Episode 004: Don’t Mess Around in Cemeteries! Phantasm (1979) with Randy Stein

Join Alex and Dr. Randy Stein on this Halloween edition of the podcast, for a discussion of the psychological concepts in Don Coscarelli’s cult horror classic Phantasm (1979), starring Angus Scrimm as the horror villain, the Tall Man, in a role so-named because imagination and originality was used elsewhere in the film.

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Legal stuff:
1. All film clips and music are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).

Episode Transcription

<eerie piano music>

ALEX SWAN: Hey everybody and welcome to the Halloween episode of the CinemaPsych Podcast! I’m really excited to do the show. We’re going to have a little bit of fun, messing around with the time of year. I hope you noticed the subtle intro music that we did. I thought it was going to be fun. I’m gonna mess around with some other editing techniques this time around, too, so keep an “eye” out for that. I hope everyone also hears that we have changed the bumper, too, to something kind of spooky. So, we’re going to get right into this episode–we’re going to get right into it. But before we do: like, subscribe, follow us on social media, please! You know, wherever you get your podcast, that would be lovely! Alright, my guest today is Dr. Randy Stein. Randy is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the College of Business at Cal Poly Pomona, which is in–wait for it–Pomona, California. He has a PhD in Social Psychology from Yale University. His work includes–with me, of course your one and true host here, on topics like how people differ in their views about reality, how that relates to political ideology and personality assessments, and then we have a great new paper, which Randy will probably plug at the end of this episode, cuz I’ll prod him to. A newish paper on issues with, the one the only, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Randy, say hi!

RANDY STEIN: Hello, and welcome to the listeners for this very special spooky edition of CinemaPsych.

ALEX: Yeah, spooky edition indeed! Now I’m going to have to do like one for every freaking holiday.

RANDY: That’s right.

ALEX: <laughter> I know. Alright, Randy, you brought a special film with you today but before we get to that one, let me ask you a couple of questions. Because you’re not actually a psychology teacher–how dare you, by the way…

RANDY: I am-I am a social psychologist, but not a teacher of psychology.

ALEX: RIght. So I’m going to change up my questions just a little bit, and I-I think this fits with the discussion that we’re going to have today. So, first of all, I ask this of all of my guest hosts: what do you love about film and how does being a psychologist change your relationship with film?

RANDY: So I think it’s changed it quite a-quite a bit, and I think–I don’t know if you’ll relate to this, but kind of being-being a social psychologist changes your relationship to probably pretty much everything, and I look at-I look at film primarily as-as entertainment and what I enjoy out of it is watching a vision a writer or director–their vision–come to life. And I think what-I think what maybe changes how I view film compared to other folks who aren’t psychologists, maybe compared to other social psychologists, is I don’t-I don’t really turn to film for messages, I don’t really turn to film for lessons, because it’s fiction and I kind of feel like we have the empirical work of psychology for that. So, rather than looking for messages, I kind of just look for a–like-like, I really enjoy interpretation of meaning, so like, one thing I’ll-I’ll-I really enjoy doing is, I like Kubrick films, but not really sure what he’s trying to say, but just like how he’s saying it. Like I like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I certainly will enjoy having conversations about what the monoliths represent, but if he’s trying to make some point about how, like, we’re going to far with technology–like, just like, cool dude, but you’re just a guy, so who really cares what you have to say about. And the other thing that-that-that I think has changed, like I’ve kinda given up on the idea that there’s-there’s some-there’s some correct, objective way of viewing any-anything really, but especially-especially film. Kind of like, the way I see it is the way that we view taste, including physical taste and taste in music and art, is we’re kind of there to let our beliefs about those things fill in and how we feel about them. And we’re supposed to be biased. And what I always do, is because I know were feelings about music and movies, food and everything else is supposed to be guided by belief. Like I kind of try to suspend what I think about a movie until I read reviews and watch a few-watch a few YouTube videos on it. And like, once I get that context, that really helps a lot. And to bring up our film, the first time I saw it, I kind of had this “what the hell is that” kind of reaction. And it wasn’t until I really read some more about it that I convinced myself it was actually amazing. But I had to get there and I think that was me just kind of using-using the psychology of belief to be like “alright, like once I have the right context, once I’m watching this the right way, then, we can like, unlock what’s awesome about it.”

ALEX: Yeah. It’s interesting you bring up today’s film, because we are probably on opposite sides of it. I’m going to be kind–I will be kind. But, yeah. It’s a really interesting take on film that we haven’t really explored, right? And man oh man wha-what would you have done with this before YouTube?

RANDY: <laughter> I probably would have just thought it was dumb and then moved on with my life, but…

ALEX: Maybe. Because the reviews at the time would have just been like, you know, Roger Ebert or somebody, and it would be non-spoilery or anything like that–

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: –like, what they thought of it.

RANDY: Yeah, reviews were not good and as a-as a lover of this film, I-I-I-I love it, and also as a psychologist, I’m fine believing multiple things at the same time. I love it, but you know what, those reviews are still right.

