Phantasm (film)

Phantasm is a 1979 film about a teenage boy and his friends who face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a lethal arsenal of terrible weapons with him.
 * Directed and written by Don Coscarelli.

Beware the ball, beware the tall man, beware the never dead. (taglines)

The Tall Man

 * You play a good game boy, but the game is finished, now you die.
 * You think when you die, you go to heaven. You come to us!
 * BOYYYYY!!!

Mike Pearson

 * There's this door down here. And I bet there's something behind it.

Reggie

 * Hi guys. Heh heh, just thought I'd come over and see what was going on before the kids got out of summer school. Hey Mike, you want to ride along with me today? It's pretty warm outside and the ice cream's going to be flying fast and furious. Remember how good you were at crowd control last time? Hey, what's going on here?

Jody Pearson

 * Now, remember: you don't aim a gun at a man unless you intend to shoot him. And, you don't shoot a man unless you intend to kill him. No warning shots. Hey, you listening to me? No warning shots. Warning shots are bullshit. You shoot to kill, or you don't shoot at all.
 * I just don't get off on funerals, man, they give me the creeps.

Dialogue

 * Mike: I know you're not going to believe this, but these things were here, right in the garage, and they were going to get me!
 * Jody: Aww, give me a break, would you?
 * Mike: They were jumping on the car and making these weird sounds!
 * Jody: You're sure it wasn't that retarded kid, Timmy, up the street?
 * Mike: No, it was the same thing that chased me last night!


 * Reggie: Okay. I see it, I see it all now. What we gotta do is we gotta snag that tall dude and stomp the shit out of him, and we'll find out what the hell is going on up there. Yeah! We lay that sucker out flat and drive a stake right through his Goddamn heart!
 * Mike: You gotta be shittin' me, man! That mother's STRONG!


 * Jody: What's out there?
 * Mike: I don't know. It was little, brown and low to the ground.
 * Jody: Ahh, it was probably just a gopher in heat.


 * The Tall Man: The funeral is about to begin... Sir!
 * Jody: Okay! Sir.


 * Mike: First he took mom and dad, then he took Jody, now he's after me.
 * Reggie: Mike, that tall man of yours did not take Jody away. Jody died in a car wreck.

Taglines

 * Beware the ball, beware the tall man, beware the never dead.
 * Where the dead are no longer that way...
 * If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead!

About

 * I had a compunction to try to do something in the horror genre and I started thinking about how our culture handles death; it’s different than in other societies. We have this central figure of a mortician. He dresses in dark clothing, he lurks behind doors, they do procedures on the bodies we don’t know about. The whole embalming thing, if you ever do any research on it, is pretty freaky. It all culminates in this grand funerary service production. It’s strange stuff. It just seemed like it would be a great area in which to make a film.
 * Don Coscarelli, Happy birthday, Tall Man! ‘Phantasm’ turns 30 (October 16, 2009)

Cast

 * Angus Scrimm — The Tall Man
 * A. Michael Baldwin — Mike Pearson
 * Bill Thornbury — Jody Pearson
 * Reggie Bannister — Reggie