JJ Abrams Restoring Phantasm, Plus Ravager News
Quint over at Ain't It Cool News has one hell of a scoop - that JJ Abrams's Bad Robot has been secretly performing a 4k restoration on the original Phantasm! Not only that, this bad boy is being restored from the original camera negative, which we've long understood Don Coscarelli to have spirited away in a vault somewhere. Quint also mentions that new Ravager footage has been screened at the site's annual BNAT event (do look up that acronym if you don't know it!)
That Abrams is involved is not that much of a surprise, mind you. He named a character in his upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens after Phantasm and cast Angus Scrimm in a recurring role on Alias some years ago. The guy is an admitted phan.
The AICN article continues, "Coscarelli has been hard at work producing a fifth Phantasm Installment (called Ravager), but word around the campfire is he had to put it on hold to focus on this restoration (which is why it's not in your living rooms just yet)."
Uh... Quint and I are apparently sitting around different Phantasm Ravager campfires. The article closes out with two gorgeous screenshots from the new transfer. Feast your eyes upon them below!
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A thirty-seven year old mystery has finally been solved, at least partially. After production wrapped on the original Phantasm , its 1971...
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Forget Ravager , there's another newly released Phantasm film on the scene... and I'm willing to bet it's got way more ball...
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The Phantasm series and hearses go together like peanut butter and jelly, pancakes and syrup, corpses and embalming fluid! More than a hand...
I just stumbled across this page whilst scrolling down the rotation of heavily "Liked" memes and bad news that is referred to as Facebook. In my opinion Mr. Zuckerberg should give all his money to charity to make up for the fact that he gave ignorant people an e-megaphone. Regardless, I am thrilled to have found this; both, article, as well as the entire site. Phantasm was so much a part of my life growing up, that my mother would make threats that the, "Tall Man", would get me if I continued whatever bad kid thing that I was doing at the time. She is also a huge fan of horror, and Phantasm, to be more specific. It's one thing I am very appreciative of. If it wasn't for her love of Horror, I would have never been exposed to bloody titles like Texas Chainsaw, Sleepaway Camp, and Mothers Day (also one of my mothers favorites) when other kids were watching sesame street. She also took me to see the final N.O.E.S. that was released in 3D.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, it has always seemed Phantasm has somehow been, looked over, for a lack of better words. I listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, and overall follow the horror community pretty close. I even host a Horror/Crime/Occult Podcast myself. I never hear Phantasm mentioned though. Until just now finding this page, I would've guessed I was the only one who watched it, yet it was so much a part of my childhood. Again, my opinions here, but I would say Phantasm had a much more sinister, demonic theme and storyline to it than Exocist could ever have produced; however, Exorcist started a whole revolution of satanic panic. The set design could only be rivaled in beauty and complexity by, maybe, the Shining? Again, The Shining is a monumental mark on the horror timeline, and nothing for Phantasm. Not to mention the weapons made in Phantasm II, I can only explain, as an adult version of Home Alone. To this day I still have fantasies of breaking into a hardware store and creating super cool frankenweapons. Hopefully, I will never have to, but thanks to Don Coscarelli, I am prepared if needs be.
Anyway, I guess that was a really long way of saying, I'm glad this page exists; furthermore, I'm glad to see that JJ Abrams is working on this restoration. Not to sound rough, but I think my panties are getting wet just fantasizing about watching it.