The Phantasm 5 Disc Boxset

This fully-loaded bonus disc from Anchor Bay has these very generous additional featurettes!

Phantasmagoria:

Everything you ever wanted to know about Phantasm is right here in this 97-minute feature, with interviews from writer/director Don Coscarelli, producer Paul Pepperman, actors Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, A Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury.

The inspirations, the studio politics, the filming, the SFX, the brilliant score and the characters are all discussed in great length and detail and if you're into these films, you'll totally love it. All of the interviewees have perfect recollection of most of the events, dating as far back as 28 years ago. Especially interesting is Coscarelli's explanations of the evolution of the story as the series progressed and anything the elegant and classy Scrimm says is like listening to an old English professor read poetry from a book, even if he is talking about an inter-dimensional grave-robbing Tall Man.

If only all film documentaries were this way, instead of the usual promotional fluff rubbish, eh?

Phantasmagorical Mystery Tour:

Twenty-eight years after the first Phantasm movie was made, nothing much has changed in the fictional small town, where the Tall Man started pillaging graves. Reggie Bannister hosts the feature and takes us to the house where Mike and Jodie lived (which still looks pretty much the same) to sit on the front porch and reminisce about the good times he had strumming on his guitar with Jodie. Then he visits the fortune teller's house, the graveyard (actually a park) and to the place that was supposed to be the entry gates to Morningside Cemetery.

Reggie's an excellent host and has a good memory of the stories and the history of the area. I would have liked to see more, like in which town they filmed Main Street, or the mansion that doubled as the Mausoleum (which was also Tanya Robert's house in A View To A Kill) but it's still a nice little feature.

Phantasm Genesis:

This one is pretty damn boring and features loads of amateur production footage from a number of different angles. Only a serious geek would be interested in this, but it's nice to have.

Nicotero The Gory Days:

Greg Nicotero describes how he was working on Evil Dead II at the time he was hired to do make-up effects for Phantasm II. He then goes into detail about the various methods and inventions he used to help make the movie. Interesting for make-up geeks.

Phandom:

An interesting featurette about fans of the first movie who loved it so much that they practically demanded to be involved in the making of the sequels. Scrimm also tells of how he has been listed in a British Film Institute movie book as a "minor horror icon", even though he feels like he should be a "fair to middling" one.

Footage of Don, Reg and Mike with the fans is also featured.

In closing, this is a great box set and well worth the money. But there is a different box set out there that has more features on it. A 6-DVD set from XT Video is only available online that includes 4 Radio Spots, a one hour 1979 Interview With George Capewell And Don Coscarelli And Angus Scrimm, the very, very cool Phantasm Disco Theme, Bill Thornbury's Sittin' Here At Midnight song, a two hour Phantasm II Behind The Scenes, a one hour Phantasmania Convention Footage, a Phantasm II Workprint that lasts for 106 minutes and a Phantasm III Workprint on top of all the extras featured in the region 2 Anchor Bay set.

If you also own the OOP region 1 DVD from MGM, then hang on to it, instead of selling it for mere pennies (like I stupidly did) because there are features on it that still do not appear on Anchor Bay's region 2. I wonder why they didn't go the whole way.