The Phantasm franchise expands in the pages of a new book.
PHICTION: TALES FROM THE WORLD OF PHANTASM by Don Coscarelli
With the 1979 film Phantasm, writer/director Don Coscarelli delivered one of the greatest horror movies ever made – and over the course of four sequels, he (with help from David Hartman on the last one) built a fascinating, mind-bending mythology while showing us a world populated by awesome hero characters, undead dwarves, zombie lackeys, and an evil, shape-shifting, inter-dimensional traveller known as The Tall Man. Coscarelli had apocalyptic ambitions for his franchise; he always intended for it to be bigger than it ever managed to be. Multiple further installments were developed only to be scrapped for a variety of reasons: lack of funding, creative differences, etc. When Angus Scrimm, who played The Tall Man in all of the films, passed away in 2016, it also brought the Phantasm franchise to an end... at least, when it comes to movies. But now Coscarelli has decided to start fleshing out the world of Phantasm some more with the book Phiction: Tales from the World of Phantasm, which is the best decision he could have possibly made. You don’t need a budget to write a story out in prose, and characters can live forever on the page, no matter what age the actor is. Or even if they’re no longer with us.
What can be found in Phiction isn’t one of the epic Phantasm tales that Coscarelli had in mind but could never fully bring to the screen. Instead, this is a collection of six short stories that are set within the franchise, each one focusing on a different character.
Life and Death in the ‘Nam is a prequel story, taking us back to 1968 to give a glimpse into heroic ice cream man Reggie’s time serving in the Vietnam War – and revealing that while Reggie was in Vietnam, he had a supernatural experience long before The Tall Man ever came into his life. This action-packed war story finds Reggie coming face-to-face with a deceptive (and shape-shifting) spirit known as the ma đói, which is a being straight out Vietnamese folklore. Knowing Reggie had this experience, it’s no surprise that he proved to be so capable at handling the threats The Tall Man would throw at him. This story even gives a source of inspiration for Reggie’s famous four-barrel shotgun.
Behind the Mortuary Door gives the back story on the Caretaker character from the original Phantasm, the first person to ever fall victim to one of the franchise’s iconic silver spheres, which smacked into his forehead and drilled into his skull while spewing his blood all over the floor. Coscarelli tells us exactly how the Caretaker came to serve The Tall Man – and gave him a much more emotional, human history than I expected.
He Was Home Alone centers on a character that Coscarelli always wanted to revisit, but never had the opportunity to: the little kid Tim from Phantasm III, who had deadly ways of protecting himself and his home in a world that was falling apart. This story catches up with Tim during the time he was alone in the world, after The Tall Man caused the deaths of his parents, and shows him getting a visit from people who are not nice to have around. This story reads like it could have been a Phantasm side story sequel all in itself... but, of course, Scrimm isn’t around for the moments when The Tall Man appears, and Tim would need to be recast, since thirty years have gone by since the release of Phantasm III. So this will never make it to the screen, but least we get to enjoy it on the page.
Tobe follows a minor character from the original film, and it turns out that he was lurking on the edge of several scenes we didn’t see him in. It’s fun to imagine that Tobe was just off screen during certain moments and/or moving through rooms right after the main characters have gone through them, but the timeline of this story seems to condense the events of Phantasm down into a smaller window of time than it took for them to play out in the movie.
The Rocky Road revisits the fan favorite, ass-kicking character Rocky from Phantasm III, explaining what she experienced in this Tall Man-ravaged world before she crossed paths with Reggie. And yes, that experience involves her kicking some ass, while also falling in love and discovering the existence of those undead dwarf creatures.
Things wrap up with a story called Escape from New York, which grew out of an idea Coscarelli had for the opening sequence for a potential Phantasm 6, a project he set aside when Scrimm passed away. At the center of this one is the character Chunk, who came into the picture in the fifth (and final) film, Phantasm: Ravager. Honestly, I haven’t watched Phantasm: Ravager enough – and it’s been so long since I’ve watched it at all – to have much memory of Chunk, but the character comes off very well in this story. The Tall Man apocalypse has hit New York, a large portion of the population has been killed off by the “bag plague,” giant spheres are blasting down skyscrapers – and Chunk heads out into the countryside with a trio of kids he rescues. Only to find trouble of a different sort out there.
Throughout the book, Coscarelli drops in “author’s note” chapters where he lets us know why and how he was inspired to write each one of these stories, and I always appreciate getting a chance to look behind the curtain to find out background information on the stories I’m reading. The book also starts with a preface written by author Joe R. Lansdale, whose stories Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and Bubba Ho-tep were brought to the screen by Coscarelli.
I had a great time reading Phiction, and it’s encouraging to see that not only does this book have “Book One” attached to its title, but Coscarelli even teases the possibility of a “Book Two” at the end. The movies are over, but I would love to see him continue to dig into the world of Phantasm with a series of Phiction books.
No comments:
Post a Comment