After enjoying the luxury of the “huge” three-million-dollar budget on Phantasm II, I was hoping to make another movie with a deep-pocketed studio. I focused my efforts on writing two very different and, in my completely unbiased opinion, terrific screenplays, which I thought might appeal to studio sensibilities.
The first screenplay was entitled Castle and was set in sixteenth-century England. It told a historically fictional story about an intrepid band of mismatched mercenaries who must storm a near-impenetrable English castle to free an heiress to the throne. The conceit of the film was that our band of heroes comprised a young Englishman leading two savage Mohawks from the New World and two Samurai warriors by stealth into battle. Katanas and tomahawks versus broadswords—it would have been epic!
The other screenplay was a hard-core horror story that, much like The Bad Seed, concerned the exploits of a terribly evil child. Universal had no interest in either, and although the screenplays received a few nibbles from others, I was never able to land the funding necessary for either project.
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I am not the fastest writer, so consequently I invested almost two years in those two projects with not much at the end to show for it. This is a perennial frustration for the indie filmmaker. Most every creative endeavor starts with investing time and sometimes money to jump-start a project on spec, with no guarantee of ever making a film, let alone being compensated. We are the ultimate entrepreneurs. Every film is a start-up! And after we finish a film, the entire process, including the inherent risk, starts all over again.
My loyal comrade-in-arms Reggie Bannister may have made the most important contribution to getting the next Phantasm sequel made. After Phantasm II, Reggie was focused on his music career and, weird as this seems, took a side job at a mortuary—Sunnyside Mortuary in Long Beach, where we shot the original film. Reg learned a lot about the funeral trade while working there and I always enjoyed it when he would regale me with his stories from the death factory. If you were a Phantasm fan attending a funeral in Long Beach around that time there was a chance you might spot Reggie carting off your beloved ones to their final resting place.
One day Reg rang me up and with great excitement told me about a huge and architecturally significant mausoleum complex in nearby Compton, to which he had just delivered flowers. Angeles Abbey was built in the 1920s and featured three major mausoleums on the same property. Reggie arranged a tour for me and I was suitably impressed. The marble hallways were immense, foreboding, and mysterious. The place was somewhat run-down, which added to its creep factor. This would make a fantastic setting for our next sequel.
Around this time I met Robert Blattner, who had taken over the helm at Universal Home Entertainment. Robert was impressed with the videocassette sales numbers on Phantasm II and eagerly offered to fund another one. The numbers would not support a three-million-dollar budget, but they certainly could cover something in the vicinity of half of that. So I started thinking about what elements might interest me in a new Phantasm.
My first decision was to return Michael Baldwin to the fold. His unceremonious dumping by Universal on the previous picture was just not right. Bringing Michael back would provide some small form of justice, and for fans it would be epic. Then I began to think about what I wanted to accomplish with this new episode. What about doing a Phantasm in which Reggie could make a solo hero turn? And what about broadening the Phantasm ensemble to include some new characters? I was determined to go back to the roots and did this by introducing a young boy who might be reminiscent of Mike in the original. Also, how about something completely different for a leading lady? Maybe an African-American, nunchaku-wielding, karate-kicking love interest for Reg? And how about starting Phantasm III right where Phantasm II ended? The ideas started coming fast and furious and within days we were making a new Phantasm.
We blazed through preproduction and one of our best hires was D. Kerry Prior, who had been a key contributor to the sphere visual effects on Phantasm II. Kerry, a brilliant effects tech and filmmaker in his own right, agreed to come on board to handle the sphere effects on Phantasm III. The challenge for him was enormous. In Phantasm II we went from one sphere to three spheres. For Phantasm III my screenplay called for hundreds and possibly thousands of them. At that time computer-generated visual effects were in their infancy. (Phantasm III did feature three simple digital effects, which today you could do on your laptop, for which we paid tens of thousands of dollars.) Consequently, Kerry would be tasked with achieving these effects practically, in camera. Kerry sketched out some inventive and ambitious designs showcasing how he could build an elaborate Plexiglas rig that would support several different sphere models, all while being transparent to the camera.
About two weeks prior to the first day of shooting we received some terrible news. Our very supportive studio exec at Universal had died on Halloween night. Robert had been visiting a movie set in Utah and had taken a private plane home so he could be with his young children on Halloween and it crashed. This was a terrible blow. Not only was Robert a terrific guy who was willing to back me in a risky film project, but on the business side, we hadn’t yet signed the final contract with Universal. Shooting started imminently and we were advancing money like crazy. A week went by and everyone on the crew was freaking out.
I was about to pull the plug on our film when Louis Feola called. Louis had just been selected to assume Blattner’s position by the Universal brass. Louis revealed himself as a stand-up guy and told me that the policy he had instituted would honor all agreements Robert had negotiated, even if they were not yet signed. (Maybe there was a heart beating in Universal’s formidable Black Tower after all.)
