Phantasm Movie

Phantasm is a horror movie that was produce in 1977 and made its public debut in 1979. The main character is The Tall Man, who is an unearthly and extremely cruel undertaker. The Tall Man uses the dead bodies that he receives and turns them into dwarf zombies that when they come back to life, will complete the dirty deeds he needs doing in his quest to control the entire world. The Tall Man has two main weapons that he uses for his evil work. These include a ball equipped with spiky blades and a drill that he uses to destroy brains.

The story begins with Jody Pearson and his little brother Mike. Jody is twenty-four while Mike is still a very young age of thirteen. Mike is left in Jody’s care after their parents have died. Jody is also in a blues band with his friend Reggie and Tommy. Tommy is killed two years later by a lady wearing lavender and Jody and Reggie attend the funeral while Mike, unbeknownst to Reggie or Jody, follows along. At the funeral, Mike sees The Tall Man lift the coffin into the hearse all on his own. On his way home, Mike is thrown from his bike but there is seemingly nothing there that would have caused it.

Mike visits his fortune teller and tells her what scares him the most. She tells him that fear is the killer and as he stops being afraid, it will make him stronger. Meanwhile, Jody has met the lady who killed Tommy in a bar and is about to take her back to the cemetery where Tommy was killed to make love to the lady in lavender. But Mike is being chased by an unknown brown object and as he races into the bar to explain to Jody, he unknowingly saves Jody’s life. However, Jody is angry with Mike and very disbelieving of Mike’s explanation. Mike continues to see The Tall Man in several places and hears the noise of the thing that had chased him earlier. Mystified as to what is happening, Mike breaks into the Morningside mortuary where The Tall Man works.

After being chased by a caretaker, Mike faces The Tall Man himself. He gets his proof that The Tall Man is a supernatural being when he cuts off the man’s finger and yellow liquid comes out. Mike goes home and falls asleep with a shotgun when Jody comes and finds him. After hearing his story and seeing the finger, Jody does believe Mike’s story and they are about to go tell the sheriff when the finger turns into another creature and they must destroy it. Reggie arrives just as they are flushing it down the garbage disposal.

After Reggie decides that it’s time to confront The Tall Man, a chase scene begins that has many things happening at once. They run into Tommy, who has been turned into a dwarf zombie, two of the boys’ friends, Suzie and Sally, are taken by the dwarfs and The Tall Man winds up escaping with Mike locked in the back of the hearse. Everyone manages to escape but meanwhile, Jody has gotten into the mortuary and after opening his father’s coffin has found that it’s empty. When Jody, Reggie, and Mike reunite in the mortuary only to all be separated once again. Reggie sees the lady in lavender and realizes that this is The Tall Man just before he is killed by him.

Jody takes Mike back home and tells him that he is going to go set a trap for The Tall Man so they can kill him. Mike is to remain at home however The Tall Man appears and Mike is forced to flee. Mike is kept busy once again trying to outrun The Tall Man while Jody is preparing the mudslide trap when Mike awakes in his bed and wonders if it has all been a dream. With Reggie still alive, Mike tells him of the dream and Reggie reassures him that is was a nightmare spurned from Jody’s recent funeral when he died in a car crash. Reggie leaves Mike but as Mike looks into the mirror, he sees The Tall Man and is pulled back into the mirror.

This is what leaves many more storylines open for the following four sequels.