Man the Tall man really scared me as a kid.! The scarier shit is that he looked like the Preacher from Poltergeist II once I got older!!!

Your right about the time capsule aspect. Especially with the first and second movies. Ah, nostalgia.

If you watch them all close together you really get a sense of the passage of time. Not just in the atmosphere or in what the movie trends were in the 70's, 80's, 90's, and 2010's but the same actors, for 37 years! When the first one came out I was a little bit younger than 1979 Mike and when the last one came out I was a little bit younger than 1979 Tall Man.

That sounds like a truly magical experience to have met the man himself! :D I always got the impression that he was a pleasant fellow even though I know him mostly for his Tall Man character. He just has one of those faces that seem to echo his gentlemanly disposition. I would've loved to have met him if only just to tell him thank you for all of his work and for giving us such a unique and interesting character. Being able to hear him sing no less must have been quite the treat. I'm very glad you had that experience with him. :)

Awesome! Thanks for sharing that!

@@loneronin6813 The behind the scenes video on the last Pantasm film confirm exactly what you typed. A wonderful man! I'm so glad he got to see what was close to a final cut, before he passed away. He was totally still on his game, too!

@@voronOsphere I agree, I'm glad he was able to see the full fruition of his work in his lifetime. I have no doubt that he was a class act and a wonderful human being. This is mostly unrelated, but I remember hearing once that with the success of Silence of the Lambs Sir Anthony Hopkins would go to see it in theatres and sit in the audience during the viewing just to see audience reactions and there was one instance where he even whispered some of the lines to someone sitting in the row just below his lol I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it brings a really funny image to mind for me XD

@@loneronin6813 That would be creepy to hear behind you in the theater! Anthony Hopkins is another class act!

The next best line in Sci fi ,horror is when Pinhead told Kirsten "if you deceive us again, your suffering will be legendary even in hell"!!!

@@eac1235I was always a fan of “No.” “No?” “No. It is not hands that call us. It is, desire.” Or the ever popular, “Jesus wept.”

Thats the cycle of life

His role as the Tall Man is legendary.

Brighton theater had a ton of us kids scared from him lol

My oldest is 20 and his brother is almost 18 .....they are still scared of the Tallman. So am I come to think of it!!! Lol

no doubt. me too.

@shadowimp401 Either way said Eldritch entity only viewed Morningside as the perfect host and not some other creepy mortician/serial killer/psychopath? Or is it ol' Jeb was the only human to ever cross the dimension?

They are pretty awesome!

Great comment!!

I'd remake this franchise with The Undertaker as the Tall Man.

Same

At 7:20 the narration says one of his greatest powers is trickery. I can believe it

Also, Mike is always shown working on the car during the first movie. Perhaps this is part of his delusion trying to fix the car and prevent his brother's death. Also, if Jody died in a car crash, how is the Cuda still there? Then again, the ending of the movie revealing that Jody died never sat well with me. For one, the movie narratively falls apart at that point. Also, it robbed the brothers of their victory. It also conflicts with certain things in the movie and especially the novelization. Jody mentions that he's going to dump Mike off on their aunt. In the novelization, she is detailed more, as someone who doesn't approve of Mike living with Jody, as she thinks he's not responsible enough. There's no way she'd let him live with Jody's hippie ice cream friend. There also the fact that this ending, after the Tall Man's defeat, was filmed a year after the filming was originally complete, as an afterthought. You can see that Mike's actor has grown a couple inches in that scene, as well as Angus' hair being shorter after having been cut in the interim.

That's a pretty great theory! I completely believe that Phantasm is a loop created by Mike, because in a theory of mine I point out that in the first movie The Tall Man is just Mike's fever dream of death, a grave robbing mortician that controls the undead, but outside of Mike's dream The Tall Man is not only real but beyond space time in a similar fashion to lovcraftian horrors, and conducting a test to create human predecessors, Mike being a successful one. The 4th movie is in perfect parallel to the first movie, literally two sides of the same coin, the beginning, and the end. In the first film Mike didn't create The Tall Man from his dream, The Tall Man already existed before then and invaded Mike's dream, (similar to how Freddy Krueger would) Mike created The Tall Man by traveling to the past in the 4th movie, meeting Jebediah gave him motivation to continue his research on the dimensional fork, If Mike didn't try to stop The Tall Man in the past Jebediah's research would have failed, but because Jebediah saw Mike and realized that he was from the future he continued, eventually becoming The Tall Man. After Jebediah steps back out as The Tall Man Mike was the first sign of The Tall Man's successful experiment, it was the sphere within Mike's head, that's what makes The Tall Man smirk and say "And so it begins." Because that was the realization of successfully creating a human predecessor in the future. The Sphere in The Tall Man's hand was silver here. And the Sphere The Tall Man had at the end was golden. I believe the silver sphere was Jebediah, and the golden sphere was obviously Mike's. I could elaborate a lot more on this theory but it's quite a long one. Overall I agree on the ending of Phantasm 4 being a nice fit to the ever so vague thought provoking world of Phantasm, that tells an interesting story of dealing with the death of loved ones.

