there be two thing that stand out in this film . the tall man ( play by angus scrimm ) and the chrome sphere with hook like blade that stick out of it . those be the two main element when it come to this horror series direct by don coscarelli . the tall man come from another dimension where he take some of the earth dead back to his home planet and reincarnate them and turn them into slave for his world . he even occasionally murder some earth people in order to speed thing up . why wait for them to get old and die natural death . that would take too much time and right . and what good earth profession he can hide his identity behind than that of a funeral parlor director . everything go smoothly for the tall man until mike pearson ( michael baldwin ) witness him cart a body away that suppose to be bury in the ground . at first his brother jody ( bill thornbury ) doesn not believe him and but when mike show him a cut off finger surround by yellow blood in a little wooden box he have save a proof and jody start to believe him . excellent scene of the chrome sphere zoom down the funeral parlor hallway and accidentally dig into the skull one of the tall man henchman . a little screw appear out of it and start to bore a hole through his skull and eject the excess blood out a hole in the back of the sphere . i wish there be more of the sphere although we will get to see a lot more of it again in phantasm ii ( 1988 ) . i also like the portal gateway scene where if you go through the two chrome pole and you will get to see the tall man alternative universe where the slave be busy carry casket down a stone pathway . we even get to see ice cream man and reggie bannister almost get suck through it as well . i would not give away the end but let just say the tall man be temporarily dispose of until the next sequel come out and although the dream element that suppose to encompass the whole sequence of event in the film and be a big negative against it . in fact and it bring it down a notch and unfortunately . even so and i consider phantasm to be one of the best horror film of the 1970s . it manage to keep avco or embassy in business so they could bring u later horror stuff like escape from new york ( 1980 ) while the fog ( 1980 ) and dead and bury ( 1981 ) the mgm dvd also have a lot more extra on it than you would expect from other dvd release by the same company and include 8mm behind the scene footage of the making of phantasm while a 1979 interview down in miami with director coscarelli and angus scrimm while an appearance at a 1989 fangoria convention by scrimm and and movie and tv trailer for the film . it a labor of love by the true fan of this film . positive .