The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
It is a podcast that covers old movies from the 20th century that are funny and ridiculous. We cover what is dumb, cool, and weird about each movie. We are raw and don't show mercy!!
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The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
Oddball Charm of Phantasm (1979): A Humorous Dive into Cult Classics and 90s Video Store Nostalgia - Episode 58
Ever wonder why some cult classics leave us scratching our heads in puzzled delight? Join us as we reminisce about the unmistakable charm of 90s local video stores, with their musty scents and mysterious adult sections, and our bewildering encounter with the movie "Phantasm." This bizarre blend of low-budget horror and sci-fi had us hooked as kids and still leaves us giggling today. From the intimidating Tall Man to the quirky Reggie and his ice cream truck escapades, we unravel the film's chaotic plot and question whether its oddball charm was a product of its time or a stroke of creative genius. Is it better-than-bad in a way that only films like "King Kung Fu" can be? Listen in to find out.
Prepare for a rollercoaster of chaos as we tackle interdimensional demons, mustard-bleeding aliens, and the wild imagination that defines "Phantasm." We recount the ridiculousness of a beetle-transformation, plans to trap the Tall Man in abandoned mines, and jaw-dropping plot twists including a shape-shifting girl with a knife. Just when you think it's all a dream, horror strikes again! This episode is a humorous celebration of the film's blend of humor, horror, and inexplicable moments, guaranteed to make you see cult classics in a whole new light.
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dumb cool, weird podcast. Welcome to the dumb cool, weird podcast. We just watched phantasm. It was fucking dumb.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was uh it was rough to watch. Okay, it was the down.
Speaker 1:It was the low budget return of the living dead meets hellraiser yeah, it's definitely very strange, with a lot of weird rushed science fiction elements there too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't sure if it wanted to be a paranormal movie or if it wanted to be a science fiction film, but then a zombie film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really bizarre. You know it's funny. A little story about this movie is years ago when I was a kid, back in the 90s. Little story about this movie is years ago. When I was a kid, back in the 90s, I walked into a video store with my dad and it was a local video store over in Dawsonville. So it was not a blockbuster, it was that old, stale, smelling video store.
Speaker 2:It had the beads in the back that brought you to the porn collection of the old man.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure it did. Pretty sure it did.
Speaker 2:Your dad was like yeah, west, go go pick out a movie.
Speaker 1:I got some important business behind the beads, yeah and it's funny because we walked over there and he was looking at stuff and I was looking at stuff and I saw just this video cassette sitting up on, you know, on the shelf and it was that fucking tall man with that little metal orb thing he uses in the movie and he was making that face where it looked like he's having a stroke and I'm like, I'm like what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2:It really does have that smile that gives you a stroke, yeah, and so.
Speaker 1:I watched it and my dad asked me later on, after I watched it he's like, what'd you think of it? And I was like I, I'm confused, I have no idea what's going on in this movie. And I thought maybe it's because I had that sense of like, not understanding, because I was a kid. But after watching this again with nick, I have no idea what the fuck's going on in this.
Speaker 2:I mean, you made it sound like it was a completely different movie from what you watched back in the 90s. We watched it again. Yeah, this is my first time and I'm gonna tell you right now it's just fucking weird. I it starts off with a sex scene in the cemetery. This has got to be the weirdest missionary position cowgirl riding session I've ever seen in my life Mm-hmm, I mean. And then he turns into the old man and stabs Billy.
Speaker 1:And he's dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone had some fucked up teeth. I'm glad that we really went past the dental work of the 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we kind of moved on from that and basically you could summarize this movie into one thing. It's basically this kid is suspicious of this funeral home and his brother just wants to get laid at first and run him off to his laid at first and run him off, he wants to run away To his aunt yeah, and the whole time this shit's going on. Basically we get this cat and mouse between this tall man and the little kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, and there's a guy who sells ice cream with a skullet. Yeah, his name's Reggie.
Speaker 1:Which is actually his real name. In real life. It turns out after looking into the movie, the director actually wrote that part for his buddy, who's actually named Reggie. I'm not even joking.
