Phantasm: The 4K Experience

Phantasm: The 4K Experience

Yesterday was the first ever "Art House Theater Day", a nation wide event commemorating all of the remaining theaters that cater to the art house crowd. To celebrate theaters all over the country coordinated a screening of the new 4K transfer of Don Coscarelli's brilliant horror film Phantasm (1979) along with a live streamed Q&A with the filmmaker and main cast of the film from fantastic fest in Austin, Texas. This was not only my first time seeing this wonderful film on a big screen, but also the first time any of us have gotten to experience it looking and sounding this incredible.

If you are reading this than you probably know the ins and outs of this movie fairly well, but for those who are unfamiliar Phantasm is a late 70's horror film with heavy fantasy and sci-fi influence. The story centers on Mike (Michael Baldwin), his brother Jody (Bill Thornbury), and Jody's best friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) as they uncover the mysteries of their local mortuary. When their friend Tommy is killed, Mike discovers something weird is going on in that Funeral home and he wants to know what it is. Uncovering the secrets that lie within those walls is made near impossible by the mortician, known only as The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm)

It goes without saying that I, along with countless other horror fans, think this movie is a masterpiece in its own right. So getting the opportunity to see a new 4K transfer on the big screen, at the same time as so many other people who love this movie just as much as I do, was an incredible experience. Revival screenings can be a toss up too, you never know if you are going to get a crowd who loves the film, or a bunch of mean spirited kids looking to laugh at an old movie. Thankfully the crowd I saw it with was totally dialed in and loving the movie. One guy even brought his pre-teen son, who screamed in terror multiple times, to see it for his first time. 

You guys don't care about this though, you want to know about the new transfer, and who can blame you? When we all found out JJ Abrams Bad Robot company was heading up a new 4K transfer of the flick we all simultaneously exclaimed "FINALLY!". With all of these obscure and cult titles getting releases under companies like Arrow and Scream factory we were all wondering why Phantasm hadn't been done yet.

It was all worth the wait, you guys. The new transfer of the film is absolutely gorgeous, get ready to see this movie like you've never seen it before. If you are someone who gets nervous about HD transfers of older horror films, as they can sometime expose things that were never meant to be seen, you can rest easy because this does none of that. From the first shot outside the mortuary where you see Reggie and Jody you can instantly see how great of a job they did cleaning this up. The only shortcomings are a few exterior shots of Mike's home, they must not have had a quality master because those shots are particularly grainy.

One of the aspects of this film that made it so popular in the horror community is its iconic score done by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave. With a new, cleaned up audio track this music is louder and creepier than ever. Hearing that wonderful theme song blare through the speakers was easily a highlight of the night. The cleaned up audio also adds just a little more boom to Angus Scrimm's already bombastic line deliveries, 

Aside from getting to see one of my favorite horror flicks on the big screen I was also fairly intrigued to check out the live streamed Q&A with Don Coscarelli and the original cast after the show. Coscarelli gave some cool insight into how this new transfer came to be, starting with JJ calling him out of the blue one day over a decade ago just to share with him his love for Phantasm. He later came to do the transfer when he wanted to screen the film for his people at Bad Robot and all Don had was a beat up 35mm print or a DVD. Aside from that the crew basically share small factoids that we are mostly already familiar with, like the fact that they shot this movie on weekends over a few years to get it finished.

What really made the brief Q&A a great addition to the screening was hearing them all share some stories about the late Angus Scrimm. Having just passed away earlier this year they all had some really nice things to say about the wonderful actor, especially Coscarelli. Seeing them all pay respects to one of horror greatest icons was an experience I was happy to be able to have. 

If you missed the screening last night, be a little more patient, a Blu-Ray is coming though we still don't have an exact release date. The long awaited fifth movie in the franchise also hits theaters and VOD next week so keep an eye out for that. I know I am more than excited to have the Phantasm franchise be a large part of my Halloween season this year.

As always, thanks for reading and I am Zach Who Watches Movies. You can find me anytime on twitter @ZachWWMovies, smell ya later!