History Film / Phantasm

* DropTheHammer: Reggie has a sledge hammer with him, [[spoiler:which he uses to kill Jennifer after she turns out to be one of The Tall Man's minions]].

* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler:Liz and Tim.]]

* GrandparentClause: Reggie puts on a milkman's uniform just because that's what he was in the first movie. Just a recognizable homage to the past, iconic for this character.

* GrandparentClause: Reggie puts on a milkman's uniform just because that's what he was in the first movie. Just a recognizable homage to the past, iconic for thic character.

--> Reggie: It's all over.
--> The Tall Man: It's never over.

* Symploce: The little verbal exchange between the Tall Man and Reggie has it:

* GothicHorror: This installment in the series is particularly abundant in this though some occasional gothic elements do spring up across the whole franchise. So, the movie features: a man lost in the Death Valley, chilling in a funeral car during the nighttime, writing a letter in the light of a candelabra. There is also a tophat sporting man called Jebediah who lives almost all by himself in the middle of nowhere in a Victorian house and performs shady experiments.

* Blipvert: The very beginning of the movie.

* DeathBySex: The film opens with Tommy, a friend of Jody and Reggie, getting stabbed by a blonde that he just had sex with.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* NiceHat: Jody's derby hat he wears while playing "Sitting Here at Midnight".

* InvincibleVillain: The Tall Man who simply can't be stopped. Destroy him completely and another identical one will step out of the portal and finish where he left off. This is a common complaint of the series, as there is little point in hoping for the heroes to win. He has tens of thousands of copies of himself, all of which would need to be killed in order to defeat him, and considering how hard it is to kill just one, such a feat would be nigh impossible. It's possible that he ould be killed if his true form in his home dimension could be reached and destroyed, but the place is infested with his minions and his powers are even greater there.

Sixteen years since the release of ''Oblivion'', a fifth film in the series, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1wOobOGa4w Phantasm V: Ravager]]'' was completed and released. It is promoted as the series finale, and features Mr. Scrimm's [[ActorExistenceFailure last performance]] as the Tall Man.

* ''Film/{{Psycho}}'': This is played with in Janet Leigh's death, except the final image is of her hand dragging down a shower curtain.
* Inverted in ''Film/ResidentEvil'', where a hand slamming against the glass is proof that something very bad is about to happen, as the dead scientists in the sealed room [[ZombieApocalypse aren't so dead, after all.]] There's also a scene where ''multiple'' people are trapped in a room filling with gas. Practically all of them are beating against the glass and then having their hands slide down as the slowly succumb.
* ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'': a non lethal version; the camera shows a car in the cargo hold with the windows fogged up. A hand slaps against the glass and slides down. No poison gas; just Jack and Rose engaging in some AutoErotica.