Blackmoor Vituperative

Interesting news for Phantasm fans:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – New Line Cinema is in final negotiations with filmmaker Don Coscarelli to bring the cult horror film “Phantasm” back to the big screen….

Coscarelli also co-wrote and directed 1982’s “The Beastmaster” and wrote and directed “Bubba Ho-tep” (2002), which starred Bruce Campbell (news) and the late Ossie Davis as nursing-home residents Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy, battling a mummy. (Yahoo! News, (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050310/film_nm/film_phantasm_dc)

Phantasm was a great movie, particularly for a low-budget ’70s horror flick. It was inventive and pretty damned scary. Part of the appeal of Phantasm, for me, stemmed from the physical presence of Angus Scrimm, who can be one seriously scary dude. Another thing which made it resonate with me was that, like most Lovecraft stories, the setting is a small town: a perfectly ordinary place where horrific things are happening.

The real clincher, though, was the spheres. I’m not sure many people realize how much the gizmo factor factor plays in horror movies: Phantasm, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Puppet Master, Halloween, and Friday The 13th (2 and up) all had nifty props which served to unify the movie, thematically (spheres, bladed gloves, marionettes, a William Shatner mask, and a hockey mask, respectively). There have been any number of otherwise-adequate horror movies which were not as successful as these because there wasn’t a gizmo. Do not underestimate the power of a good gizmo.

I also happen to like that the annoying kid died at the end. Hell, I wanted to kill him, myself.