Phantasm (1979) was a horror film that was not without its problems. Apart from having gone over its initial budget and the filming being drawn out over such a long period. The other problem was the killer chrome ball itself which was designed by Will Green, who had a background in effects, but at the time was building huge turntables for car showrooms. It was him who came up with idea of the ball having different weapons incorporated into it. Due to the demands of filming different spheres were built for different camera angle – so there was a profile ball with the blades shooting out, a mechanical ball to show the weapons working, a whole sphere that a baseball pitcher on the team threw down the corridor and would be projected in reverse to seem as though it was flying and a half sphere that would have blood shooting from it as it buried itself in a victim’s head. For a big budget film it was likely to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. Green charged the production a paltry $900 but, regrettably was to die before the film was released. With the spheres built they now had the problem of lighting the reflective surface without the lights themselves being seen, a problem that took four days to solve until the crew realised that they should light the set around the sphere rather than the sphere itself.
It was the first death by one of the spheres that gave made the MPAA award the film an X certificate – a death sentence at the box office. Ironically it was not the death by flying chrome ball that the MPAA objected to but rather what appeared to be a pool of urine appearing from the legs of the dead victim as he lay on the floor. Coscarelli re-submitted the film having made no cuts in an effort to fool them but they were having none of it and eventually it was one of the executives at the distributors who, coincidentally, was friendly with a member on the MPAA board and who persuaded them to lower the rating.
related feature: The Omen – The story behind the shot
related feature: Oscar winning make up genius Howard Berger talks about ‘From Dusk til Dawn’ with Tarantino
Here’s the Phantasm trailer….
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