Let's Take Another Look At The Science Fantasy Movie Phantasm (1979)
When I was in high school I saw an interesting science fantasy horror film by the name of Phantasm. This film caught my attention for a number of reasons but not all these reasons would resonate with understanding until many years, indeed, decades later. To be clear, the movie caught my attention but I was aware it wasn’t a masterpiece in the same league as, let’s say, The Shining or Alien. Indeed, those films were imbued with famous directors and major Hollywood studio budgets. Phantasm wasn’t in that class and had no pretensions to be. Phantasm was written and directed by Don Coscarelli and released in 1979.
There were certain scenes from the film that were indelibly burned into the hard drive of my brain and not so much for their gore or shock value (even though the film has its fair share of that) but rather, for the startling nature of some surreal depictions. Specifically, I want to note the images which showed glimpses through a portal into another dimension, a type of hellish place populated with slave dwarves toiling in a red hot landscape. Other images as well left their mark like the menacing Tall Man and remarkable metallic sphere that flies through the air and drills into people’s skulls.
The surreal elements and dream imagery in the film have subsequently been noted by critics. Marc Pavlov of the Austin Chronicle has made comparisons with Luis Buñuel and Alejandro Jodorowsky, describing Phantasm as "a truly bizarre mix of outlandish horror, cheapo gore, and psychological mind games that purposefully blur the line between waking and dreaming." In the Los Angeles Times, Gina McIntyre uses the terms “creepy, surreal and idiosyncratic.”
Phantasm is an independent film the bulk of which was financed by the director’s father. The crew were made up of amateurs or those trying to break into the film industry. When the film was released in 1979, initial reviews were mixed. Nonetheless, with time, people’s opinions on the film became quite positive and has matured into a cult classic of the first order. Much of the storyline for Phantasm is centered around a location known as Morningside Cemetery and the Morningside Mausoleum. The exteriors for the Morningside Mausoleum were shot at the Dunsmuir Mansion, a magnificent 16,224 square foot Neoclassical Revival mansion located in Oakland, California. There are numerous scenes involving the front gates of Morningside Cemetery however, the front gates that appear in the film were not filmed at the Dunsmuir Mansion. Rather, they were filmed at the Cobb Estate, located just outside of Pasadena at 599 E Loma Alta Dr, Altadena, California 91001.
The Cobb Estate is a curious location and the more I research it the stranger it gets. Long before Charles H. Cobb purchased the property and built a mansion there in 1918, the area was known as “The Haunted Forest.” As far back as the mid-1800’s, when the property was owned by the Los Flores Ranch mining company, locals warned of ghostly apparitions, phantom lights and will-o’-the-wisps luring hikers off the trail to their doom. Indeed, even to the present day, visitors to the estate, which has been turned into a public park with hiking trails, frequently report sightings of weird blue lights, extraterrestrial encounters and UFOs.
Whether by synchronicity or by choice, the filmmakers’ decision to use the Cobb Estate in the movie seems most apropos to the theme of the story and it is used often, including the iconic scene where the fortune teller’s grand daughter solemnly walks through its gates.
The opening scene has Tommy (Bill Cone) being stabbed by a woman while they are having sex inside the Morning Side Cemetery. But the woman turns out to be the Tall Man, who is a shapeshifter and thus can change form. The death is ruled a suicide but at the funeral, Tommy’s friends see the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) lift the casket with his bare hands and instead of burying it in the ground, places it in the Hearse and drives off.
Later, Tommy’s friends Jody (Bill Thornbury) and Mike (Michael Baldwin) sneak back into the cemetery. At the mausoleum, Mike is chased by a flying metallic sphere which narrowly misses him and impales itself inside the skull of a caretaker, spewing his brains out all over the floor. Mike is then pursued by the Tall Man who he barely escapes only after slamming a door on the Tall Man’s fingers which get cut off but still continue to move. After bringing the fingers back as evidence, they enlist the help of their friend Reggie (Bill Thornbury). They intend to bring the fingers to the sheriff but the fingers transform into flying insects which attack them. Jody then returns to the cemetery for further investigations but is chased by a hooded dwarf in a Hearse.
Mike runs the Hearse off the road with his Plymouth Barracuda and they discover that the dwarf is in fact their dead friend Tommy, who has been re-animated and shrunken. Mike, Jodie and Reggie return to the mausoleum and enter a brightly lit room filled with canisters containing dwarves. Jody falls into a portal and catches a glimpse of a strange world where thousands of dwarves are seen marching over a vast barren landscape. He realizes that the dwarves are being used as slaves and they have been miniaturized because of the gravity and the heat. As we shall see, many of the elements in the film reference, in eerie fashion, the strange history of the Cobb Estate.
Enter the Marx Brothers. In 1956, the Marx Brothers purchased the Cobb Estate. That's right, the comedic act Marx Brothers of Vaudeville and Hollywood fame. Specifically, three of the brothers were part of the investment, that is Groucho, Harpo and Gummo. Their intentions, it turned out, weren't to live there, as the mansion had long fallen to disrepair. Rather, they had the building razed with the intention of turning the property into a large cemetery. When word of the plan reached the public's ear, the locals protested. The last thing they wanted was a new cemetery in their backyard. And on top of a Haunted Forest to boot. In the end, a large donation made by a private source allowed the city of Pasadena to purchase the Cobb Estate, which was then handed over to the U.S. Forest Service.
Did the writer/director of Phantasm know of this bazaar connection to the Cobb Estate when he was filming? Did it influence the story he was telling, or was something else at play? Utilizing the gates to the Cobb Estate appears to be an invitation to exploring a deeper mystery, one which we are just at the start of.
Andrew K. Arnett is a writer and producer. He has been published in Paranoia Magazine, New Dawn, Nexus, Konbini and Alien Buddha Press. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and hunts ghosts with the Brooklyn Paranormal Society. Find him on Twitter: @AndrewArnett
