It's That Time Again

It's been a...very long, and in some stretches seemingly endlessly unpleasant year.

But, we're finally here. October. The weather's cooling down, there's a crispness in the night air.

And oh yeah, Halloween. Also that.

As I'd said in my last entry, we're gonna be trying something different this October here at the Third Row. As fun as it is to do to the '31 movies, 31 reviews', one of the biggest hurdles has been the amount of time that entails.

So, for now, that's an idea that's being hung up. We might come back to it in the future, but for now, it's just too much for me to properly work through.

So we're gonna make up for quantity with quality.

This year, we're going to be taking a franchise deep dive. Full review entries (two of which I've covered to degrees before this), with reading up on their backgrounds to get as much of the full experience as possible.

I should warn now that this will get into spoiler territory, particularly with the final entry of the month. As such, I'll do my best to keep the heaviest of spoiler discussion behind the typical disclaimer banner.

So which franchise is it to start things off?

You know, it's funny to me – when I do the rankings of best/favorite horror movies, Phantasm occasionally breaks my top five. The first four are all solid locks while the fifth is a regular battle royale between that, Rosemary's Baby, and The Shining. Despite that, if asked to pick my overall favorite horror franchise, it's the one that comes out on top for me.

As fun facts go, unless someone has a better name for it,
the overall theme for this month's project is currently
OctoBOOOOOOOOOY

There's a few reasons for that. The first, and one of the most direct, is probably the fact that it's one of the ones where I feel the overall holds up. Yes, there's other bigger franchises, some with overall stronger entries in them, but as much as I love movies like The Exorcist, Alien, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, their overall franchises have points of “...it's too bad about that one.”

Interestingly two other franchises I feel avoid this “...although” problem also share this mext trait in common with this series – over five movies and almost forty years, Phantasm has managed to largely keep its core creative team behind it – even when Coscarelli bowed out of directing the final movie, he was onhand to help make it. The only other time that core group was altered in any way was the studio mandate of replacing A Michael Baldwin with James LeGros for the second movie, and even that was subsequently reversed from 3 onward. With how many franchises change hands and subsequently lose any sense of cohesive theme or creative through line, there's something admirable about the ones that manage to stay with the same team all the way to the end goals.

For those wondering, the other two franchises I was referring to were Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy and George Romero's Dead trilogy. Granted, some will debate this stance in light of things like Fede Alvarez's remake/sequel for ED and many of the more estranged post-Day Romero movies, but as the initial 'core' trilogies, they remained solidly in the hands of their creators.

Finally, I'm genuinely fascinated by the strange world this series grew and created. With weird segues into nightmares, zombie dwarves, and an extradimensional mortician as its primary antagonist, played by the late great Angus Scrimm, the series is still a unique breed of weird horror, and since it never became a huge blockbuster, one that never got subjected to waves of imitators. On top of that, that same core cast and crew have given the series its own sense of heart and even family to go with all the weirdness. I'm still trying to rack my brain for many other comparable experiences in horror cinema and haven't had much luck.

There's something genuinely admirable to the man's being
completely game to play this role right up to the final years
of his life. Rest in peace, Mr. Scrimm.

We'll see as the month goes on, but in the meantime, hopefully you guys will join me on this weird thirty-seven year jaunt through the space gate.

The review for the first Phantasm will be going up later this week.

See you then.