Phantasm (1979)

I watched this movie and a couple of the sequels at least a decade ago, but don't rememner them very well, so I decided to revisit Phantasm. This underrated classic starts off with a couple teenagers messing around in a cemetery, the chick is revealed to be a creepy guy being magically disguised, and she stabs him. Pretty bad ass opening, right? This movie has so many awesome practical effects, crazy sound effects, and foreshadowing. The most brutal kill scene, the first appearance of the orbs, was incredibly well done. This movie definitely has some of the strangest sounds in it, which the closed captions describes as "Warbling". I don't know how accurate that is, but I can't think of a better term. Right off the bat, The Tall Man is very intense and kinda suspicious. But it only gets worse. One thing I love about these movies is the mac n cheese yellow colored blood. I think it was a really interesting color choice, and definitely really solidifies that The Tall Man is far from human. My favorite scene is the scene on the roadside where The Tall Man is walking down the road, stops by the ice cream truck, and stares at Mike through the steam. It's so cool. I also really like use of the moving photograph. I also just love Reggie Bannister, he's a fantastic actor, and playing a slightly warped version of himself was a great role. The ending is absolutely fantastic. You get a very warm fuzzy sense of security, that is then literally shattered and left open ended for the sequel. I think that this cult classic is painfully underrated, and deserves a lot more attention. ~Gangis