Review of Phantasm (1979) by Neil O — 09 Feb 2010
Why do so many of the 1970s cult classic horror films now seem so trite, so boring, and even so horribly inept? From "Don't Look Now" to "Last House on the Left," so many of these movies seem to rely on awful gimmicks and twists (and dialogue) that would make an Introductory Fiction Writer cringe. I'd like to think that these movies are artifacts, appreciated if viewed in context...but "Rosemary's Baby" came first, and "Night of the Living Dead" came first, and these movies still subscribe to solid storytelling techniques.
"Phantasm," on the other hand, has no sense of internal logic, and ends with the protagonist waking up. It was all just a dream!
Really? A dream? So I watched an hour and a half of some little douche-bad teenager's dream? Cool. It's like "The Usual Suspects," except it doesn't just change the way we viewed the previous ninety minutes; it negates it. And there are people out there who justify this sort of filmmaking by calling it a "cult classic," as if it was daring to have a character wake up from a dream at the end. Um. No. It was a cop-out.
This review of Phantasm (1979) was written by Neil O on 09 Feb 2010.
Phantasm has generally received positive reviews.
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