ALEX: That’s fair.

<chilling sound effect>

ALEX: Alright Randy, what film did you want to discuss today?

RANDY: So today we are discussing 1979 cult classic horror movie Phantasm. 

ALEX: Phantasm!

RANDY: Which start–yes, yes–which stars, A. Michael Baldwin as Mike, Reggie Bannister as Reggie, Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man, among others, and this is a very amazing film. It was made on a budget of about $300,000. It made about $12 million at the box office, so a very, very big return on investment. As we-as we alluded to, critics were not-were not kind to it at the time, they probably still wouldn’t be kind to it in this-in this time. But for-for this kind of little film that could on a relatively small budget, it did–it has had a pretty big cultural impact. It kind of existed before a lot of the horror films cloches were in place. One of the themes is nightmares and the Freddy Krueger films were in large part inspired by. There’s a few scenes–particularly one involving a small killer orb, which I can’t really explain more than that, but that’s just kind of is what it is, that’s been very popular, but the biggest way it’s impacted pop culture, in the newest Star Wars movies–those unofficial fan fiction films that  have been put out by Disney–the cap-the character Captain Phasma is named after Phantasm, cuz J.J. Abrams is a big fan and in fact, put together the remastered version of it a few years ago. 

ALEX: Right, right. Now, like I said, I am on the opposite side of the liking spectrum. I am with the reviewers on this one. Before we go any further, I do want to give a spoiler warning, because we are probably going to dissect the whole thing, in a certain manner of speaking. So if you are a horror fan who wants to be surprised all the way throughout a film, then I suggest pausing now this podcast, going and watching, and coming back and-and listening to the rest of this podcast,because we do have some great insights. But I am not-I am not a fan of this film. I watched it for the first time to prepare for this episode with Randy, and I was gobsmacked.

RANDY: It is a gobsmacker.

ALEX: Yeah it is! I was–

RANDY: It smacks you in the gob…

ALEX: <laughter> I-yeah, so I-I am not–I did find some good psych concepts in it after thinking about it for a little while and then, you know, doing what Randy suggests, and going and reading analyses–

RANDY: Yeah…yeah, and part-part of what’s interesting about horror movies is you kind of have to know how to watch them to bring up again that you need to have the proper context, and like you can’t-you just can’t watch it expecting-expecting a Kubrick movie or Christopher Nolan movie, like it’s just not-it’s just not that. And I think a lot–

ALEX: But I don’t even–I wasn’t even comparing it to Christopher Nolan or Stanley Kubrick as far as horror, I was trying to-to say, “OK where’s the Poltergeist element? Where’s The Exorcist element? Where’s the crazy doll element from, you know, recent years? Or like, The Amityville Horror or The Blair Witch Project?” None of that-none of that grabbed me.

RANDY: OK, interesting.

ALEX: But yeah, we’re gonna go through it. So Randy, I’m gonna let you go ahead and jump in with some of your big takeaways for this film. Set people up for success when they’re watching this.

RANDY: Yeah, so, so I think the spoiler people might have-might have turned out by now but we actually know from social psych that spoilers actually increase enjoyment, which makes sense because-because of fluency, when you know what’s coming it’s easier to process. And I think it actually helps with the–

ALEX: I don’t want to get yelled at by people  who are like–I don’t want to get yelled at by people who say, “you didn’t give me a spoiler warning.” So, you know, “spoiler warning.

RANDY: Spoiler warning, but keep listening, because spoilers are good, right? So here’s kind of like, here’s what happens in the movie. In like, in two minutes. And kind of like why–how I’m watching it, and kind of how I’m working through the trainwreck. It does have-it does have trainwreck kind of appeal. And it was–the original cut was about 3 hours. They chopped it down to 90 minutes, and you can kind of tell that there is some like leftover characters that, like they just sort of pop up 3/4 of the way in and it’s like, “who is-who is that?” Like as we’ll see, who is Myrtle? So anyway, so-so here’s what happens. So it opens with a sex scene in a cemetery, right? Like any good movie should.

ALEX: Don’t mess around in cemeteries, people!

RANDY: <laughter> Well apparently not. So-so the guy that kind of looks like Bing Crosby on a bad day, he gets killed by the-by the woman that he’s with, not that any of the kids listening know who Bing Crosby is–excuse me, David–and actually I’m screwing up because it is David Crosby, not Bing Crosby. What am I saying?

ALEX: Very good, very good.

RANDY: So David Crosby is killed by the woman he’s with, we cut to his funeral–we’re introduced to Jody and Reggie, who are the two older characters, at which point it becomes very, very clear that like, if there was a Wikipedia article for just like the concept of the “director didn’t want to hire real actors, he just hired his friends,” like the picture of Reggie would be right on-on that-on that article. So they’re at the funeral and the big introduction of the Tall Man. Jody enters the mausoleum–which looks great. Like for a low budget movie, there’s a few things in it that look great. One of those things is the mausoleum, Jody’s three-piece blue suit is also one of them. The clothing in general in this movie. Yeah–he here’s some strange noises, the tall man approaches him for the first time in the movie, he tells him the funeral is about to start and we cut to the cemetery and we’re introduced to, well we hear for the first time, we-we hear about Michael. Michael is going to be the main character and we hear that Jody and Michael are brothers, we hear that their parents died, we hear that Michael has been having nightmares for weeks, hint hint. Turns out that’s a hint. We don’t know it at the time.

