Horror Classic?

Though I really enjoy horror movies, I've actually never seen a surprising number of the "classics" in the genre. Recently, I crossed one of the list by watching Phantasm. I didn't really know anything about the story, just an eclectic mess of bits I'd heard about the movie.

As it turns out, the movie really just is an eclectic mess of bits. It's a horror movie made by people that seem to grasp the rough idea of "scary," but are completely incapable of executing it.

The list of concepts in the movie is staggering, particularly when you consider its brief 88 minute run time. You've got an unkillable evil figurehead who commands strange little minions. (Shades of Dracula.) Cut off parts of his body, and they keep on living. (Shades of The Thing -- before John Carpenter brilliantly remade it.) He can come and terrorize you in your dreams. (A few years later, A Nightmare On Elm Street would focus on the concept.) He wants to brainwash you and make you his slave. (Shades of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.) He has a very bizarre and distinct weapon for killing you. (Well, alright, this particular incarnation of that is pretty damn original.)

But the way all this is sewn together in the script and presented on film is just terrible. And I'm not just talking about the tiny budget that shows visible wires on flying puppets, limits the "terrifying" henchman to Jawa-like costumes, or forces actors to engage in pantomime unworthy of high school theater.

The dialogue is cheesy. The camera placement and editing is awkward, sometimes leaving you to wonder if every actor in the movie was fighting with every other actor and refusing to be on set together at the same time. The motivations of characters are incomprehensible. Why does everybody want to keep going back to this creepy mausoleum? Alone? Why is the graveyard such a hot spot to have sex? Why did Frank Herbert not sue them silly for stealing the entire "humanity test" concept from his novel Dune?

And what the hell were they thinking with that ridiculous "it was all a dream -- or was it?!!!" ending?

The movie does manage maybe two or three interesting or suspenseful moments, but none of these are really any triumph of filmmaking. They're more the inevitable lucky result of an approach that throws as much at the wall as possible to see what sticks. Really, it's such a jumbled mess, I can't even see how Hollywood (in its current remake happy mentality) could send someone to go salvage a good new version of this film from the mess.

I rate it a D-, and wonder how in the world this ever came to be considered a "horror classic."