We leased a large warehouse out in North Hollywood and shooting began. As always, it was great to be working with the Phantasm cast again. Reggie Bannister just seemed to get better with every film and in Phantasm III, with him now in the much-deserved starring role, we could take full advantage of his talents. Other core cast were back, including original star Bill Thornbury, who reprised his signature role of Jody in both corporeal and spherical form.
I was fortunate to find several new cast members, including Kevin Conners and Gloria Lynne Henry. Kevin was a tough little kid who performed his macho scenes with aplomb. Gloria was a joy to work with and a breath of fresh air for the franchise. Here was Reggie’s sexy love interest, yet she had a badass streak and was a powerful force to be reckoned with. I also had some fun introducing three unique new characters, the “looters,” down-market scavengers who were following the Tall Man’s path of destruction and plundering the remains. These looters drove a pink hearse, which they used to carry all the gold and other booty they had “acquired” during their exploits.
The signature stunt of the screenplay was a concept that came to me early. I had seen a lot of pipe-ramp car stunts over the years, but never one featuring a six-thousand-pound Cadillac hearse. So I set about to fix that and wrote a scene in which Reggie, Mike, and their pals are accosted by the reanimated bodies of three looters they had previously killed. The undead looters arrive on the scene and a car chase ensues between Reggie, driving his restored triple black Hemicuda convertible, and the looters’ pink funeral coach. The hearse loses control, hits a rock, and in true movie fashion is propelled skyward. How high and how far were the questions.
A quick explanation of how a pipe ramp works. Welded from tubular steel, the pipe ramp has three parts: a solid and heavy base staked right into the ground or asphalt with spikes called “bull pricks”; the main section, the ramp, which is just a single three-inch-wide steel bar designed at about a thirty-degree angle; and the “kicker,” on top, which is just a small steel bar at the end of the ramp that is at a more severe angle of about forty-five degrees. The ramp is slathered with axle grease for lubrication. The task of the stuntperson is to get the car up to speed and aim directly for the ramp. The car goes up the ramp and hits the kicker, sending it almost straight up. At this point the stuntperson can no longer control the trajectory and, for better or worse, is just along for the ride.
One night I was watching a show called Stuntmasters where they had this daredevil stuntman ready to pipe-ramp a large school bus. Watching that yellow vehicle fly through the air was simply electrifying. This could be the guy who could jump my pink hearse! This Stuntmaster’s name was Bob Ivy.
Imagine my surprise a few months later when my stunt coordinator, John Stewart, told me about a fellow stuntman he knew who was an expert at pipe ramps and a confessed Phantasm fan. Now, this was rare. Stunt guys just do not tend to be horror geeks. Then John told me the stuntman’s name was Bob Ivy. I literally leapt out of my chair. “That’s the guy who jumped the school bus on Stuntmasters!” John invited me down to San Pedro to watch Bob do a pipe-ramp gag. Bob was driving an SUV; he hit the ramp and crashed right into a boat on a trailer. It was a great stunt. Afterward I met Bob, who couldn’t have been more gracious and unassuming. On the spot, Bob volunteered to do the hearse stunt and promised to make it a memorable event. Bob would turn out to be a man of his word.
The night of the stunt Bob was strapped into the hearse, inside a tubular steel roll cage welded inside the hearse’s frame and clad in a full-body Nomex fire suit and crash helmet. I wished Bob luck, but I’m not sure he even heard me. Bob was a man on a mission and he was in the zone.
Everybody was there. All the cast, Angus Scrimm, Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, the entire crew, including office staff and my family. Whether they were scheduled to work or not, no one wanted to miss Bob Ivy’s hearse pipe-ramp stunt. It was a Saturday night on a quiet stretch of Mulholland Highway, which the city had granted us permission to close for the stunt. The lights were up and three cameras in position to film the stunt. About a half mile up one direction in the road, Bob was waiting patiently inside the hearse for his cue; a few hundred yards past the pipe ramp in the other direction an ambulance with EMTs was also waiting in case something went wrong.
We had three cameras set and the one I would be operating was right across from the pipe ramp. My task would be to pan with the hearse as it impacted the ramp and flew by into the air. I practiced the camera pan dozens of times. I could do this.
Bob was ready, and when the stuntman is strapped in and gelled up, it’s time to go. I gave the nod to my young assistant director Jeff Shiffman and he called for cameras to roll film. Cries of “A Camera speed,” “B Camera speed,” and “C Camera speed” echoed down Mulholland Highway. I hunkered down next to my camera, and Jeff screamed into his megaphone, “Action! Go Bob, go!”
You could hear the hearse accelerate, and as it roared toward the ramp, building speed, one thing was certain in my mind. Bob was going to deliver on his promise. And you know what? He never took his foot off the gas pedal. He hit that pipe ramp fast and hard. Looking through the viewfinder of A Camera, I was the closest person to the ramp, and the sound of six thousand pounds of hearse hitting that pipe ramp was earsplitting. So much so that it caught me completely off guard. While looking through the camera viewfinder my eyelid instantly snapped shut! I went through the panning motion of the camera, which I had practiced dozens of times and memorized, but I had no idea if the hearse was correctly framed in my shot.