Speaker 2:Yep, he has the ice cream truck. He has the most wholesome and realistic job for the 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, Reggie, and the older brother, it looks like they're trying to start a band, and you know they just don't, I think. And the older brother, it looks like they're trying to start a band, and you know they just don't.
Speaker 2:They just don't. I think Billy was a drummer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think Billy was a drummer and they're just, you know, they don't believe the little brother. The little brother, like, sees the tall man pick up Billy's coffin, you know, with just fucking raw doggit Picks it up Like a 500-pound coffin, didn't even give a shit. And we get to see basically what ends up happening to these people when, when the tall man takes them, basically he turns them into midgets. Yeah, they're like little jawas, the jawas, and yeah, they're jawas. That's really what they are. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if there's props.
Speaker 1:oh, I wouldn't be surprised if those props were actually taken from the star wars movie, because that's actually everyone was dressed like indiana, jones and han solo too yeah, it's really weird and um, yeah, so basically the whole movie is they're just trying to figure out if what this tall man's up to and you know, try to kill him. Try to kill him. He has an orb that he shoots at people with, that has blades in it yeah, really.
Speaker 2:Uh. It was funny, though when the janitor knows the groundskeeper gets like struck right in the face the first time you ever find one of these orbs and you know. At first it's like, oh, wow, he's got like three prongs in his face. Then it drills into his skull and it squirts blood. Squirts like all of the fluids out of his head, like a period blood orgasm.
Speaker 1:And then he pisses himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the worst part is, you see, yeah, it's pretty fucking bad.
Speaker 1:It's pretty graphic. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty graphic. You know, one of the things that um was also interesting about this movie is because of the editing. The plot is really bizarre and you know, I can't tell if it was just the director was having trouble or if it was just seriously. Just that's was his vision for the movie, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, anything's better than King Kung Fu in terms of editing.
Speaker 1:I don't think anything's going to be as bad as King Kung Fu. I mean, we keep coming back to that movie. I don't think anything will ever be that bad.
Speaker 2:You know, for a while, though, we were on a streak of just watching really good movies, you know, I mean we still got to go back and re-watch all of the Hercules series for way back Wednesdays. Yeah, so that's going to be our saving grace, but you know, we're about to torture ourselves for a full month watching all of these sequels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're going to watch the Phantasm sequels to kind of because you know we're invested in the story already because we watched the trailers after watching this for those movies, and every trailer basically starts off by explaining to you what a Phantasm is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and until the fourth and fifth one, yeah. Then they just gave up. It's like they knew the first three movies. But we're definitely excited sort of for these. It's kind of like that bad movie you can't stop watching. It's like a Steven Seagal flick. Yeah, you know, skinny to fat, the man still can't act. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why he lives in Russia, where he won't be charged for sex crimes. There you go. But basically, to summarize this movie just as quickly as possible, all it really is is they chase after the tall man. The tall man comes after them. He sixes Jawas on them. You think Reggie dies. Reggie doesn't die. His truck gets flipped over, he's alive. And then they get attacked in a car by Jawas yeah, over. And then his he's alive. And then they get attacked in a car by jawas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and those two blondes that they never gave us any real like understanding who they were, what the relation was to the family. It was like the black maid, right in the house she just shows up oh, are you boys done for the day? And you're just like where, where the fuck did you come from?
Speaker 1:yep, and that's. That's another thing about this movie. Because of the editing, there is parts of this movie where something would happen and then you'd be like what's going on? And all of a sudden the character would just pop up again and then nothing is addressed. Literally, the older brother pulls out the sarcophagus, opens it up and he doesn't see anything in there, and then it cuts back to the little brother. He opens it up and then he meets nothing. And then he meets up with his older brother again and they're just like they shoot one of the orbs. Yeah, they shoot one of the orbs, but like he's like.
Speaker 2:He's like I saw something but I'm not gonna talk about it, and they're just like okay well, you know, and here's the thing, then they, they accidentally go to their universe after touching the tuning fork dimension yeah, so it turns out they're a it's aliens it's aliens, but also a phantom yeah, it's really weird.
