Perguntas frequentes

According to the Webster's New World College Dictionary:

Phantasm: noun 1. a perception of something that has no physical reality; figment of the mind; esp., a specter, or ghost 2. a deceptive likeness 3. PHILOS. a mental impression of a real person or thing

Another definition taken from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

Phantasm: noun 1. Something apparently seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or an apparition. Also called phantasma. 2. An illusory mental image. 3. In Platonic philosophy, objective reality as perceived and distorted by the five senses.

Finally, the Phantasm II trailer features the following definition:

Phantasm: The delusion of a disordered mind. A phantom. A spirit. A ghost.

No. Phantasm, as well as its sequels, is based on an original screenplay penned by writer and director Don Coscarelli.

However, Don Coscarelli's mother, best-selling author Kate Coscarelli, wrote a a novel adaptation based on the script. It was published in a limited edition in 2002 and only 500 copies were produced.

Unfortunately, the novel is currently out of print and there are no plans for a new edition. Also, as only 500 copies were originally made, it is extremely difficult to find one.

From time to time, a copy pops up in eBay or Amazon, or even sold at Horror conventions by members of the cast and crew. Nevertheless, it is very rare and the book is considered a true collector's item.

Anyway, you can read the first 9 chapters online in the following link:

http://www.angelfire.com/wa/realmen87/novel.html

No. The original cut of Phantasm ran about three hours long. It was a mix of many genres featuring a lot of character development, plenty of subplots and The Tall Man did not appear until half and hour into the movie, revealing it as a Horror film.

Realizing that the story needed a faster pace and a more standard duration for theatrical exhibition, Don Coscarelli re-edited the film and cut it down to a final lenght of less than 90 minutes. In the process, almost every character had scenes cut (Mike, Jody, Reggie, The Tall Man, the fortune teller and her granddaughter, Sally and Suzy... etc.) and many subplots were re-worked or entirely removed. This is why the movie has such a disjointed structure with plenty of loose ends, giving it a unique dream-like feel that has become a hallmark of it.

So, in short, a three hours director's cut of Phantasm does not exist as the 90 minutes version released that we all know is Don Coscarelli's final and approved editing.

For information about which were the filming locations for Phantasm, where are they located and how do they look like today, you can read Sean Clark's extensive article about it published in bloody-disguting:

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/article/376

According to the unofficial Phantasm timeline published in The Phantasm Archives website (http://www.phantasmarchives.net/), the movie takes place in late 1978.

For more information, you can read the complete timeline in the following link:

http://www.phantasmarchives.net/timeline.html

The movie never clarifies why everybody in town, even his closest friends, believed without hesitation that Tommy had commited suicide instead of having being murdered. Regarding this, there are two possible explanations:

• Tommy could have actually committed suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach. Actually, this is a kind of ritual suicide in some Eastern countries such as Japan. It is possible (although not very likely) that people would think of suicide as the cause of his death, particularly if no other clues or fingerprints were found near him.

• The Tall Man staged Tommy's death to make it look like a suicide. This way, there would be no evidences or further investigation that could lead to him and uncover his plans. In the realms of the movie, this is the most plausible and logical explanation.

Kate Coscarelli's novel, based on the original screenplay written by Don Coscarelli, definitely confirms this second theory by giving a detailed explanation of what happened: Tommy was found locked in his cellar by his father. Apparently, he had wedged his hunting knife between two boards in the basement wall and then just fell on it. The sheriff only found Tommy's fingerprints in the knife and, as he could have locked himself from the inside, there was no reason to believe that someone had killed him. Therefore, the only logical explanation left was suicide.

In the Phantasmagoria documentary included in the Anchor Bay DVD edition of the Phantasm movies, Angus Scrimm himself states that, when he was younger, his peak height used to be 6' 4'' (1.93 m). It is also explained that, while playing the character, he wore lifts that added 3 inches to his height.

Therefore, The Tall Man is supposed to be around 6' 7" (2.01 m).

Sort of, as this is a matter of discussion. Some fans have pointed out that the dwarf creatures from Phantasm share an uncanny resemblance with the jawas from Star Wars. Others have mentioned that the silver sphere is obviously inspired by the flying sphere that Luke Skywalker uses to train with his lightsaber while blindfolded.

In the Phantasmagoria documentary included in the Anchor Bay DVD edition of the Phantasm movies, writer and director Don Coscarelli states that this is just a twist of fate. When Star Wars premiered on 25th of May 1977, Phantasm was in an early production stage. According to Coscarelli, the next day a member of the crew came to him and told him that he "had seen his guys (the dwarves) in a movie". Greatly concerned, Coscarelli went to the theatre and saw Star Wars to check it out. Apart from loving the movie, he felt relieved as he thought that the dwarves and the jawas were so different from each other that any simmilarity would be considered just a coincidence. He has never stated anything regarding his silver sphere and the flying sphere that Luke uses to train his ability with the Force.

Anyway, it is up to oneself which version of the story you believe. What Coscarelli says sounds reasonable as the script for Phantasm was already written when Star Wars came out. Nevertheless, and being a hardcore Sci-Fi fan, it is not unlikely that Coscarelli could have drawn inspiration from George Lucas and "inserted" it into his own, personal world, specially considering the huge impact that Star Wars had on the audiences at the time.