Here's another theory. Mike was in the car and also died. The movie is his coming to grips with both his and Jody' deaths, so that he can pass on. The Tall Man is Death, perhaps not a malicious figure in reality, but one that Mike views as an antagonist, and so he appears so in the movie. He first has to accept that Jody died, which he can't throughout the movie. Once he is able to conquer Death by beating the Tall Man, however, he is able to accept Jody's death, as which point Death, as the Tall Man, can finally claim Mike.

@@Blackferret66 There are so many creative theories people come up with, I love reading all of them! One day I'd like to create the "god equation theory" equivalent of a Phantasm theory, a theory that connects them all from the tiniest and biggest details of each movie. I have most of it already but I am missing a few important reasons.

I bought the bluray set with ball a couple years ago and I don't even take it out of the box usually. !!! Lol

I had forgotten about that scene and the connection to dune.

And also the Dunes Cantina that Jodie visits frequently in the 1st movie.

As soon as I saw that scene I thought of Dune. It was either a blatant rip off or a blatant homage, either way it doesn't bother me. However when the first movie came out, it was before even David Lynch's movie, so unless you read the book, you would not catch it. I think Coscarelli did not think many people would catch it.

Absolutely

That acronym is meaningless. Spell it out, not everything need to be an acronym.

Yes! I had to go back and listen to that bit twice! 😆😆

I kind of agree with you. The Tall Man is (imo) the quintessential character to embody the phrase. "Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back." He kept going and going, pushing the very boundaries of life and death. I do not however believe that Jedediah was replaced as the video suggested. But rather haunted or possessed by some specter of death itself. Being granted some form of Omniscience by which he was able to relocate his mind and consciousness into another Tall Man. If you look at V. While I have to agree it was fanservice it was needed. It answered old questions and like every other title. It raised new ones.

​@@turtlekappa7141 Precisely, I agree. I'm going to go ahead and throw my own theory out there for anyone to read, It's long so beware! Whatever entity The Tall Man is is omnipresent and capable of transcending time and space (as he told Mike in 3) so Mike and even Liz supports that The Tall Man conducted his own experiments on the minds of mankind. And V shows this when Reggie wakes up strapped to a smaller dimensional fork. This theory also supports your opinion that Jebediah hasn't been replaced, because The Tall Man also finds amusement and shows interest in the differences of the human mind, It's that same curious personality Jebediah had that led him into creating the dimensional fork in the first place. In V The Tall Man even asks Reggie why he cares about Mike so much, which shows that even a (possibly all-knowing) omnipresent being such as The Tall Man doesn't understand why Reggie isn't overtaken by fear or doesn't give up like the rest, so Reggie is kept alive for The Tall Man's amusement and curiosity. Whatever The Tall Man's plan for mankind is seems to revolve around killing them then reviving them and placing their brains into Sentinel Spheres and undead husks to create more, eventually turning humanity into immortal beings overtime. The only way to do this seems to only be through death, which explains why in 2 he says "You think that when you die you go to heaven? You go to US." Now hear me out with this one, in 3 Mike and The Tall Man were shown to be more connected to each other than we realized, from The Tall Man explaining to Mike what their powers can do, what they are capable of to saying exactly this word for word. "Let me release you from this imperfect flesh that ties you to time and space, all that is unknown will be known to you, once more." Implying that once upon a time Mike was all knowing, or simply had more knowledge before he was born into the world as flesh. This is where my reincarnation theory steps in. In 4 when Mike had that strange nightmare of himself as a dead soldier in some War setting being operated on by The Tall Man, I believe this wasn't simply a nightmare, but a memory of Mike's past self being experimented on. The scene was short but whatever The Tall Man did to Mike's brain as that dead soldier is what made it possible for Mike to obtain his powers. The Tall Man successfully reincarnated this metaphysical gold sphere through flesh, thus allowing a mortal to transcend time and space. So that explains why The Tall Man seems almost proud of Mike like a father would, and doesn't wish to harm him, and even tries to teach Mike in 3 to "use his head" calling him and only him "boy" like a father would to a son, as if The Tall Man is trying to show human affection to Mike, testing him and trying to get him to realize his own powers. Failing to do so in 4 The Tall Man begins to take the gold sphere from Mike's head by force, while looking visibly disappointed, and even raising his voice to Reggie in V saying "He is MINE." Referring to Mike. Both Mike and The Tall Man have yellow blood with gold spheres within their heads, this shows that Mike was once the same entity as The Tall Man, neither of them are tied to time and space because of it, and The Tall Man wants Mike to realize this. This immortal, metaphysical, time-space transcending golden sphere may very well be the power source, without it the body is just a vessel. This could even explain Liz's psychic connection to Mike and The Tall Man in 2 (casting demands aside) Liz could very well be another type of experiment, since The Tall Man was revealed to only want her head at the beginning of 3, and since she didn't have yellow blood like Mike and The Tall Man she wasn't as successful, but still useful to further improve the Sentinels in 3. If you read this far, thanks. You MUST be a Phantasm phan.