Speaker 1:Like, literally like the little brother, the, the biggest fucking bullshit ass, pull on your. Like you can ever think about the little brother's like, oh, that must be their planet where the gravity is higher, so that's why they have to turn them into dwarfs.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's hot, and it's hot, and it's like what the fuck does that have to do with anything? All I know is that these aliens are just demons, interdimensional demons, something Alex Jones talks about them quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's funny, though, though, is they also bleed Mustard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, humans bleed ketchup, alien, demon creatures bleed mustard.
Speaker 1:Yep, and they Take his finger and then the finger Gets trapped in a box and becomes a beetle yeah, beetle, fly thing and they have to kill it. And what's really funny is there's a scene when they're sitting outside and he shows his older, older brother the finger and he looks at him and goes you know what? I believe you.
Speaker 2:I believe you yeah, you just got this like prop finger and some mustard yeah he's like you know, you can't really make that shit up yeah, you know what's funny.
Speaker 1:Funny too is that the very you know like, once they get to the end where they're trying to. So they come up with a plan to try to lure the tall man into these abandoned mines, and the little brother is supposed to stay at home, but then he ends up coming out anyway and he Well, he was also attacked at the house by the tall man who was like I've been waiting for you, boy, Boy.
Speaker 2:And so they end up.
Speaker 1:It's actually really funny. Who was like I've been waiting for you, boy Boy? And so they end up. It's actually really funny. They end up going, he ends up getting chased, and when he's getting chased by the tall man he turns into the hot girl with the knife again and he gets trapped in some quicksand. And then they end up going to the mine and then the brother somehow knows to knock these giant boulders over which, by the way, how the fuck did he do?
Speaker 2:that he couldn't. I mean, this is the part where it's crazy, too, is when you find out after that they're sitting in front of the fire with reggie, who was stabbed in a scene prior it was all a dream, remember yeah, it was all a dream. Your older brother was nothing had your. Your older brother has nothing to do with the, with that tall man. He died in a car accident. You know, let's get away from this place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, grown man talking to a teenager yeah, it's creepy yeah we'll get in the car and we'll go somewhere and basically it ends with him going up and packing his bag and then he gets attacked by the tall man and then, like some, kind of zombie monster deadite grabs and pulls him in the closet and that's the end of the movie you know, and and that let's get on.
Speaker 2:Let's get on to this. All right, because we saw the other trailers. Half of the bad guys are deadites, jawas and fucking. What are the ones from? Deadites are from Evil Dead, yep. I was trying to think of the other ones, and some of them look like Cenobites, yep.
Speaker 1:It's kind of all over the place. I mean, you know, the fact is like we can't really know what's really going on, because if it was all just a dream, all that stuff could have been just in his imagination, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then the other Phantasm movies prove that this is not a dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's very interesting to see how that goes.
Speaker 2:We're kind of excited, kind of regretting this.
Speaker 1:Yep, let's talk about the dumb, cool and the weird. What was dumb about this movie? I know this is going to be pretty easy, Wow.
Speaker 2:I mean really Just the whole thing. The fucking Jawas, the concept of the Jawas, is the fucking dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:They're slaves.
Speaker 2:They're slaves but they need to crush their bodies down because of the gravity and the heat. Oh and then let's not mention that their dimension runs like a tuning fork.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's also bring up the fact that these characters are fucking stupid. They just keep going and doing things without actually bringing back up half the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's not one cop in this whole town, whole town, because they are unloading. They're just shooting randomly throughout this whole freaking neighborhood. Yeah, getting into high-speed chases, I mean, the tall man blew up once.
Speaker 1:Yep, he did in a fucking car, by the way. That's fucking dumb. Literally, the fucking car is driving and he shoots out the tire, jumps out the back. He barely hits a pole and explodes yeah oh, you know what else is dumb? Let's go back to that rock scene. How the fuck did he push those rocks over with his bare hands?
Speaker 2:there's no way yeah, no, that there's no way. There weren't even that many rocks up there for him to push down, like it would have made sense. You know, if there's like one boulder, yeah, and it goes down there yeah, but he pushed all those boulders down, so fucking stupid but wait a minute, he's interdimensional. He's been proven to come back after being blown up, having his fingers cut off, like you know multiple shit that they've done to this tall man, right? Yeah, do you think that this is gonna really stop him?
