On clear days I can see
Green acres far below,
And the red roof where I
Was Little Trinculo.
There lies that solid world
These hands can never reach;
My history, my love,
Is but a choice of speech,
A terror shakes my tree,
A flock of words fly out,
Whereas a laughter shakes
The busy and devout.
Wild images, come down
Out of your freezing sky.
That I, like shorter men.
May get my joke and die.
— Trinculo, in W. H. Auden’s The Sea and the Mirror
I don’t enjoy panning films that others revere. There’s no percentage in it. I’m not the guy who tries to be edgy or cool by telling you he dislikes something that everyone else loves.
But I do need to tell you that I think that “Phantasm” (1979) is a bad movie. I’d rate it a 3 out of 10, based on some interesting ingredients, but I suspect that even that is a bit generous. I finally managed to make it through its entire running time tonight, and it feels amateurish on every level.
It’s poorly scripted, directed and edited, with performances that are nearly all quite bad. The first exception here is A. Michael Baldwin, who was a decent child actor when this movie was made, and who was quite likable as the story’s adolescent protagonist. The second exception, I suppose, is “The Tall Man” himself, Angus Scrimm, the deep-voiced and admittedly unsettling big-bad.
There’s really only one other positive thing I can say about the movie — it has a damned good set design for its mausoleum. (Somewhat confusingly, the film suggests this is located … inside the funeral home itself? Is that a thing in some places? I honestly don’t know.) The set is simultaneously beautiful and frightening, with symmetrical hallways of contrasting white and red — the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a Stanley Kubrick film. I can’t escape the suspicion that it was somehow pilfered from a far better film.
And I do understand the unconscious appeal of “Phantasm’s” story. We see an adolescent boy who has lost his parents team up with his likable older brother to fight mysterious monsters at their local funeral home. They enlist the aid of the brother’s guitar-playing, everyman best friend, they use everyday weapons like guns and knives, and they bond over the shared experience. It’s a tailor-made, understandable power fantasy for any adolescent boy first grasping adult concepts of death and mortality.
But … those things aren’t enough to redeem the film. In my opinion, it’s bad enough to be a candidate for the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” treatment.
Hey — what do I know? Your mileage may vary. “Phantasm” has a cult following in the horror community, and spawned no fewer than four sequels. (The latest, “Phantasm: Ravager,” was released just three years ago.) You might enjoy it, or you might need to watch it out of curiosity, as I did.
Charlton Comics.
Give me my passage home, let me see that harbour once again, just as it was before I learned the bad words. Patriarchs wiser than Abraham mended their nets on the modest wharf; white and wonderful things undressed on the sand dunes; sunset glittered on the plate-glass windows of the Marine Biological Station; far off on the extreme horizon, a whale spouted. Look, Uncle, look. They have broken my glasses and I have lost my silver whistle. Pick me up, Uncle; let little Johnny ride away on your massive shoulders to recover his green kingdom, where the steam rollers are as friendly as the farm dogs …
— excerpt from W. H. Auden’s The Sea and the Mirror
“Lighthouse near Westkapelle,” Piet Mondrian, 1910
The good folks over at Haikuniverse have kindly published the haiku I wrote about that pissy robin in my backyard! 🙂
You can find it right here:
“Sullen Robin Haiku,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Oil on canvas.
Rest easy, Tim Conway (1933-2019).
Oil on canvas.
I’m arriving at the opinion that Jared Harris is one of the finest actors working today. His performance in last year’s “The Terror” was nothing short of beautiful. So I tuned in the other night to the first episode of HBO’s “Chernobyl” miniseries, in which he is the protagonist.
I wasn’t disappointed. “Chernobyl” is gripping. I’m no expert about the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union, but this certainly comes across like a meticulous historical adaptation. But what’s surprising is how its smart, relatively spare script moves so quickly and so adeptly incorporates the human horror of the event. (After a brief prologue with Harris’ voiceover, the story begins almost immediately with the accident occurring.) The plot points that follow are by necessity mostly technical. But the pitch-perfect writing here makes the story quite easy to follow.
It’s gut-wrenching stuff — made even more frightening by the Soviet administrators who cared little about whether the power plant’s workers died an agonizing death. It’s the kind of story that would be frightening even if it were pure fiction. But the program’s authenticity and attention to detail are constantly present to remind you that it is not.
There’s some impressive camera work, too — especially the final shot, which will feel like a punch in the stomach.
I’d rate this a 9 out of 10, and I highly recommend it.
Oil on canvas.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 