Back from the whirlwind trip to Japan, it was time to dive back into Phantasm. With the movie shoot now complete, and with the leases on both our Van Nuys location house and Chatsworth warehouse expiring, we vacated both and moved editing over to Hollywood to the Goldwyn Studios lot. Samuel Goldwyn himself was long gone by the time we arrived, and his lot was then home to mostly independent companies and television producers.
The key reason for the move was that I had squirreled away enough money in the budget so we could do our sound mix at the famous Goldwyn Studios sound facility, which, at the time, was considered the premiere audio mixing facility in Hollywood. I was determined that Phantasm would have a state-of-the-art sound mix. Having been burned back in my student filmmaking days with bad sound, I learned from that experience how important good professional sound is, especially when making films on a budget. Audiences equate good sound with good movies, and it’s the easiest way (although not inexpensive) to elevate a low-budget film.
Since Paul and I both happened to be homeless at the time, we would occasionally trade off sleeping in the editing room, which was previously an actor dressing room and had a comfortable couch and shower. Nights on the lot were an interesting experience. Actor Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly Hillbillies), who was shooting a TV series on the lot, lived nearby in his dressing trailer downstairs, and the sounds of him playing acoustic guitar and singing would waft in through the window. Down the hall, actor-producer Jack Webb (Dragnet) would frequently wander the halls after his late-night card games, feeling no pain and carrying on in song.
I had been hunched over my Moviola editing machine, working in our Goldwyn editing room for close to a year. It can be easy to get lost in your cut, to lose objectivity, watching the same sequences over and over again. While it is sometimes dangerous, I have always welcomed the challenge of screening an early cut for a crowd. When you are watching your work with an audience, frequently your attitude toward those sacred-cow scenes, that you as director have fallen in love with, can change in an instant. Before, alone, the film seems to play just fine—but with a crowd the flaws are magnified, dramatically. When you suddenly realize the audience is bored and restless, it’s difficult to stifle yourself from shrieking out, “I’m going to cut that scene! Pretend it’s not there!” I have run edited versions alone prior to screenings and pronounced them perfect and ready to screen, and after an audience screening am right back in that same editing room, ready to hack and slash out big sections I previously was enamored with.
We decided it was time to screen our very first cut of Phantasm. But we were going to do something different. My brother-in-law at the time was a psychologist working on several research projects. I asked him about designing a questionnaire we could submit to audience members, which might provide serious insight into the quality of our film. We were way ahead of our time: just a few years later, all the studios were investing heavily in research screenings. My brother-in-law was more than happy to oblige and created a four-page list of questions that managed to target which scenes the audience liked and didn’t like. Paul secured us the use of one of the larger screening rooms on the Paramount lot. Now we just needed people.
We decided to pay the audience five bucks each to watch our rough cut. Since Phantasm was in such a raw state with no music, sound effects, or optical effects, we needed to give them an incentive to stay and give comments. It started with friends and then quickly branched out across the city as we solicited anybody we could find. The night of the screening we had a full house of over a hundred people. My mother was drafted as a “neutral host” of the research screening so that Paul and I could watch the reactions of the subjects. She got up and welcomed everyone and told them they each would receive their five-dollar bill on the way out the door, after they handed in their finished questionnaire.
I had told the actors to stay away because I did not want their presence at the screening influencing the audience response. But across the theater I saw what appeared to be an older gentleman, with a cane and a hat, making his way to his seat. It was Angus Scrimm, in disguise as an elderly man! Was he speaking in a cockney accent??? Later I learned that Angus found himself compelled to be there for the first screening and figured that if he came in disguise as an old Englishman, nobody would know he was there. It worked.
The screening began and Phantasm really started off with a bang. The moment when Angus made his first on-screen appearance as the Tall Man was simply stunning. His hand clamped down on Bill Thornbury and his line, “The funeral is about to begin, Sir!,” caused the audience to howl in fright and levitate out of their seats. Paul and I were ecstatic! From there on, though, the audience reaction rapidly devolved. The cut was rough and not having any visual effects really messed up the narrative. When we would reach an unfinished effects scene, the projector would stop, and my mother would step forward and explain what was to come. “In this scene, young Mike opens an antique store cabinet and finds a photo inside of the Tall Man. It comes to life and the Tall Man turns and looks at him. Please roll the projector.” And the screening would continue. These breaks destroyed any momentum the film might have, despite providing the necessary plot points so the audience could comprehend what they were watching. After the questionnaires were handed in and the audience filed out I moved outside to gauge the audience reaction as they exited. One interchange told me everything I needed to know as one viewer said to another, “That was terrible.” “Yes. Horrible.” It was back to the editing room for me.
The feedback from the screening, though painful, was also extremely helpful. I learned that the cut was too long and that some sections were completely incomprehensible. I also learned that the audience generally loved the cast. The cards told us that Mike, Reggie, and Jody were terrific heroes and that the Tall Man and his alter ego the Lady in Lavender were impressive and powerful villains. Determined to fix the problem areas, I went back to my Moviola.
My original screenplay contained a vast array of sequences that established the world of the two brothers, Mike and Jody. From the screening I learned that once the sphere began to fly, the film kicked into high gear and we needed to streamline the character development to get to that action more quickly. Many sequences detailing the brothers’ lives were left on the cutting room floor, including the brothers eating a turkey dinner, the older brother Jody’s flirtations with his girlfriend and her sister, and several scenes with their elderly aunt who lived nearby. If all the many outtakes were replaced, Phantasm probably would have run three full hours.
Removing all this exposition was a gamble, but I made a calculated decision that I would trust in the audience to figure out many of the open questions. I had recently seen Italian master Dario Argento’s fabulous Suspiria and it was all about mood, style, and atmosphere. There was not much in the way of explanation and critics and horror audiences loved it.
This sentiment also translated to the conclusion of the film, in which I finally decided not to wrap it up in a nice package and explain everything, instead just ending with a shocking, brutal impact. I made a risky choice that Phantasm would be, at its core, a mystery; it would be the audience’s responsibility to figure it out.
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Around this time I made contact with Fred Myrow to discuss a score for Phantasm. This time around, Fred decided to enlist a friend of his to collaborate with him. Malcolm Seagrave, like Fred, was also a classically trained composer with a background in chamber music, who loved rock music. I shared with them the two records that I had recently been obsessed with. One was Heaven and Hell by the progressive electronica maestro Vangelis. The other was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I told them about my love for an instrument called a Mellotron, which could be heard in many progressive rock records of the day. They liked this idea and eagerly promised to work a Mellotron into the score. I was especially enamored with the choral voices selection on the Mellotron, which created a moving but freaky choir sound. Perfect for Phantasm!
Fred and Malcolm went to work. A few weeks later Paul and I received an excited call from Fred asking us to come over immediately to his house off Wilshire and La Cienega where they had been working. When we arrived the two men were literally bouncing off the walls with excitement. They sat down at the piano and began performing a duet for us of their elegant and eerie Phantasm theme, beginning with that epic eight-note figure. This composition would become one of the defining elements of not only Phantasm but its four sequels to come. Today, it is considered one of the classic horror movie themes, so you can imagine what it was like to hear it performed live for the very first time. I was stunned and elated at the power and mood of their unique composition.
Fred and Malcolm’s plan was to rent a bevy of cutting-edge synthesizers, including the Mellotron, and take them into Paul Ratajczak’s little studio in Long Beach. Using those instruments and many other unconventional ones, including Indian tablas, Fred, Malcolm, and Paul worked for several weeks, along with David Johnson and guitarist Bill Cone. The result: an accomplished and insidious score that perfectly complemented Phantasm.