ALEX: Right.

RANDY: So, what’s really interesting about one of the things about Michael’s character is he has absolutely no supervision. He is 13. And he has no supervision whatsoever. He is driving cars, driving motorcycles, drinking, and-and no one cares. He’s just-he’s just doing it, right?

ALEX: I think that’s another hint, right?

RANDY: Yeah, that certainly could be. Like there’s an unreliable narrator kind of aspect to it, and like how is… And they drive-they drive what’s become an iconic, I believe it’s called a Hemi Cuda car, which is iconic in the horror community. So Michael spying on-on the cemetery, he sees the Tall Man singlehandedly lift this casket. He thinks that’s strange. We kind of just cut to this scene of an old lady. There’s this old woman who is with her granddaughter and the grandmother doesn’t really say much. He has-she has Jody–she has Michael put his hand in a box that appears out of nowhere. And no one is really phazed by this box appearing out of nowhere. Which is kind-of a kind of a recurring theme. So-so anyway, as the plot unfolds Michael, starts visiting the cemetery. Again he just kind of drives there. The Tall Man starts stalking him. He follows his brother on a date. His date also start having sex in a cemetery. These dwarfs start chasing them. Michael winds up getting attacked by the Tall Man in the mausoleum, in one of the great scenes of the movie.The Tall man is chasing him and Michael winds up cutting off the fingertips of the Tall Man and it starts spurting all this yellow blood. In of the great moments, and this is part of negative reaction, Michael takes home the finger in a box and he shows to Michael like it’s proof that this strange thing is going on and–excuse, he shows-he shows it Jody as proof that this strange thing is going on. And Jody opens up the box, sees this like, disembodied finger, in this pool of yellow stuff and he closes it and he just goes, “OK.” And that’s-and that it. 

ALEX: YUP!

RANDY And that’s just kind of how people-how people react. So they resolve with Reggie ready to go to the-to the mus–to the funeral home to try to kill the Tall Man. They wind up in this strange room, where there’s all these barrels. And you’re kind of waiting the whole time for some kind of explanation of what’s going on. Like, who is the Tall Man? Like, what does he want? And there’s these two metal poles. And Michael just touches them and he gets pulled in. And-and this scene looks great, as bizarre as it is, he gets pulled into this strange world, where he sees all the dwarves, like toiling on kind of this red planet, and they–Reggie and Jody–pull him out, and what I guess can only be described as the explanation of what’s happening in the movie, they say–Michael says, he says, “I’ve figured out what’s going on–they’re using the dwarves for slaves. They got a crush ‘em because of the gravity and the heat, and this is the door to their planet.” And that’s it. That’s the explanation that you get. Like this Tall Man guy is like taking people from our planet, quote-unquote “crushing them” to be dwarf slaves on some other planet. And that’s really all you get, right? So they escape. They basically trick the Tall Man into falling into a mine, in the least convincing death of a villain in horror movie history. They just throw rocks on him and then leave. As if that’s going to do anything. And in the final scene, we find out–so-so Michael wakes up and he’s talking to Reggie and actually basically what they try to convey was that whole thing was a dream. Jody has also died. And since that happened Michael has been having all these nightmares. Reggie says, let’s just go on a field trip for a couple of weeks.

REGGIE: What do you expect, you’ve hardly slept since the funeral last week?

MIKE: I know those rocks aren’t gonna hold him. First he took Mom and Dad. Then he took Jody. Now he’s after me.

REGGIE: Mike, that Tall Man of yours did not take Jody away. Jody died in a car wreck. You had a bad dream. Now I know you’re scared, but you’re not alone. I’ll take care of you. I know I can’t ever take Jody’s place, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

MIKE: Feels so real.

REGGIE: You know, partner? What we need is a change of scenery. Why don’t you and me hit the road for a couple of weeks?

MIKE: Where will we go?

REGGIE: Well, I don’t know. I guess we can figure that one out when we get there.

MIKE: OK.

REGGIE: Well get on upstairs, get your gear together. Best believe when the sun comes up. <starts playing guitar>

RANDY: Michael goes upstrairs to his-to his bedroom to get his stuff and he closes the door to his to his bedroom, he sees the Tall Man and The Tall Man delivers the trademark “boy!”

TALL MAN: BOOOY!!

RANDY: And these mysterious hands just pull Michael into-into a mirror. In-in another, it’s hard to describe it, but it’s actually one of the best shots of the film. And it just kind of ends. It just ends there, right? So it’s never entirely clear what’s going on, aside from like, it’s all variations of a nightmare that this kid is-is having, right? Some members of the family have died–his parents, maybe his older brother also and he’s just kind of nightmaring/hallucinating this Tall Man guy who is out to get him.