Speaker 1:nope, I don't think so. So then let's um talk about the cool. What was cool about this movie? Wow, that's gonna be a hard one. The guns were cool.
Speaker 2:You know yeah, the guns were cool the 1911, the fuck it, a 12 gauge shotgun. The fact that they look like they had a springfield up there which is never getting, I like that knife the kid had too. Oh yeah, like that old Rambo survival knife, Mm-hmm. Yeah, those are popular at Bass Pro Shop. Very nice.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I'm pretty sure that was the only cool thing about those.
Speaker 2:That was a nice 1911, but damn, he put so many bullets in that dwarf. Yeah, didn't take him out at all. 45 ACP, no, didn't take him out at all. 45 acp, no, no, let's talk about something else. That was fucking. That. That was kind of. That was kind of dumb. Real quick, all right, when that dwarf is attacking his brother, jody right, and you know he's got him in a chokehold, he pulls out his gun and just kind of like, does that one of these like really close to his head to clip the fucking thing in the in the head with that? It's like. It's like, you know, you almost shot yourself. Stupid. Yeah, like what? Like no point are you thinking? You know, maybe I should try to like? No, no, I'm just gonna do this.
Speaker 1:Look at me, wes, safety, safety yeah, as you can tell folks, there's more dumb about this movie than there are cool. But now we're going to move on to the weird, and there's a lot to talk about there. Yeah, we'll talk about the weird.
Speaker 2:Was the guy who was the groundskeeper also immortal? Or was he just some guy like deranged guy that he hired Because you know he was pretty cool with him getting killed?
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure he was just some random guy that he hired. But you know, what I thought was the weirdest part was that whole fucking plot about them being aliens. Dude, that came the fuck out of nowhere, dude.
Speaker 2:You know what? Let's go back to the psychics. When he goes to the psychic right, they have have like a whole dune, like situation going on. We're like put your hand in the box, oh, oh, it hurts. It was only fear.
Speaker 1:It was only fear you didn't have to be afraid of it. What's what was really weird about that is, like the she just like randomly goes to the fucking house and like to that and dies. Yeah, and we don't. We don't hear anything else about that, and the grandma's a fucking bitch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she doesn't say anything Until the end, when she starts laughing. Yeah, because it's like ha, fucking dumbass kid Smoking mirrors, nerd.
Speaker 1:Smoking mirrors. But yeah, that's pretty much the phantasm. There's not really much to it. There's a lot of dumb, yeah, a lot of dumb, in this movie.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's going to be a lot of dumb in the next one too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the next one looks like it has a higher budget. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, people must have watched this film. I mean, that's the only reason sequels get made, although it did take them ten years to make another one.
Speaker 2:You know that conversation must have been great. Hey, remember when we made that movie Phantasm. Yeah you mean that shithole? Yeah, let's do it again. I got nothing else going on.
Speaker 1:Reggie's like sure I'm in.
Speaker 2:I'm in. I haven't acted in a while.
Speaker 1:And then they're like Reggie. I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2:Have you tried, maybe getting a haircut? You know tried doing anything different than the skullet? I like you know. Try doing anything different than the skullet. I like the skullet, yeah. Uh. Let's get on to the the what. When the next one we're gonna see a quadruple barrel shotgun? Yeah, but not like a nicely put together one. It's like somebody really jerry-rigged this thing together oh yeah, it's gonna be crazy.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to it, but that was the phantasm we got. All we're gonna do, we're gonna do all four of the movies. There's a fifth movie. We'll probably save that one for another time, if we can. That's uh, that's a hard that that's a hard one yeah, so it's. It looks like it has the budget of, like you know, like a film school or something.
Speaker 2:But anyway, that was phantasm it's probably made by the people from our university probably Probably so.
Speaker 1:All right, you'll sign us out.
Speaker 2:Stay sexy Atlanta.
Speaker 1:Thanks for watching the Dumb, cool, weird podcast, where we cover some of your favorite movies in 20 minutes or less for your convenience. We go over what is dumb, cool and weird about movies and check out our Wayback Wednesdays. We do sometimes for other stuff, and please share us with your friends.
