Tune in to hear me and my 100 Fathoms Below co-author Steven L. Kent discuss John W. Campbell’s classic novella “Who Goes There?” and Howard Hawks’ 1951 film adaptation The Thing from Another World with host Keith Chawgo on season 2 episode 31 of the Literary License Podcast! You can catch it on:
or the Literary License Podcast website!
I hope you’ll give it a listen!
Devastating news. Gene Wilder has passed away at the age of 83.
Goodbye, funny man. The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are all iconic films, but Young Frankenstein will always be in my top five and so much of that has to do with Wilder’s presence, timing, and delivery. In fact, I found him to be a warm and welcome presence in every film he was in. Rest in peace, Dr. “Frahnkensteen.”
Angus Scrimm, Phantasm‘s indelible Tall Man, has passed away at the age of 89.
Phantasm was a huge part of my horror-loving history. I can still remember the first time I saw it, which was on TV, probably in 1980 or ’81. I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. We caught Phantasm by accident late at night on some random channel and stayed up to watch the whole thing. Then we stayed up even longer because we were too scared to go to sleep! (Memory tells me we took the edge off with a rerun of Adam 12.)
Since then, I’ve probably seen Phantasm a dozen more times. (The sequels, one time each and then forgotten.) It’s a great movie, a thoughtful allegory about death and the feelings of abandonment that come when loved ones die, wrapped in a nightmare filled with stunning imagery. But it’s lifted even higher by Angus Scrimm, who so fully inhabits the role of the Tall Man, the film’s menacing, otherworldly villain, that I was surprised to see he had other roles that weren’t in horror films, including roles on TV shows like Quincy, M.E. and Alias.
There’s talk of a Phantasm V coming soon (there’s been talk about it for years, with nothing appearing so far), and though I don’t think any of the sequels have matched the intensity or the iconic set pieces of the original, I’ll definitely see it anyway, if only to watch Angus Scrimm play the Tall Man one last time.