ALEX: Yeah let’s pause on that for-for just a quick second. So, the end of the film shows you–is trying to tell you–that it was all a dream…

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: …in this in this case, we would call it a nightmare. And, you know, that maybe that was a dream-within-a-dream… it kind of sounds like a recent episode on this podcast?

RANDY: It does. It sure does.

ALEX: Sounds like Inception, yeah? Yeah… so, I thought that was interesting. When I finally got to the end of the film, I’m like “huh! OK, alright!” So we don’t know–there are four other sequels–

RANDY: Yeah, there are sequels that will simultaneously explain and confuse you more. So–

ALEX: Right.

RANDY: As often happens….

ALEX: So, if we just take Phantasm by itself and not any of the sequels–

RANDY: Which is think–

ALEX: The film is ambiguous–

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: Yeah, we gotta do that, right? You know, sometimes you got to do Nightmare on Elm Street and then not talk about anything else that came after it. But–or Friday the 13th or whatever. But the end of the film is ambiguous. We don’t know if that’s, you know, Mike waking up from a dream and then still having a dream with the Tall Man or if the Tall Man was real and all of the explanation that was part of that–you know, the dwarves and the crushing in the other dimension was actually all real, right?

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: So it’s ambiguous. And–

RANDY: Yeah, yeah… the way I took it was the-the nightmare aspect is a good way of explaining away all of the nonsense that preceded it. Right?

ALEX: Right, yeah a lot of nonsense.

RANDY: So it you’re having a nightmare, “Oh, like, I have friend that died and then now he’s a dwarf.” Right, well suddenly-suddenly in a different dimension and you get out of it and you’re, like, yeah you’re crushing people into dwarves because of the gravity and the heat, right? And it’s like–it’s-it’s such a perfect nonsense sentiment. Like, none of that makes any sense, whatsoever. But that’s kind of how dreams work. It’s like-it’s this mix of real world logic and nonsense. So, you know, the way I take it is, and kind of informed by the director, Don Coscarelli, what he said about it, is-is this like this kid is just working through his fear of death and he’s having this nightmares.

ALEX: Yeah, and also-and also the mourning and grief for a 13-year-old. That’s the biggest takeaway that I got from this film was that it was–it’s a-it’s an examination how a 13-year-old might actually deal with tragic deaths of close family members.

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: Because it’s revealed in the end that Jody died in a car accident. Which… cars in the film are a big part. That they are big visual element–there’s a lot of stuff that happens with cars. Not only the-the-the car that you were talking about–the muscle car–

RANDY: The Hemi Cuda.

ALEX: –but–the Hemi Cuda! But also that Mike is the one who fixes them. So, it’s-he’s trying to fix–

RANDY: Yeah, he’s fixing the car–

ALEX: –the fact that Jody died in the car accident–

RANDY: And while-while he’s in another “what the hell” kind of development, he’s fixing the car, one of the dwarves breaks in and drops the car on him and he’s fine. Like–

ALEX: Yeah.

RANDY: Totally, he’s just–once-once Jody arrives and gets the car off, he’s just like, up and he’s fine.

ALEX: Yeah, and that’s when bad acting seems to occur. <RANDY laughs>

RANDY: So-so I’ll-I’ll say this about-about the kid that plays-that plays Michael. I-I think he is convincing. I don’t-I wouldn’t say I relate to him. I didn’t feel like he represents every kid. I feel like he represents every other kid. And he sort of like, <ALEX laughs> because it’s sort of like, when you’re 13 and you’re imagining, “oh, like, wouldn’t it be awesome if I no parental restraint whatsoever and I could just drive cars, and drink, and be out all night and go to cemeteries for fun?” And, he pulls that off and he has-he has that kind of doey-eyed kind of quality to him. It’s also aided by his look. Which I feel like, one of the Youtubes I’ll give credit, correctly points out he has an amazing Farrah Fawcet hairstyle.

ALEX: He does, I will grant that for, you know, mid-seven-mid-to-late 70s, it was-it was lush. 

RANDY: The outfit is spectacular. And in general, the outfits in this movie are spectacular. But Michael has–he-he wears the corduroy shirt with the bell bottoms, with just a little bit of flare. And his pretty cool Adidas. And actually I think most of hte characters are wearing pretty cool Adidas in the-in the film. So it just kind of like, I like I got, you know, to bring-to bring up the concept of how do we judge good and bad, and how is that informed by psychology, like who’s to say what acting is supposed to be. Right? For me, he’s like, he’s not like, is anyone going to mistake him for-for, you know, some better actor? <laighs> No!

ALEX: But, I mean, they have to be believable. We have to buy into their-their fear or sadness or whatever. But if it’s just like I’m looking at a piece of-at-at a brick try to experience full range of human emotions, I’m going to be like, “Nooo, that’s not–”

RANDY: <crosstalk>

ALEX: “–it’s not really doing it for me.”

RANDY: I bought him as scared and I bought him as being in over his head. He does like–

ALEX: I’ll grant you the “in over his head.”

