YMMV / Phantasm

• Alternative Character Interpretation: One for the Tall Man given by Scrimm:
  Scrimm: "The Tall Man is....bored. He's bored. He's been doing the same job for so long. And here comes a boy who will play a fun game. And that's all it is to him, a game. He doesn't think he's killing people. He doesn't get it. There's no life and death to him, really".
• Awesome Music:
  • Fred Myrow and Malcom Seagrave's dark and atmospheric synthesizer score for the first film.
  • The renditions used for the sequels are arguably just as awesome.
  • Have You Seen It?, Reggie's Image Song from the end credits of Oblivion.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Really, Big Lipped Alligator Moments are what this movie and its sequels are all about, and the fourth one goes up to eleven by out-BLAMing even the original.
  • There's a scene in which the fortuneteller's granddaughter goes into the mausoleum, enters the room leading to where the lurkers are made and screams. She's never seen again and her absence is never noticed.
    • Reggie mentions rescuing several girls the Tall Man held prisoner, two of whom he didn't know. Presumably, Crista was one of them.
  • The sequence after Mike is pushed out of the car that seems to imply a psychic connection between him and Jody.
  • The fortuneteller scene itself, which is only there because Coscarelli read Dune.
  • The second movie has a scene where Mike and Reggie encounter a clone of Liz that births a Tall Man clone from its back.
• Complete Monster: The Tall Man is a mysterious, but monstrous, being wearing the skin of a kindly old man named Jebediah Morningside. The Tall Man roams from town to town, leaving death and destruction in his wake for the purpose of creating corpses that he can use in his undead army for eventual world domination. His crimes over the series include repeatedly torturing the young hero Mike, implicitly killing his older brother, Jody, and Mike's girlfriend, and enslaving the former as a golden sphere. He also murders Reggie's innocent family simply to hurt him. When multiple timelines and worlds are revealed to exist, it's shown that in one such world, the Tall Man succeeds in bringing about an apocalypse, having entire cities razed and sets loose a deadly alien plague, killing millions. Though the Tall Man claims human emotions are a waste and beneath him, his cruelty and sadism towards the heroes is exemplified when he describes their encounters as a game, finding Reggie's misery especially amusing.
• Contested Sequel: Each sequel has fallen into this.
  • Phantasm II is either considered an Even Better Sequel for upping the enjoyment and entertainment value with a much faster pace comparable to Evil Dead 2 (it also got a Blu-ray release before the original did), or a poor attempt at mainstreaming the films by stripping away the elusive dream like atmosphere in favor of a more straightforward horror story and the controversial recasting of Mike.
  • Lord of the Dead. Some consider it the last good sequel in the series for its new characters Tim and Rocky, and appreciate the return of Jody via sphere. Others view it as the weakest of the series for not advancing the story by sidestepping Mike and the Tall Man’s conflict in favor of Reggie trying to save Mike, and thought it had too many moments of nothing happening.
  • Oblivion tends to be viewed as the worst of the series for its overuse of deleted footage from the first film to make up for their lack of budget, its slower pace and for not taking advantage of the Tall Man’s origins. At the same time it’s also seen as an improvement over the last 2 sequels for scaling down on the action and comedy in favor of telling a more engaging and creepy story, and felt the insertion of old footage helped tie it to the first film perfectly.
  • Ravager was either the Grand Finale to the series that wrapped everything up perfectly with a tone and story on par with the original, or a convoluted mess that made no sense of what it was doing and asked even more questions.
• Cult Classic: The series as a whole may not be as recognizable as other horror franchises, but it has a very sizable and loyal fanbase that supports it to this day.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Tim and Rocky from Phantasm III are well liked amongst Phantasm fans despite only appearing in one movie. It helps in that Rocky is a badass Action Girl who successfully rejects Reggie’s advances towards her and for being the only female character in the whole series that doesn’t die at the hands of the Tall Man and reappear during the post credit sequence in Ravager, and Tim is often liked for being an aversion of the standard kids in horror films cliché in that he’s resourceful and helpful in the situations he’s in.
• Evil Is Cool: The Tall Man himself. Angus Scrimm's chilling performance and him being an Implacable Man and a Badass in a Nice Suit helps.
