There are many horror directors who have made a mark in the
genre with a vast legacy of films like Wes Craven and John Carpenter and David
Cronenberg.
Unlike those influential and
profound directors, the there is a name that is just as profound but maybe a
little less known which is that of writer/director Don Coscarelli.
Most audiences know him for either
Phantasm (1979) or for his more recent
cult favorite
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) but
he is a director whose small catalog of films have been diverse in genre and
subject matter.
1976 saw the release of two of Coscarelli’s first
features. One, Jim, The World’s Greatest I still have yet to see. It hasn’t been given a full DVD or Blu-ray
release yet. The most important thing to
know is that Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm starred in this film and these
would be two actors that Coscarelli would call upon time and time again. The second was Kenny & Company, which is readily available and stars a young
A. Michael Baldwin, who would later make up the triumvirate of stars to make
the Phantasm franchise one of the
most popular in horror history. Kenny & Company is the story of two
twelve year old’s days of enjoying life and growing up while learning some of
life’s many lessons. It’s a very well
done coming of age story that shows Coscarelli’s strengths with a very young
cast.
Three years later Coscarelli would unleash upon the world a
nightmarish vision of a young boy whose world is turned upside down when death
comes calling in the guise of boogeyman simply call The Tall Man.
Phantasm was unlike anything audiences
had seen before.
A nightmare that
neither the characters nor audiences could wake up from.
The Tall Man, as played by Angus Scrimm, was
a figure unlike Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.
The Tall Man was inhuman and from possibly a
different dimension and worst part about him is that he was unstoppable and
unkillable no matter what you did to him.
Phantasm would catapult Coscarelli and
take him into another world with his next film –
The Beastmaster (1982).
The Beastmaster is
not your typical follow-up to a successful indie horror film as it is an epic
fantasy with a main character that can communicate with animals. Having dealt with children in his previous
two films Coscarelli decided to take on the next biggest hassle with
film-makers which are animals and there are plenty of them in this film. Television actor Marc Singer was tapped to
star as Dar, the Beastmaster, which he would resume for two sequels and the
television series (albeit a different character) which would be one of his most
iconic characters next to that of his character in the television series “V” (the original mini-series and its
sequel “The Final Battle” and the ongoing series). Coscarelli got to work with an accomplished
group of actors with Tanya Roberts, Rip Torn, and John Amos. Although Coscarelli did not have a say in how
this franchise would ultimately develop after he departed, he wouldn’t allow
that to happen to his first major success therefore when given a major studio
and budget provided by Universal he stepped back into the nightmare world of
The Tall Man with Phantasm II (1988).
Phantasm II was a
new nightmare as young Mike has now grown up and been obsessed with finding and
destroying The Tall Man.
This time
around Mike is played by the “studio approved” actor James Le Gros instead of
A. Michael Baldwin who originated the role.
A different actor may have taken over for Mike but all the rest of the
original cast (that are still alive) returns with a bunch of new faces to be
terrorized.
This film was just as dark
as the original but contains better make-up effects and more action.
This was less a moody horror film like the
original but that didn’t diminish the film’s impact on audiences.
A franchise was born and The Tall Man would
continue to haunt audiences’ nightmares for more films to come.
Coscarelli’s next film would be a film about survival and a
more realistic nightmare in Survival
Quest (1988). Lance Henriksen leads
a group of city slickers into the mountain wilderness at the same time as a
military group with opposing ideals.
When one of the military group is killed they blame it on Henriksen’s
group who is then forced to get his group to safety before they get killed one
by one. This is an adventure film of man
against man and man against nature. A very
good film that shows that Coscarelli can navigate an adventure film alongside a
horror film. This is a film that was
generally ignored by everyone despite some fine direction and performances. It would also be Coscarelli’s final
non-horror film as he would then focus only on horror films which generated his
biggest successes.
After the dismal returns of both
Survival Quest and
Phantasm
II (whose cult audience would continue to grow), Coscarelli would have
trouble getting his next few films off the ground.
Fortunately,
Phantasm would be the one property he could get money for albeit at
a reduced budget.
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) would ultimately go straight
to video but that would be a good thing as Coscarelli would have complete
control of the franchise.
A. Michael
Baldwin would return as Mike as well as Bill Thornbury as Jody, Mike’s older
brother (who was absent in the previous film).
This film would bring back the entire original family from the first
film and would be what fans were waiting for.
The
Phantasm franchise has
never been one easily understood as it asks more questions than it answers and
that would not change with this film.
One added element to the franchise would be more humor.
Bannister’s character of Reggie usually
carried most of the comedy in the previous films but it is spread across
several supporting characters in this film as if Coscarelli was designing this
film to be more fun and less horrifying (I mean by film three I doubt The Tall
Man is as scary as he used to be).
There
are new creatures in the film and Coscarelli reveals more of the world as the
audience learns about everything as the characters do.
This film would do excellent business on
video which would make getting the next film in the franchise off the ground a
bit easier.
Phantasm IV: Oblivion
(1998) would see life straight to video four years after the previous
film.
Although armed with an even
smaller budget than the last film Coscarelli came up with a brilliant idea for
the film which was to utilize unused footage from the original film.
He would splice this with a story that would
reveal the true nature of The Tall Man in order for Mike to finally find a way
to destroy him.
This film is not as
exciting and action packed as previous films in the franchise but it does try
hard to answer the big questions that audiences have had since the first film
was released and it continues to world build.
Unfortunately, for fans at least, the film ends with even more questions
than answers as if it was just a prelude to something bigger which is what
Coscarelli always intended.
Oblivion was intended to be a bridge for
an even larger film to end the franchise but as of yet that film hasn’t materialized
(more on this later).
It would be another four years before Coscarelli next film
which would be as far away from the Phantasm
franchise as he could get with the mummy horror-comedy Bubba Ho-Tep, which would see an aging Elvis and “JFK” (Bruce Campbell
and Ossie Davis, respectfully) in a retirement home battling a mummy. Based on a story by Joe R. Lansdale,
Coscarelli would craft the second biggest film of his career. In many circles this is considered his best
film (especially by younger audiences).
This film just had the perfect cast (with Bannister appearing in a small
role), script, make-up effects and monster and had the perfect balance of
comedy and horror. This is still one of
my favorites of Coscarelli’s films as I’m sure it is too many.
It would take ten years before Coscarelli’s next feature
film saw release in the form of another adaptation of another writer’s
work. In 2012, John Dies at the End would greet audiences with a different type of
Coscarelli film. Based on the book by
James Wong, this film is a horror and sci-fi fantasy with all types of
monsters, drugs, and different worlds thrown in. It’s hard to describe the film without giving
too much away and it’s a film to experience, just trust me. It’s both funny and a grand adventure into
the strange and weird and it is never predictable.
Coscarelli takes his time in between projects but that doesn’t
mean he’s lying low. In 2005 he directed
another Joe R. Lansdale story “Incident on and Off a Mountain Road” for the
television series Masters of Horror
and most recently he wrote and produced what will be the final chapter in the Phantasm franchise – Phantasm: Ravager which is directed by
David Hartman and should be released later this year. He may best be known for the Phantasm franchise but his style and
technique as a film-maker is the reason why so many people consider him a
Master of Horror.
Documentaries that focused on a single individual can fall
into two camps – one is that it’s too pretentious to actually say something serious
about the subject or two it tells a well-rounded and comprehensive look at the subject’s
life and career both the good and the bad.
Unfortunately, the second one only actually happens when the subject has
already passed on. So it is with great
pleasure that To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story (2017) belongs in the
second type and Kodder is very much still alive. 
