On Friday I discovered my VUDU digital version of the 1979 cult horror film Phantasm was replaced with the new, J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot “remastered” version for free.  Further, because I already owned the film, I also had access to this remastered version four full days (at least up to the point I discovered the upgrade!) before the movie’s official remastered release on October 4th and two days from now.

Yesterday I wrote about my find and promised to see the film and give it a review.  Last night I did just that and here you go…

To begin, the movie looks great.  I’m reminded of when I picked up the BluRay release of John Carpenter’s The Fog and was blown away by how clear it looked versus the (ahem) foggy version I was used to seeing.

While not quite on that level of visual brilliance, the remastered Phantasm nonetheless does look damn sharp and the trailer for the remastered version cleverly points out how we old timers first experienced the film versus what it looks like now…

So for those like me who like the film and remember being absolutely terrified by it when it was released back in 1979 (I think I first saw it in 1980), getting and seeing the remastered version is an absolute no-brainer.

However…

While watching Phantasm today versus 1979 (or 1980), it is clear the passage of time has dulled the terrifying shocks I felt while watching the film back in the era it was originally released.

It’s so damn difficult today, nearly 40 years later and after thousands upon thousands of horror films and TV shows having been released which depict all manner of “creative” gory death, for something this small scale to shock us like it did back then.  For today’s viewer’s, I suspect the movie’s most shocking scene, the death by Silver Ball, will elicit at best a shrug while I distinctly remember trembling after seeing that scene way back then.

And with those shocks not resonating quite as well as they did back in 1979, we’re left with an obviously very low budget film with a for the most part meandering story and so-so acting.

Well, with the notable exception of Angus Scrimm as the movie’s villain, the Tall Man.  Clearly he’s having an absolute (ahem) ball with his villainous turn.  In fact, Mr. Scrimm’s very first appearance in the movie looked like it was cut just as he went a little overboard in his facial expressions.

I strongly suspect the Tall Man’s character was a modernized version of Max Schreck’s Nosferatu, the very first film version of Dracula which was released in 1922. In that movie, Nosferatu was presented as tall and shadowy and scary as all get-out…

Like Nosferatu, Phantasm gives us the Tall Man in very small doses.  In Nosferatu,  the villainous Count appeared for only 9 some minutes in total in the film and in Phantasm I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tall Man appears for even less.  Yet it works.  It leaves us wanting so much more.

Having said all that, Nosferatu remains, even after nearly 100 years since its release, a genuinely creepy film while Phantasm, unfortunately, is a far more muted affair, at least IMHO.  In fact, the pleasures I derived from it had more to do with the way it depicted life circa 1979, when I was roughly the age of the movie’s protagonist.

I’ll always treasure the scares the film gave me back when I originally saw it and will also treasure this new, crisp and beautiful remastering.

However, I must also be honest and say that while Phantasm delights me for its nostalgic pull which includes the pleasant and scary memories it offers me, I genuinely feel modern audiences may not take to it like I do.  While the film still works as a mad living nightmare, to some it might be a little too slow to bother with.

Sadly, this happens to the best of ’em.