This 70’s cult hit benefits from intrigue and strong visuals but it’s a little too out there for my liking.
I’ve never fully understood how Don Coscarelli’s mind works but perhaps that’s his charm. It certainly seems to have worked so far, as this series and Bubba Ho-Tep have had much critical success.
The film begins as young Mike sees the sinister Tall Man (memorably played by Angus Scrimm) acting suspiciously after a funeral.
Mike soon discovers along with his brother Jody and friend Reggie (the cool as ice Reggie Bannister) that the sinister Tall Man is shrinking the corpses in the graveyard and turning tem into slaves in his alien world.
The film opens well and manages to creep you out for the duration thanks to midgets in monk robes, hands bursting out of graves, that creepy bastard Tall Man, and who could forget the icky flies, yellow blood and shiny spheres.
Watching the film for the (blush) first time, it is not easy to forget the insane visuals and the scary sound of the slaves but you do feel a little left out as Coscarelli’s screenplay is almost elitist in its execution, with many sequences making no-sense had you no knowledge of say Reggie Bannister’s musical interests or indeed no intentions of watching supplementary materials for explanations.
The film doesn’t really explain much either. It just kind of makes you accept what you are told and leaves you hanging for a sequel, and considering it took ten years to arrive, it looks to me as though it wasn’t part of some franchise master plan to leave the ending so ambiguous.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Good old fashioned storytelling and good performances makes this an enjoyable genre treat.