• Faux Symbolism: Fans have wondered if there is any deeper significance to having the book My Name is Legion on Mike's desk with the cover prominently displayed in some scenes of Phantasm. Coscarelli says the crew just thought it had a nice cover.
• Foe Yay Shipping: The Tall Man and Reggie. While the Tall Man is primarily focused on Mike, he has had some very interesting moments with Reggie - especially in Phantasm II under his Alchemy guise, where he slept with Reggie.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bubba Ho Tep had Reggie Bannister play an owner of a retirement home. Phantasm: Ravager posits the idea that the entire movie series has been delusions of Reggie, who has been in a retirement home suffering from dementia.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Being about two men in a Cool Car hunting evil, the second film now feels a lot like Supernatural: The Movie.
  • The title of fourth movie: Phantasm IV: Oblivion.
• Hype Backlash: The Phantasm's End script. After years of people talking about it being a fitting Grand Finale to the series, the reception fans gave to it after it leaked online was....lukewarm at best.
• Narm: The whole series is a goldmine of it. Though for many it’s also what gives the series its charm.
• Narm Charm: The sheer bizarre and over-the-top imagery could be seen as this, since the series is supposed to capture the feel of a nightmare.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The original Phantasm predates A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) regarding surreal, nightmare imagery complete with the Tall Man haunting Mike in one of his dreams.
  • The Tall Man himself was the original inter-dimensional traveling demon in a suit. In fact, Victor Surge, the creator of the original Slenderman photos, stated that he used the Tall Man as a template for Slenderman.
• Sequelitis: There are many who felt the sequels beyond the first were unnecessary (and some dislike Phantasm II as well).
• Tear Jerker:
  • The end of the first movie, Mike and Jody had just defeated the Tall Man and you see Mike look up to his brother cheering in victory. Mike then opens his eyes, revealing that perhaps all of the events in the movie were just Mike's dream. Reggie is still alive but Jody had apparently died in reality in a car accident prior to the movie.
  • In the third film, Tim finding the picture of Reggie and his family, who were killed in the previous film. Reggie sees him looking at it, and without a word spoken Tim gets how much it affects him and puts it away.
  • The fate of Jebediah Morningside, who was by all appearances a kind, grandfatherly old man eager to hear all about Mike's interdimensional travels. Mike recognizes him and is too terrified to say anything. The last time he ever sees him, he walks through the gate and comes back out as the Tall Man. Even sadder is that if Mike just told him, then he could have possibly saved both him and the rest of the world.
  • The ending of Oblivion. Mike is mortally wounded and lying on the ground, with Reggie promising to come back to him before chasing after the Tall Man. Dying alone, Mike then dreams of when he was a child, driving with Reggie in the ice cream truck down the street in what was once a happier time.
  • The ending of Ravager. Specifically, the death of Reggie in one universe, dying of dementia with Mike and Jody staying with him until the very end, and then in another universe, being reunited with Mike and Jody and the three driving off together determined to continue fighting the Tall Man. It's not made clear if it's his dying dream or not, but either way, it's a very Bittersweet Ending that solidifies the relationship between the three.
  • Ravager in general has a very somber feeling to it, being the absolute end of a series that spanned for nearly forty years. Don Coscarelli and the actors really put their all into this finale, and you can tell that they really cared about the franchise. And knowing it was Angus Scrimms last time as the Tall Man due to his health can make any seen with the Tall Man feel sad, despite how terrifying of a presence he has.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Tall Man can never be defeated. Every time it seems like he is, he pulls a new power out of his ass to survive. Our heroes have no hope of doing anything but staying ahead of him for a few more seconds.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The first film. Reggie's skullet, Jody's bell-bottoms, the shag carpeting, everyone's luxurious sideburns. Yep, it's The '70s.
• The Woobie:
  • Mike starts off as an Iron Woobie, able to defend himself, but becomes a regular woobie as the series goes on, being kidnapped and tortured by the Tall Man without anyone there to really assist him. He spends much of the fourth movie lamenting the changes he's undergoing and distancing himself from Reggie.
  • Jebediah Morningside. He's only onscreen for a few minutes, but he comes off as a kindly, grandfatherly old man who offers Mike a glass of lemonade and begs him to tell him about his experience with the Dimensional Fork. And since Mike was too scared of him to tell him the truth, there was no more chance for him to be saved from becoming a host to the Tall Man.

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