Phantasm is the story of a grieving boy. Death has slithered into this life. It’s taken several people close to him, and now it’s also taken the physical form of an undertaker.
Writer/director Don Coscarelli spent over a year making this film, working on weekends with a crew of family, friends, and “aspiring professionals.” Unlike David Lynch’s Eraserhead, which took 5 years to film and was marked by an obsessively steady vision and tight control, Phantasm let its “aspiring professionals” play. You can see it in the lighting set ups. Clearly, whomever did these set ups spent the work week dreaming of what they got to try out on the weekends.
You get to see characters lit by the sun, the moon, a hanging mechanic’s light under the hood of a car, spotlight, headlights, a flickering flame, a swinging pendant lamp, product display lights, desk lamps, behind, above, below…even a room made of light that looks like it came out of 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Now it’s just remembered for the sentinel spheres…. And, yeah, maybe it’s a dream and maybe it’s real. But Death shows up either way, so who cares.
Bonus: Someone actually (realistically) loses bladder control when they die on screen, don’t often see that.