A place for those who "Trust the Fungus"

Phantasm: The disorder of a delusional mind.

1. A figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition.
2. A Phantom.

With the upcoming return of director Don Coscarelli and his adaptation of David Wong's award winning novel "John Dies at the End," I thought now would be a good time to talk about his most famous films... the "Phantasm" series.

The first film, "Phantasm" debuted in 1979, and was about a young boy and his older brother and their friend Reggie-- an ice cream vendor, who begin to be stalked by a strange man, a tall man who works by day as a mortician and spends his nights doing something out of this world. It was a science fiction film cleverly marketed as a horror film and it's been a major influence on movies like "Hellraiser."

The second film came out in 1988 and continued the story of the Tall Man and how he's ravaging the state of Oregon, doing unspeakable things laying entire towns to waste. The third film in 1994 in the series shows us a little bit more about our tall friend and in 1998 the fourth and presumably (but hopefully not) final film came out direct to video. All of them star Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man, a menacing, seven foot undertaker who can warp time and space at will and enslaves the bodies of the dead for his own personal army. It was an interesting take on the zombie genre, without being a zombie film itself.

It's lead to many inspired pieces of media, most notably the "Slender Man" mythos, which is about a similar tall man with similar abilities. Has anyone seen any of these movies? They're actually pretty fantastic!

Oh i love the Phantasm movie series, Tallman's one of my favorites. Ive heard that they are still planning to make a 5th movie, honestly i think the next Phantasm should be the origin of the Tallman, we got a brief glimse of that in the 4th one and i like to know more about him in a future movie, what exactly turned him from a warm hearted doctor into a ruthless killing machine.

Well, it's interesting you would say that. Roger Avary, who won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for "Pulp Fiction" and later went on to write the adaptation of "Silent Hill" for the big screen wrote a screenplay for a fifth Phantasm film entitled "Phantasm Ends," which would have had the Tall Man completely taken over the United States with the exception of New York and LA and everywhere in between is known as the "plague zone," and our tall friend would have his base of operations in the Great Mormon Mausoleum in Utah, where he'd be pumping out all sorts of wicked creatures for Reggie and Mike to fight.

They also wanted Bruce Campbell to play a part in the movie and it would have featured him invading the Tall Man's "red planet." The script fell through when the studio wanted too much money for it and no one would finance it, though. However, Angus Scrimm, A. Michael Baldwin and Reggie Bannister have all been aching to do a new "Phantasm" for years-- and with Angus playing the demon king "Korruk" in "John Dies at the End," I'd say we're probably looking at one more Phantasm after.

SlashFilm posted an article about the release of the Phantasm V trailer, which reminded me of this topic.

Hopefully it proves interesting to some of the fans who have discussed it in the past. Does it sound like a respectable continuation of the series?

Whoa, whoosajigawut-- Phantasm 5 is actually happening?!

The article says that the film was shot on and off over the past couple years with franchise regulars Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury and Kat Lester all returning.

Don Coscarelli is not directing the entry, although he did co-write and "oversaw" the film.

This is the most well-kept secret in movie history, then. Every interview I've ever seen with Angus, Reggie, Michael and Don (even those interviews within the last two years) they've all said the same thing: "Phantasm V will never happen."

If Don's not directing, he must be paying for the film personally out of pocket. That makes sense, I guess, it sounds like something he'd do.