnt Offering" and "Night Of Dark Shadows" had. It's really unlike any other horror movie, it feels like a dream throughout the entire film and between the haunting score and stand out actors it really still stands up today as one of the most original horror films of all time. I think it was very ahead of it's time and the sudden ending really opened a lot of doors for fellow films to follow.
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Post by cryptkeeper2529 on Mar 1, 2009 17:08:50 GMT -5
I don't really know what made it for me exactly; it was unique yet generic, creepy yet oddly amusing, it was otherworldly yet down to earth, etc. The angle of friendship was cool, but didn't hit me until Phantasm II with Mike and Reggie, and after that they tried to recreate it but it wasn't really the same.
The films's music was great, and the reditions in Phantasms 2-4 were great too if in totally different ways. The theme is up with The Exorcist, Suspiria, and Halloween in my opinion.
Nostalgia I think had a large part of it too; if they made they movie today, almost exactly, it deffiantely would not be the same for so many reasons.
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Post by roddmatsui on Mar 2, 2009 10:10:15 GMT -5
it was unique yet generic, creepy yet oddly amusing, it was otherworldly yet down to earth, etc. Yeah. That's definitely part of it. It's the way all that strangeness is made to feel so normal and familiar.
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Post by The Never Dead on Mar 11, 2009 9:50:13 GMT -5
For me, it's the odd, dreamlike feel of the movie. Also the setting, the unique plot, the very likeable characters, the relationship between Mike & Jody, the well-done score, & the 1970s setting. It's like a snapshot of the 1970s. And Mike's mustached spacegate stunt double. Haha.
Also the whole "what the heck is going on" concept. Are the events of a movie a dream? Are they real? I really think it's up to the phans to decide that. The fact that it makes us think.
After watching Phantasm last night, I still don't know what's going on with it. I'm kind of thinking(at the moment) that the events actually did transpire & that Jody died shortly after them in a car accident. Reggie is either denying the events or has forgotten quickly or something. I don't know. I don't like getting too much into detail because I don't like being wrong with my thoughts.
Phantasm: it makes us think.
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Post by tannerboyle on Apr 9, 2009 22:49:12 GMT -5
I watched both the original Halloween and the original Phantasm tonight--back to back.
Good s**t! ;D
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Post by DustinM on Apr 10, 2009 8:16:54 GMT -5
I watched both the original Halloween and the original Phantasm tonight--back to back. Good s**t! ;D A very fine double-feature if there ever were one. Carpenter films seem to go well with Phantasm. You likely know already that they released Phantasm and The Fog together. I think Halloween, Escape from New York and any number of other Carpenters could work.
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Post by tannerboyle on Apr 11, 2009 1:01:50 GMT -5
I didn't know that about Phantasm and The Fog.
Hell...come to think of it, that's an even better combo than Phantasm and Halloween!
An Atmospheric horror flick back to back with a Hallucenigenic one.
Three straight hours of horror movies. Little Wallace won't know what hit her! ;D
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Post by DustinM on Apr 11, 2009 9:32:15 GMT -5
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Post by gopher in heat on Apr 11, 2009 11:16:15 GMT -5
Those trailers are fantastic! Oh how I love those old movie trailers. I wish they still made em like that (at least for horror films).
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Post by pumpmonkey on Jun 10, 2009 0:03:59 GMT -5
For me.... P-I was groundbreaking because of how it dealt with the subject matter - It used subtlety and definitely avoided the 'slasher' theme. It also lacked an uber bad-guy that would display some hideous characteristic and declare his purpose. It also had the Dwarves & TTM appear in the daytime. In the daytime - usually the Day/Night theme is the suspense-builder in this genre, but with TTM walking 'among' us, purposeful & direct...performing his deeds directly under our noses-its prompts your imagination to turn into the unknown. What macabre machinations does the mind turn to as you think of the events and try to piece them together. (Mwahahahahahaha) <-- cheap imitation of an evil laughAnd the teamwork/dedication is really spot-on. No politics involved. Especially in P-III... Reggie really doesn't have much to go on, but he abandons it to go look for Mike, because he made that promise to Mike years ago. Just my 2-cents on a a couple of reasons...
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