RANDY: Yeah, which-which he probably was because he was not actual-not really and actor, right? So in that sense, perhaps it’s just the fear of acting well that is portrayed in his performance, but, I felt like-I felt like it gave me enough for-for to me like, “yeah, like, he’s at least giving off the proper attributes,” and I can like, by the end, when he quote-unquote “wakes up” and he’s crying as a result of memory of his brother and his parents, I did feel for him. Like I at least got that out of it.

ALEX: So, OK, so, we’re talking about–fear is a big theme in this, right? And you had brought up the scene with the fortune-teller and I think that scene is really important as a setup for the rest of the-the stuff in the plot, and the stuff in the film.

RANDY: Yes, even though-even though those characters are essentially never seen again. Aside-aside from the girl presumably dying off camera, which they never really explain, but yes it is-it is–it’s-it’s the introduction to the idea that this kid is-is fighting fear. Yep…

ALEX: So he’s walking down the street and he makes an abrupt turn at this overgrown house and he knocks on the door <door knocker sound> and he’s like, “yo, is your grandmother home?” and the girl that answers the door, the granddaughter says…

MIKE: Hi, is your grandmother home?

GIRL: Sure, come in.

ALEX: “Yeah, duh of course, she’s home.”

GIRL: Grandmother, Michael has returned and wishes to speak with you.

ALEX: And so he goes in and he goes in for a reading, and he’s like, “I’m really scared that my brother is-is leaving…”

GIRL: You’ve come and want to know what’s bothering you.

MIKE: Uh, tell her that I…

GIRL: She can hear you.

MIKE: Oh, yeah. Uh, it’s Jody again. I found out that he’s leaving…

ALEX: And she doesn’t say anything–she basically uses her granddaughter as a-as a medium, essentially. She’s not dead, she’s using her as a mouthpiece, and he gets this box, as you said, appears, and he says “oh my gosh, where’d this box come from?!” But that–

GIRL: Grandmother’s told you before not to worry. If he does leave, he’ll take you with him.

MIKE: God I hope she’s right.

GIRL: She always is.

MIKE: There’s something else. I’m really scared about something that I did. I was messing around up at Morningside Cemetery and I saw something. Something really scary.

ALEX: But everyone else was nonplussed about it. And-and, he showed, you know, he showed his acting range from his pinky.

GIRL: Michael, grandmother wants to play a little game.

MIKE: Wow, how’d you do that?

GIRL: Put your hand in the box.

MIKE: Well, what’s in it?

GIRL: Just put your hand in the black box.

ALEX: So, he puts his hand inside, and I-I think this was the–because it happened at the beginning of the film with the great soundtrack… 

MIKE: I can’t get my hand out!

GIRL: Don’t fear.

MIKE: Give me back my hand!

GIRL: Don’t fear.

ALEX: I actually got a little–like, a little elevated in the heart rate, that he put his hand in there.

GIRL: It’s simply a reflection. Fear is the killer. That’s what grandmother wants you to learn.

ALEX: I thought maybe it was going to come out, you know all bone or something like that or was going to get cut off for whatnot. And you know, he struggles for maybe 5 seconds and then-then he’s released from it when he’s told not to fear… and so you’re like, “oh, OK, this is going to come up again. And it does. It’s used for the–that mostly climax part, where he’s sucked into the other dimension, because it’s the two prongs create a different dimension and so–but it’s kind of like one of those funhouse mirrors or something like that, where you don’t really see what’s behind it–it’s like reflecting what’s behind it or something like it–something like that. And so when he sticks his hand into it and he’s like, “oh my gosh, it’s a box!”

<low rumbling sound>

JODY: Oh my God, Reggie! Look at this!

GIRL: <whispering> Don’t fear…

<Mike is pulled in the alternate dimension; screaming and roaring are heard>

JODY: God, I just grabbed him there.

MIKE: <to himself> Slaves. <to the others> Slaves! They’re using them for slaves. The dwarves. And they got to crush ‘em, cuz of the gravity! And the heat… And this is the door to their home planet!

REGGIE: <snaps fingers> Yeah! And these guys are all ready to go.

<growling>

MIKE: Yeah.

<low rumble fades away to silence>

JODY: OK, stay together!

MIKE: Wait a sec, I think I got a lighter!

JODY: Quick, light it up!

ALEX: <chuckles> When you’re done watching the film, you’re like, “Oh, it was a nightmare… Man, his nightmare makes a lot of sense!

RANDY: Sort of! For a-for a nightmare, yes. For a nightmare it makes sense. Yes, that’s certainly true.

ALEX: And so I-I found that to be one of my favorite scenes in the movie and it speaks to the idea about understanding fear, right?

RANDY: Yeah. And-and I think we should also, we should also touch on the orb scene. As it is probably the most memorable thing connected with the scene-with the theme.

ALEX: Yeah.

