Catching Up With A. Michael Baldwin

To those phans eagerly awaiting A. Michael Baldwin's return to the horror genre, your thirst is about to be quenched. Everyone's favorite 'boooooooy' is back before the camera with three projects in his first genre work since 1998's Phantasm: Oblivion. And before you ask, the long awaited Phantasm V is not among them.... yet. These projects all appear to be in various stages of either production, post-production or distribution negotiation. I'll be sure to post here when news of their releases is available! 

Read on to learn more about the three spooky projects!

Reggie Bannister returns with Primitive

So the title of this post about Reggie Bannister returning is sort of misleading... he never really left. But he does feature prominently in Primitive, a fun looking creature flick released onto DVD, PPV and VOD this month from Director Benjamin Cooper and Lionsgate Home Entertainment. See the trailer below and be sure to hit up the film's official website and Facebook page. Tom Devlin of Syfy's Face-Off handled the film's special effects, which appear to include one insane looking monster beastie.

From a recent glowing review by the AlienBee website: "Bottom line is, Primitive is a fun creature feature full of practical effects that are all executed extremely well. This DVD drops on November 19th and comes highly recommended!"

The Geography of Phantasm

The geography of the original Phantasm can be confusing. Heck, the name of Mike and Jody's hometown isn't even mentioned in the film. Thought by some to be Morningside, the town is actually revealed to be called China Grove in the little seen and now out-of-print novelization. Still, knowing the name doesn't help explain where anything is in relation to anything else. The Pearson home? Morningside Mausoleum? Reggie's crash site? In reality, these locations were scattered across the entire state, some more than four hundred miles apart. In fact, sometimes the interiors and exteriors of the same location were miles apart, so reality isn't going to be any help here. Continue reading for one fan's interpretation!

The Maniac Cop has Returned!

The wrong arm of the law has returned(!!!), which is to say that our cousin site, the Manic Cop, has returned to the internet after a hiatus. Founded by Andrew LeRoy and Christopher Stevens, it has long been the ultimate tribute to the B-movie trilogy. If you've never seen any of these films, they star the likes of Bruce Campbell, Tom Atkins, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, Robert Z'Dar and Robert Davi, I highly recommend checking it out.

After you've seen the films, check out the site and remember - you have the right to remain silent... FOREVER!!

The Phantasm Art of Tom Bagley

It's difficult to call what artist Tom Bagley makes fan art, but the man is surely an artist (a Canadian treasure, in fact) and also a fan of Phantasm. Blending the styles of pulp and vintage advertising, Bagley came up with two great Phantasm pieces for a Video Vulture article several years back; one of the original sphere drilling scene and another of Mike and Reggie from the finger-bug scene.

Of the drilling artwork, Bagley says: 

For years, I had this movie on a Beta tape which I'd recorded off of a network broadcast in the early 80s. What amused me was that it was heavily edited for gore/sex content. This meant that this gory ball-drillin'-the-guy's-brains-out scene was missing all the blood. However, they kept in the puddle of urine that the guy issues after he tips over.

Click continue reading below to see Bagley's Phantasm work and be sure to check out more of Bagley's fantastic horror-themed art at his official website and on Flickr. Click either artwork to see it larger.