Descent Into Darkness
Feind's Descent:
A Phantasmic Journey
Feind's Descent:
A Phantasmic Journey
Cult and I have been trying to decide what to do for our very first horror movie review for some time now but we just weren’t sure what we wanted to do. After careful consideration and thought (sure ‘cause that happens) I thought perhaps we should start at the beginning where our love of horror movies started. Since this will be our first venture into movie reviews I thought it may give you, our wonderful readers, a little insight into how both Cult & I made the journey to where we are today with a deep love for all things bloody, gory and terrible. Just where did our complete desensitization to horror begin so that today there is no amount of gore that can turn our stomachs but instead puts a big fat smile on our ugly mugs? For me the journey into the dark cave of misery heaped in blood & guts began at a very early age with fear quickly turning to a thirst for more and nastier.
I don’t know how old I was when I technically saw my first “horror” flick but I know I was probably no more than 5 or 6 (don’t curse my parents, just read on). You can thank my mother and her father for most of my introduction to horror. I suppose if I was to start at the very beginning I could site the classic Universal Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, The Mummy and Creature From The Black Lagoon) or the 50s atomic scare giant “creature” films like Them which I would watch on Weekend Matinees with my mother and/or grandfather and sometimes just by myself. When it came to “real” horror films I distinctly remember being unable to watch the 1978 Amityville Horror which my oldest sister delighted in watching just to torture her little brother who would have to leave the room which is probably all she really wanted. Damn sisters! But if I’m being honest the little I saw of that movie’s end with blood dripping down the walls, coming out of the faucets and such as the voice of “Satan” called out from deep below sparked an interest in me. I wanted to see more, I wanted to see if I could be “brave” enough to sit through The Amityville Horror essentially so that my sister could no longer torture me. “I’ll beat her at her own game”, I thought, and watch scarier and nastier films that would drive my two sisters from the room instead of me! It didn’t take me long to do just that *BIG SMILE* plus, as somehow I must have gotten another family’s genetics, by 12 or 13 I was bigger than either of my sisters as they struggled to reach the 5 foot mark and I topped off at 6. But I’m severely digressing here, this piece is supposed to be about horror damn it! So I’ll continue…
I don’t know how old I was when I technically saw my first “horror” flick but I know I was probably no more than 5 or 6 (don’t curse my parents, just read on). You can thank my mother and her father for most of my introduction to horror. I suppose if I was to start at the very beginning I could site the classic Universal Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, The Mummy and Creature From The Black Lagoon) or the 50s atomic scare giant “creature” films like Them which I would watch on Weekend Matinees with my mother and/or grandfather and sometimes just by myself. When it came to “real” horror films I distinctly remember being unable to watch the 1978 Amityville Horror which my oldest sister delighted in watching just to torture her little brother who would have to leave the room which is probably all she really wanted. Damn sisters! But if I’m being honest the little I saw of that movie’s end with blood dripping down the walls, coming out of the faucets and such as the voice of “Satan” called out from deep below sparked an interest in me. I wanted to see more, I wanted to see if I could be “brave” enough to sit through The Amityville Horror essentially so that my sister could no longer torture me. “I’ll beat her at her own game”, I thought, and watch scarier and nastier films that would drive my two sisters from the room instead of me! It didn’t take me long to do just that *BIG SMILE* plus, as somehow I must have gotten another family’s genetics, by 12 or 13 I was bigger than either of my sisters as they struggled to reach the 5 foot mark and I topped off at 6. But I’m severely digressing here, this piece is supposed to be about horror damn it! So I’ll continue…
Not long after the Amityville Horror incident and my sister’s constant ribbing, calling me a scaredy cat and the like, I knew I had to shut her up somehow. Not too long after that I found myself alone with my mother one Friday or Saturday night as my father had begun working the midnight shift and my sister’s were spending the night somewhere or other. One of the local stations at that time ran late night movies after the 11 0’clock news, my mother absolutely hated being home alone when my father wasn’t there and absolutely will not watch a horror movie alone. Now just so you know, we lived in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place where an escaped cow was about as exciting or horrifying as it was ever going to get, yet my mother acted as though marauding gangs of axe murders surely lurked the countryside everywhere looking for women home alone or something. Yes, it cracks me up so feel free to laugh. Anyway this particular Friday or Saturday night’s late movie was to be Phantasm and not wanting to watch it alone my mother told me I could stay up and watch it if I wanted. I’ll admit I was afraid. Could I do this? Could I make it through and be able to brag to my sisters that I watched something scarier than Amityville Horror without covering my eyes? Plus the biggest incentive: I could stay up late to do it! Now I’ve always been a “night owl” from as far back as I can remember but being allowed to stay up late instead of laying in bed staring at the wall or ceiling was something I relished so when my mom didn’t want to watch a “scary” movie by herself I jumped at the chance. I had no idea what I was in for but there was nothing I wanted more at that moment.
If you have never seen the 1979 classic Phantasm you’re missing one of the best independent horror films of all time. By today’s standards, and even those of 1979, this was an extremely low budget film but managed not to really look as low budget as it was (its total budget was $300K). Phantasm was the vision of Don Coscarelli who was everything on this film: writer, director, photographer, co-producer and editor. Phantasm is essentially a study in fear told through the eyes of Mike Pearson (Micheal Baldwin, no relation to the Baldwin brothers). After the death of their parents young Mike is left in the care of his older brother, Jody (Bill Thornbury), who doubts his ability to raise his younger sibling and isn’t sure he wants the responsibility.Phantasm marks the introduction of mortician, The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), who to me is the real star of this film as the ultra creepy villain. After Mike spies The Tall Man lifting a casket by himself and placing it back in his hearse at the graveyard he wants to know what is going on but no one believes him of course.