RANDY: As brief as it is. So when Michael has broken into the mausoleum for the first time, and he’s kind of confronted by someone who appears to be a lackey of the Tall Man–never fully explained, but that’s okay and–

ALEX: It’s-he’s referred to be in the script as the undertaker–

RANDY: OK, sure. Fantastic! So-so, he’s the undertaker <inaudible> is chasing Michael and this orb appears. It’s just a small, probably the size, kind of the size baseball, not very big–it’s just a silver orb. It appears–it is levitating. It’s going towards Michael. Michael ducks, so it starts drilling into the head of the-of the undertaker, and what you see is like it opens up on the other side and you see the blood squirting out and that’s one scene that I feel like the length of time that the blood is spurting out approaches comic lengths. It’s a good like five seconds where it’s like–

ALEX: Yes, it is!

RANDY: –like, it doesn’t, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s really a gory film, in general, and and that-and that particular effect is not really realistic looking in any-in any particular way, but I think they get away with it, because it’s like “yeah, we’re just going to let this go a couple more seconds than we really need to.” And then he falls to the floor and dies and somewhat infamously pisses himself.

ALEX: Yeah, so that I wanted to add this as a bit of a-bit of a trivia for this part–waiting to jump in here. It was–the film was going to be X-rated because of the pee. Cuz we don’t–nobody dies in movies and pees themselves and Coscarelli was like, “no, no, no, it has to stay in.” And so he called a friend of his at the MPAA and was like, “look, it’s just pee. We all pee–”

RANDY: “Can we just?”

ALEX: “Can we-can we keep it as… can we just keep it in there and get that R-rating? Because if this is rated X, I–nobody’s going to be able to see it. Nobody’s going to go see it. No theater’s going to have it and I really needed to be PG–or excuse me, not PG, <laughs> R!” And he-and he lucked out! His friend talk to the rest of the-the people in charge of rating–or the raters or whatever– and they overturned that preliminary rating.

RANDY: Thankfully.

ALEX: And they got it R. Yeah, we wouldn’t be-we wouldn’t be graced with it, he said with sarcasm…

RANDY: Well, you know, to bring it back to the context. I was iffy on that scene the first time I saw it because it is–it’s-it’s not that the movie has some great looking shots–that is not one of them, but when you look it up, the reason why it is in there is because Coscarelli had a nightmare where that kind of thing was attacking him. And, you know, and like that is kind of how nightmares work.

ALEX: Yeah, that’s true.

RANDY: It’s like something weird will happen and that’s just kind of it. So I got that little bit of context and I thought, “oh, yeah that kind of makes sense, that’s how nightmares work.” Like this thing comes out of nowhere and tries to kill you, and it’s like drilled into your head and spurting out insane amount of blood, yeah. That sounds like a nightmare. So it kind of, yeah, so–

ALEX: Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare to me.

RANDY: –like that cohesive theme of the fear and nightmare makes like the trainwreck-y-ness of it kind of come together at the end, if you are-if you are willing to let it.

ALEX: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So did you want to say anything more about fear specifically?

RANDY: Yeah. So, I think, like, you know, the interesting–perhaps the most interesting thing–for a couple psychologists to talk about a horror movie is kind of the age-old question of “why do we like horror movies?” And there’s-there’s-there’s a few view on it. I think one of the big reasons why we’re unlikely to reach a definite conclusion is because there just aren’t any experiments that use entire horror movies as stimuli, right? Because that would, kind of, be hard to do. So, a lot of what we have is speculation and surveys and experiments that will use just like a short clip, which I feel like is not really-not really a great stand in. So, I think the-the-the adaptive reason of fear is pretty clear. Right? That’s not a big mystery, right? There are these things that can harm us, like snakes, right? So-so we have a fear of snakes, so that when we see something dangerous–

ALEX: Right.

RANDY: –we-we run, right? And so basically that’s why fear is there. Right? So, the work on fear I think is pretty clear on that. Like fear is there to grab your attention. It’s there to make you less risk-averse and is there to make you get the hell out of-of wherever you are so that you are safe. So that’s like-that’s not so much of a mystery, right? The mystery is more like, why is fiction that puts this apparently aversive thing front and center so insanely popular and probably why is it popular, and so popular, throughout time. Like, I would-I would guess that the first, among the first works, of fiction created by humans involve monsters of some sort, right? If not, the first art probably involves a human running from-from a giant beast, right?

ALEX: Yeah, I mean, a lot of-a lot of older civilizations’ stories–Greek mythology, Greek-Roman mythology–the all-constantly has, you know, monsters and beasts and stuff.

RANDY: Yeah. So-so I thought we could reason–we could-we could talk about maybe the one or two most common explanations and then maybe try to add in some color-some color of our own.

ALEX: Go for it! Who or what is-is your favorite?

