VeganMoFo: Phantasm

The plot for Phantasm sounds so ridiculous when you describe it: flying spheres that drill into your brain? A creepy tall guy, who can make you see things that aren’t really there, snatches corpses so he can shrink them down and send them to his home planet to work as slaves? What?

Yes, the premise is pretty silly sounding, but the Phantasm series has several things going for it.

1. Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man. He is TERRIFYING just being him! He towers over everyone and always looks like he just sucked on twenty evil lemons.
2. The shrunken former dead people are creepy, shuffling about in their tiny brown robes like the Jawas in Star Wars.
3. Unlike most series where at least one actor wants nothing to do with the following movies, all of the cast members reprise their roles (except for the second one, where the studio made the director recast the role of Mike for a better-known actor). For me, that is really important because I usually can’t handle it when movies or tv shows try to pull a Darren. Don’t ever get me started on that Katee Sackhoff/Rose McGowan switch on Nip/Tuck.

The four movies are all kind of the same in that the main characters are Mike and Reggie, and they are trying to stop the Tall Man from doing what he’s doing, stealing corpses and killing people and being a creepy old bastard. So unlike other horror series, instead of a different group of people going through the same situation over and over again against the same antagonist, this is a whole story in four parts.

Fun fact: Angus Scrimm is 6’4″, but to look even taller for this role he wore suits that were too small and platform shoes.

While no one in this movie ever got famous, Angus Scrimm has had a decent career and Reggie Banister (who plays…Reggie) is a Scream King if there ever was one.

We’re going balls-out for this menu! Instead of three courses, you can just have plates of balls as far as the eye can see, and people can take whichever ones they want. One thing that would help you with this is if you had the Panda With Cookie zine, Ballin’ and Baggin’.

Savory balls: Mushroom Rice Balls, Carrot Oatmeal Balls, Swedish Meatballs, Cheeze Ball to be eaten with crackers.
Sweet Balls: Sweet like Hannah Truffles, Besan Laddoo, Buckeye Balls, Raw Pumpkin Donut Holes, Coconut Almond Rum Balls, Granola Balls, and Ice Cream Balls for Reggie, the ice cream man.

posted: 11 October 30
under: veganmofo