The hearse shot skyward and then tumbled through the air for over a hundred and eighty feet before crashing back to earth with a concussive and sickening crunch, rolling down Mulholland Highway until it stopped upside down.
A hundred people watched in stunned silence until stunt coordinator John Stewart broke from the crowd and charged into the road, racing down to the crashed hearse followed by literally everyone. I switched off my camera and made chase myself, stopping only to yank the battery cable of the 35 mm Eyemo “crash cam” that had been placed right in the middle of the road and was still rolling film. All the while I was mortified that while Bob had risked his life to create one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, I might have blown the shot.
The stunt team pulled the unconscious Bob Ivy out of the hearse wreckage and laid him out on the street. The EMTs swarmed around him and he was quickly revived. They checked all his limbs and nothing was broken. Bob got to his feet, gave the thumbs-up, and asked for a Coke. The assembled crowd cheered wildly. My cinematographer Chris Chomyn checked in, told me he got a great view from his camera and that the crash cam appeared to get excellent coverage of the stunt also. “How did it look from your camera?” he asked. “Just great,” I replied sheepishly.
For two long days I waited to get the film dailies back from the lab, torturing myself that despite all the money we had spent and Bob’s heroic efforts, I had blown the shot. Why didn’t someone warn me there would be a huge bang when the hearse hit the ramp? I was in agony.
The film came back and my shot was perfect. Blind luck?! In any case when you watch this magnificent stunt in Phantasm III, consider these interesting facts. As the hearse soars through the air, Bob Ivy is strapped inside that thing, completely unconscious from the impact with the ramp, and the cameraman shooting it has his eyes completely closed.
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When my terrific editor Norman Buckley finished our cut of Phantasm III it was submitted to the Motion Picture Association. And again, it was immediately slapped with the successor to the X rating, the just-as-restrictive NC-17, for bloodletting in the sphere sequence in which Taneesha (actress Sarah Davis) is drilled and killed. This time around I had the time to appear in front of an appeals panel and plead my case. My argument was strong: we had cut the length of the sequence, and bloodletting, to match exactly (to the frame in length) the original Phantasm. It seemed logical to me that if the original Phantasm received an R rating, how could they deny it to Phantasm III? The head of the rating system, Richard D. Heffner, presented his case at the appeals hearing, which was full of bluster and grumbling about how they had made a mistake on the original Phantasm, these sphere sequences were an outrage and he would not let me get away with it again. Blah, blah, blah. My argument persuaded a bunch of the panel members, but the deck was stacked against me. The rules required a two-thirds vote of the appeals panel to overturn and I came up one vote shy of that number. Again, I was forced to cut the sphere scene to the bone. The only consolation was that just a few years later, once DVD, Blu-ray, and then streaming became popular, my films could be seen anywhere in their original unrated form.
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I was quite proud of the finished Phantasm III. However, I was in for a rude awakening when I submitted the final print to Universal for their consideration. After reviewing my film, one of their feature executives determined that Phantasm III did not merit a theatrical release and instead would be released direct-to-video. This was a horrible development. Back then, a direct-to-video release carried a terrible stigma and had the effect of turning your hard work into a “non-movie.” Luckily I had asked for a clause in the agreement with Universal that if they decided not to give the film a wide theatrical release, they would fund a theatrical test market in two cities. I invoked this clause and a month later Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead opened in Grand Rapids and Baton Rouge. The weird part here is that the film did very good business in the test markets, and yet Universal still had no faith in it and we were relegated to the direct-to-video scrap heap. I was devastated after working for a full year and a half on a theatrical movie to have it disappear in an instant. It got worse, though.
At that time Blockbuster Video was the 800-pound gorilla in the home video world. A “brilliant” executive at Universal tried to knock them down a peg with an idea that Universal would sell videocassettes directly through McDonald’s restaurants in a big holiday promotion. It was “buy a hamburger and get a videocassette for five bucks,” and the tapes were flying out of McDonald’s. Blockbuster hated this new sales channel; it bypassed them completely. So they retaliated. For the next quarter, Blockbuster unilaterally mandated that they would still take all the big star-driven movies from Universal, but they would refuse to buy any “second-tier” product. Guess whose film came out that quarter and was considered “second-tier” due to Universal’s decision to send it direct-to-video? You guessed it! Universal Home Entertainment did not sell one single copy of Phantasm III to Blockbuster Video. This was a catastrophic event because, as indies, we had no control whatsoever in this clash of the titans and it guaranteed that Phantasm III would never recoup its investment. The sad truth is that the lowly indie filmmaker really has no control over the ultimate fate of their film.