RANDY: Yeah, so, there is a couple papers by Mathias Clayson, who has been summarizing this. And basically, like probably the biggest idea is like the idea of perverse pleasure. The idea is basically a little bit of a bad thing feels kind of good, right? And that applies to-to fear, it applies to like eating spicy food, and the main idea of it by exposing yourself to a little bit of a bad thing, you’re pushing the envelope of what you’re capable of and what you’re capable of-of experiencing, and kind of a related idea is like this is the simulation idea. So when you’re watching a horror movie, maybe part of why it is-it is in the end enjoyable is because you are, like, stimulating bad things happening to you and it’s essentially practicing how you would deal in those situations. So by watching the whole movie–

ALEX: Aw, man, people would-would fail miserably, I think. <RANDY laughs> GEICO-GEICO has a new commercial about–

RANDY: Yeah, maybe.

ALEX: –i-i-it about-about them, you know, in a group of-a group of people who are doing the-the horror tropes–the standard horror tropes. One girl’s like, “can we leave to the-with running car!?” and the other guy’s like, “are you crazy?! Let’s go hide behind these chainsaws!”

RANDY: Yeah, so I don’t know how I feel about the simulation idea, right? Cuz kinda like of what-of what you’re saying, right? Cuz like, I don’t know if it’s a good simulation. I-I-I will say what I like about the idea is, I know for sure I feel myself simulating afterwards. But that’s not a good feeling, right? So-so it’s–

ALEX: Right, it’s kind of–I-I saw meme yesterday–just yesterday–somebody had a picture of a ghost hunter and it said: “Ghost Hunters Turn All of the Lights Off to Turn a Flashlight On.” So I think that-that kind of represents this like post-hoc simulation.

RANDY: Well, for me what happens is this is why I say, I don’t, I think it happens, but I don’t think it’s–why they’re-why they’re enjoyable. A couple of days after watching a horror movie, I might get the feeling that like a killer is at my door, right? And that’s not like-that’s not good. That’s when I question, like, maybe I don’t like-I don’t like the horror movies, right? So I think–this simulation idea is interesting. It don’t think explains the pleasure, right? You know, the idea that “does it broaden the envelope of what you’re capable of–you get to feel yourself-you get to feel yourself gaining autonomy by watching this-this series of ever-increasing–of increasingly violent movies. Maybe. I feel like there is something to that. I don’t feel like it’s a complete explanation… right?

ALEX: I mean, that’s fair, that’s fair.

RANDY: I feel like it’s something. And another idea that I thought was interesting, was there was a patient, much like H. M., there’s a patient S. M., who had amygdala lesions and she did not have fear, right? So she would see some tarantulas and not be scared at all and she would watch horror movies and not be scared at all. And her feelings toward those things where that she loved them. She thought snakes were great. She–like the experimenters showed her clips of horror movies, her reaction was like, she wants to know the names, so she could go home and rent them. And she loved going to amusement parks, right. So to me that kind of means like maybe it’s not really the fear–like maybe the fear is maybe what makes a kind of notable and what makes it controversial, and kind of gets people in the door, but really what’s going on at least that explains the pleasure is just like the adrenaline and the imagery and the excitement of stories, right, and the fear just happens to be, like a tangential thing that’s there. So-so that’s one thing. Another thing I thought was interesting, which I was curious to hear your opinion on, is-is–are horror movies actually scary? Right? Cuz I-cuz I know you mentioned it–

ALEX: I think it depends.

RANDY: Well, often they’re not, right?

ALEX: No. I-I guess it depends on what sub-genre you want to talk about, right? So–I mean, and this is coming from somebody who is not a big horror watcher, it is probably among least frequented genre that I-that I watch. So… but I do like suspense films and suspense films do have elements of scary or elements of horror–

RANDY: Yeah, but it’s kind of like the same thing, right?

ALEX: –they’re not gory. They’re not necessarily slasher flicks.

RANDY: Right, so, one of the things that’s interesting like about like getting the context like what people like in horror films is I-I-I feel like it is the case most horror films fans/aficionados are not actually scared when they watch the movies. And, I know, I’ve watched enough, like, I don’t really get scared, except for one thing, which is jump scares. But the interesting thing–

ALEX: And that one–

RANDY: –that is horror movie aficionados don’t like jump scares, because they feel as if it–

ALEX: Well, because it-because it engages our startle response. And you know, that’s one of the reflexes that we still have as-as humans. You know, we sloughed off an awful lot of our reflexes compared to our-our closest animal neighbors. And–but we still kept our startle response because it has survival value. And that’s what jump scares are 100% stoking. That-that specific fear that you are about to be attacked and it’s the-it’s-it’s literally the same thing as if you know I’m walking down a hallway “do-do-do” minding my own business and then somebody’s like, “yo!” and I’m like, “ahhhh!” I-I literally feel like I’m out of my skin. Startle response. And it’s unpleasant and it’s supposed to be unpleasant which is why everyone hates jump-scares.

RANDY: Yes, except-except–

ALEX: That’s my thought.

RANDY: Blockbuster horror movies tend to be filled with them, right? Like the most recent It–It Part 2, which I saw a couple weeks ago, would be the most salient example for me. It’s all jump-scares. And I hated all of them, right? And I think that’s it.

ALEX: Yeah, cuz it makes you feel bad.

