DVD review (region 1)
Directed by Don Coscarelli
Starring A Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm
Release date Out now

A boy and his older brother suspect something creepy is going on at the local cemetery. Turns out that the undertaker is compressing dead people into three-foot-tall slaves…

Phantasm is certainly an odd movie. Eschewing horror staples like vengeful ghosts, blood-crazed vampires or masked maniacs, director Don Coscarelli (his third feature at just 25) fills his movie with hooded mutant dwarves, flying silver balls of death, a severed finger that turns into a fly monster and a mysterious old psychic who disappears after just one scene.

Despite Coscarelli setting out to make a movie with a shock every 30 seconds, it’s more endearing than scary, and the story doesn’t always make perfect sense. But it gets by on its offbeat humour, cool low budget sets and likeable playing from Baldwin and Thornbury as the quick-thinking brothers, and it’s easy to see how the movie has built up such a devoted following.

Angus Scrimm, as the gaunt, quietly menacing Tall Man, is also key to the film’s success. But it’s only when you get to the extras that you realise how wonderfully crackers he actually is. The footage from a fan convention where he becomes ‘possessed’ by the Tall Man and recounts his few lines of dialogue from the series is priceless, as is his appearance on a talk show at the time, where he gives a wildly hyperbolic account of the movie (“there’s a set of dismembered fingers that wander the countryside choking people!”).

This special edition also comes with a revealing commentary from the cast and the rather self-effacing Coscarelli, where the director reveals how he considered changing the small slaves due to their remarkable similarity to George Lucas’s Jawas in Star Wars. The DVD also comes with deleted scenes and a full behind-the-scenes documentary entitled 'Phantasmagoria'. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 8/10
It’s rough around the edges, but Phantasm holds up as a striking, not to mention completely barmy, horror film.