Mike begs his older brother and his ice cream truck driving friend, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), to believe him and check The Tall Man out for themselves but it only serves to feed Jody’s fear that he isn’t able to raise his little brother. Mike visits a creepy local fortune teller whose granddaughter is his friend relaying his fears about being sent to live with his aunt and of the mysterious and creepy mortician. Mike is told to place his hand in a little black box to face his fears. The box grips Mike’s hand sending him into a panic but the creepy fortune teller tells him to let his fear go and as Mike relaxes so does the grip on his hand. The idea of fear itself as the killer is established then personified in The Tall Man. Knowing that Mike is spying on him The Tall Man sends his minions, creepy hooded dwarves, after him. He manages to escape of course and is finally able to convince his brother and Reggie to investigate.
Mike begs his older brother and his ice cream truck driving friend, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), to believe him and check The Tall Man out for themselves but it only serves to feed Jody’s fear that he isn’t able to raise his little brother. Mike visits a creepy local fortune teller whose granddaughter is his friend relaying his fears about being sent to live with his aunt and of the mysterious and creepy mortician. Mike is told to place his hand in a little black box to face his fears. The box grips Mike’s hand sending him into a panic but the creepy fortune teller tells him to let his fear go and as Mike relaxes so does the grip on his hand. The idea of fear itself as the killer is established then personified in The Tall Man. Knowing that Mike is spying on him The Tall Man sends his minions, creepy hooded dwarves, after him. He manages to escape of course and is finally able to convince his brother and Reggie to investigate.
They travel to the morgue where they discover odd containers in a white room that appear to hold The Tall Man’s minions. They also discover what appears to be a portal to another world where The Tall Man is sending the dwarves to be slaves. We are also introduced to the wicked awesome silver spheres of death here. I don’t know why I love these things so much but at 8 or 9 years old I thought they were the coolest fucking things I had ever seen and now a much older me wishes I had one! When we see one of the spheres stab into somebody’s head, drill a hole and pump out their blood I wanna jump up and down like I’m rooting for my favorite sports team cheering at the top of my lungs. Of course all the important characters escape; it is a movie after all. I was a fan of the old Twilight Zone show which I used to watch with my grandfather by this time so the ending really appealed to me as it had that Twilight Zone quality to it. After everyone gets away and they believe they have killed The Tall Man, young Mike is sitting on his bed relieved to be alive and that the whole ordeal is over when he closes his bedroom door only to see The Tall Man appear in the mirror on it then jump through it as the movie ends. If made today we’d all scream, Cliché!, but in 1979 this type of thing hadn’t been done a billion times yet. Unfortunately it took about 20 years to get a sequel and well the sequels haven’t been that good. I was however able to sit through Phantasm without turning away or hiding my eyes and my love of blood & gore was born. I was finally able to sit through The Amityville Horror shortly thereafter that and my sister was never able to chase me from the room in fear ever again.
I also started to become an avid reader around this time starting with more Hardy Boys books than I can count moving into action books in the vein of Rambo before once again I have to thank my mother for my introduction to the book that would forever change my reading habits and my thinking. An 11 year old me picked out and read my first Stephen King novel, the epic, The Stand. This was my first “adult” book and I am forever grateful as I have no idea what I would be doing right now if my mother had not owned that book and allowed me to read it. So whether you love or hate my writing today you can blame it all on my mother because it really is her fault, Thanx Mom!
For more of my humble horror movie loving roots you can blame the aforementioned The Amityville Horror and its sequel, The Exorcist, John Carpenter’s Halloween, the wonderful Motel Hell and later classics like the first two Friday The 13th films,Toby Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Funhouse as well as anything else I could find at the time. These classics were where it all started for me so that by today it is rare that something shocks or sickens me. As Cult and I continue on we’ll bring you our takes on classics as well as new flicks. I can’t speak for Cult but as for me what endears a horror film to me, other than the nostalgia for older flicks, is one of two things. Either a film is a great story or it is awesomely gore filled. I prefer well told stories personally but sometimes I just want to see blood and guts spilled everywhere. As we continue here we hope to bring you plenty of both!
For more of my humble horror movie loving roots you can blame the aforementioned The Amityville Horror and its sequel, The Exorcist, John Carpenter’s Halloween, the wonderful Motel Hell and later classics like the first two Friday The 13th films,Toby Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Funhouse as well as anything else I could find at the time. These classics were where it all started for me so that by today it is rare that something shocks or sickens me. As Cult and I continue on we’ll bring you our takes on classics as well as new flicks. I can’t speak for Cult but as for me what endears a horror film to me, other than the nostalgia for older flicks, is one of two things. Either a film is a great story or it is awesomely gore filled. I prefer well told stories personally but sometimes I just want to see blood and guts spilled everywhere. As we continue here we hope to bring you plenty of both!
So what started your love of horror? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Feel free to hit us up on Twitter or Facebook (check Contact page), we’re always happy to talk horror or metal or just let us know what you think of our work here but if you’re gonna troll just put a knife to your throat and push! Thank you for taking the time to read our scribblings!
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