RANDY: I think that’s one of the interesting things. Like, people that watch horror movies constantly, don’t want ‘em, but for the big, for the blockbusters they know what’s gonna get a wider audience, it’s gonna be filled with ‘em. And like, for that-for that my guess is, if you’re just–like if you’re not a horror movie kind of a person, then you actually do like–you want to be able to leave and say you were scared. Even if-even if it wasn’t pleasant in the middle, right?

ALEX: Yeah, but–

RANDY: Right? It’s just because it’s just like–

ALEX: –it also depends on–

RANDY: <inaudible> scares.

ALEX: It also depends on–

RANDY: And that’s the easiest way to provide it, so that’s what you get.

ALEX: OK. Yeah. I also think that it helps to define a “scare” or quote-unquote “I am scared” because… the idea is, well, what if you’re just creeped out by something so, you know, The Human Centipede is–

RANDY: That’s my limit! I won’t watch that one.

ALEX: –is a horror film. It’s a horror film–it’s part of the genre, but it’s a gore horror and people who watch it leave just feeling icky. And that could be another way that horror films get to the “scared” part like. Scare–it depends on how you define it, right? And so like you were saying the big blockbusters decide, you know, we want people to be scared by start-being startled. And so we’re going to throw in a bunch of these jump-scares. And then they’re gonna go tell their friends that it was scary and that’s exactly what they want, right? They want people to see it because they’re scary and it turns out it’s all jump-scares and people leave feeling uncomfortable.

RANDY: Yeah, it-it-it–

ALEX: –but again, these are blockbusters–

RANDY: –genuinely, it is a genuinely negative experience. But, like because they expect it, they walk away saying, “Oh, like that was awesome.”

ALEX: Right. I think that-I think that’s valuable. And I think, I have to say, that that would lead me to not include Phantasm as a horror film.

RANDY: Well, yeah. I mean, so, to bring it back to Phantasm,  I wouldn’t, you know, I was not scared while watching Phantasm. There were some-there were some creepy images. And the last scene in particular–yeah, the last scene in particular where the-where the hands pull-pull Michael into the mirror. It’s-it’s-it’s-it’s thrilling–I wouldn’t say I was scared. Yeah, like it’s not-it’s not–

ALEX: It’s shocking.

RANDY: It’s not a jump scare because you see the Tall Man first. So you kind of know something is coming, right?

ALEX: Right.

RANDY: It’s not scary, really. But it does get the adrenaline flowing. So it does like, for me at least, skips-it skips right to positivity.

ALEX: Adrenaline. I mean that’s fine too. I was surprised by the final surprise–hence my surprise–but at-at no point was I thinking to myself, “you know, this is really scary.” It was set at night quite a bit and it’s supposed to be a nightmare. The fly situation, which was created from the finger– <RANDY laughs>

RANDY: We didn’t mention the fly scene, which is the best scenes where–

ALEX: –was comical–

RANDY: Yes, the actors are forced to pretend that-that-that the inanimate object in your hands is a dangerous flying beast. When really they just have, a felt-a felt piece of nothing in their hand.

ALEX: Yeah. <laughs> Yeah, so they have to act as though it is applying force to their muscles, in-in ways that they do not want to be forced and so, “oh, my hands are up high, now down low, no they’re over the side…”

RANDY: Yes, that is one scene that I can’t really-I can’t really but a silver lining on that one.

ALEX: Yeah. I-it-it’s one of those comical things where you’re like “ok, alright 3 squirts of blood, that was fine–no, 5? 6? Oh-oh, you’re still going? OK…” Was this guy supposed to be a minion… well, he had red blood–

RANDY: Red blood, so human, right?

ALEX: …so I guess…not? He’s not from the–he’s human, yeah cuz he peed himself when he died. Which makes sense, by the way.

RANDY: Yeah.

ALEX: Incontinence upon death. That makes sense.

RANDY: So kudos for–

ALEX: Kudos to–

RANDY: For scientific accuracy! Keeping all this otherwise-otherwise nonsensical.

ALEX: Yes! Exactly, exactly!

RANDY: Nonsensical piece of work.

ALEX: <laughs> And unnecessary!

RANDY: Yes <laughs> there is no one that watches–there is no one that s second before it happens is going like, “where’s that urine? Cuz I want to see that urine!”

ALEX: Yeah.

<chilling sound effect>

ALEX: Alright, I want to thank Randy for joining me on this Halloween episode–OOOOOO!–Talking about the horror cult classic, with emphasis on cult, Phantasm. Randy, while you say goodbye, do you have anything to plug?

RANDY: Well, I think we should direct people towards our-our last paper, which is a wonderful journey…

ALEX: It’s a good journey.

RANDY: Through the–many of the-of the issues with the very, very popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and what we-what we try to do in that paper is get people off of the bad ideas and onto goo ones, which is I think a good goal for just about anyone.

ALEX: Yeah, I agree. You should all go read that. If you want a link, I can certainly provide that, while I plug my own stuff, thanks Randy! I want to thank Randy Stein for joining me on this episode. Until the next episode, thanks for listening…

<crescendo piano music, then fades to silence>