my interpretation is that he's still Jebediah Morningside, and that the Red Planet is Earth from the future. A wasteland covered in fossils. The ultimate cemetery. Jebediah knows that humanity will ultimately die out no matter what, so he decides to accelerate the process and wipe it out, because he is after all an undertaker.

@@DarthRushy Well in the first Phantasm The Tall Man was simply a depiction of the fear of death, as explained by Angus himself in an interview, sort of like the grim reaper. So that's his original idea. But, in the sequels Don Coscareli added more depth to him. I personally don't think The Tall Man needs a bigger plan to be an effective antagonist, the fact that he exist just to be an antagonist suits him quite well I think. So him just simply being an undertaker is a nice way to see it too!

@@baruchbelmont5821 He can be a metaphor for lots of things, whilst still having a concrete background (which leaves plenty open to the imagination - like what happened to him after he stepped through the fork for the first time!)

Unfortunately, we won't, considering that Angus Scrimm has since passed away

@@karlsmith2570 mark margolis would make a pretty good replacement

@@Rame2404 never heard of him

@@karlsmith2570 google him. he was in shows like breaking bad, gotham and the pilot episode of snowpiercer

It doesn’t need a conclusion, I feel. Watch the first film, the perfect template: the CRUCIAL design element is that there IS no ending. That feeling of “incompletion” is actually Phantasm’s greatest element.

You need serious money for a genuine one, even more for a convertible!

Which came out first, the film or comics? One might have inspired the other

@@majordbag2 phantasm came out first, I think the comics came out in the 90s

Yep. The Lady in Lavender is an alter ego of his, yes.

My reply keeps getting deleted. The point being that the "and even" is redundant unless you're implying something. It gets less and less funny the more you have to try and second guess whatever algorithm is running here.

Bad scripting. Don't over think it or fall into the trap of being overly sensitive.

Jeez man, don't be so sensitive, would you think the same if he had said instead "He does this by transforming and shapeshifting into other people and even blacks."? No, right? There you go.

@@Pacopacotepaquete As I said, it got less funny as you have to tippy toe around algorithms. And yes, I'd have thought the same.

The 80s/90s works of Brian Yuzna also need more love...Bride Of Reanimator, Society, Return Of The Living Dead 3 is a triple whammy to 2die4...

I liked the second film, even if James LeGros plays a rather different Mike compared to Michael Baldwin.

Plus a damn cool bloke!

Does tall man have kids

After seeing The Mortuary Collection I think Clancy Brown would be perfect.

@Nada True but he's already played a Iconic horror villain if he plays the Tall man I might only see him as Candy man 8(.

No one else can ever be the Tall Man. No one.

My top 10 Nicolas Cage movies 1. Raising Arizona 2. The Rock 3. Fast Times At Ridgemont High 4. Mandy 5. Kick-ass 6. Color Out Of Space 7. Con-Air 8. 8mm 9. Face/Off 10. National Treasure

Heard that too. I was like "Now wait a second there...."

He and Pinhead are the 2 greatest ever. Not even all the versions of Dracula compare.

Dude!! That shotgun is legendary, I've never seen or heard of anything like it since. It makes me wonder if it was invented just for the movie, hella cool tho.