It happens all too often. A brand new entry in a beloved franchise is announced, the press release hits the web, and it turns out that the studio heads have placed the future of a popular horror series in the hands of a filmmaker who’s never seen a single entry. Luckily, when it came time for renowned filmmaker Don Coscarelli to pass on the torch to an upcoming director for a new Phantasm installment, he wisely chose a man who has been a fan since the beginning: David Hartman.

“I got Fangoria Issue #2 when I was seven years old and it had these two pictures inside, the Tall Man’s finger inside the box with the yellow blood, and Michael Baldwin floating in this red background, and it just blew me away” recalls Hartman. “I had to show it to friends because it scared me, and I wanted to share. I didn’t want to be the only one that was scared. I can honestly say that was one of the most guiding moments that even turned me into a fan of horror”.

The last entry and a long awaited finale to the franchise, David Hartman’s Phantasm: Ravager finds new ground by delving deeper into the Tall Man’s world, while still finding footing in the familiar by harking back to all the familiar Phantasm elements. The muscle car, the deadly flying spheres, Reggie’s tendency towards romancing whatever lady he comes into contact with – it’s all here, and for head honcho Coscarelli, it’s been an exhilarating ride. Looking back over the past thirty years however, the original creator of the series has realized that it wasn’t necessarily he who pumped life into the films, but rather the magnificent actors he hired, whom he only guided to greatness.

“I think I’ve found the mythic and heroic qualities in each of these actors” reflects Coscarelli. “I’d like to take credit for that. I was just thinking about the very first time I met Reggie Bannister, and I put him into my very first movie, and I’m a teenager, by the way, I was like nineteen and we’d heard about this guy in college, over in Long Beach, California, and he was this musician-actor and he was really cool. So, I went out to a beer bar where he was performing and he got me in the bar and I watched him play music. He had this unique personality which is the Reggie in the movies, but what’s cool about him though is that he kept surprising me. He was in this movie, Jim, the World’s Greatest he played this quirky character, but then I brought him my second film Kenny & Company and he was great in that, this little kids movie. But then, when it came time for the third movie, Phantasm, I figured he would make this great sidekick and loyal friend and brother, but really, I can’t take credit for his performance, but it’s like I kind of steer these people. Like, I had this idea in the script in Phantasm I where he would jump out and finally take this moment where he says ‘I know what we’ll do! We’ll take that tall dude out and lay him out flat and drive a stake right through his goddamn heart!’ And there’s this moment where you go, ‘Holy shit! This old ice cream man is an actor star!’ but I don’t have any of that in the first Phantasm (laughs). You know, in the end, he tries to save the day but it doesn’t work. So, cut to Phantasm II, and then it’s like, okay, Reggie goes with them on this road trip and now he’s a little bit more of action star, and we give him that gun, and then by Phantasm III he’s this complete antihero action hero dude, and yet in each one Reggie rises to the occasion. So, I had something to do with it, but it was more me seeing what these actors had in them. Bill Thornbury, the older brother, I see he had qualities as a musician, and that he’s a good natured person, and then Michael Baldwin had this steely resolve which evolved and flourished as the movies go on. In a way I was kind of guiding it, but a lot of it had to do with their inner core, just who those people really are in real life”.

Aside from the more well known trademarks of the Phantasm universe, one of the most important through lines in the series is the use of balls-to-the-wall, outrageous practical effects. Considering the relatively limited budget and other obvious restrictions that Coscarelli and company had to face with the original 1979 film, what they managed to pull off in the final product is a feat, to say the least. However, as accomplished as their product turned out to be, Coscarelli can’t deny that he is overjoyed to trek back to the movie that made him the man he is today, and give it a brand new beautiful finishing touch in the updated version Phantasm Remastered.

“I love practical effects, but the fact is that in the first Phantasm, there was no possibility of visual effects because they had not been invented yet” points out Coscarelli. “The only way we could do these things was, you know, paper clips and tape, so I’m just there trying to find some ingenious way of making spheres fly. But now, one of the greatest joys of my life was him doing this restoration. Thank you J.J. Abrams for Godfathering it. We were finally able to go through and remove every piece of fishing line in Phantasm, and it looks great”.

When it comes to Phantasm: Ravager, the fifth installment in the franchise headed by Hartman, he chose to combine the legacy of the past with the improvements of the future, by combining the infamous practical effects with the more advanced visuals made available in today’s world.

“The trailers show a lot of the cool digital moments, digital spheres doing this and that, and I know a lot of people were like ‘Oh, it’s all digital’. It’s not, it really isn’t. It’s a mixture of digital and practical it’s just with practical we’re doing a lot of cool blood stuff, and you can’t put that in the trailer!” laughs Hartman. “We’ve worked very closely with Gigi Bannister, who is our special effects coordinator, in working with the spheres, we worked very well together just to creatively figure out when to use digital and when not, and we got to do some really cool things. You see spheres in daylight, chasing a car, I mean how cool is that?”

Still, at the end of the day, as Don lovingly points out, you just can’t beat a good old fashioned explosion.

“It seems like the explosions cure all ills” coos Coscarelli. “There’s something about those explosions, I just love them. I was watching the [Phantasm] remastered the other night, and I had forgotten about you know we uh just blew the hell out of that first hearse in this massive fireball, and this roaring inferno on it. I just love these gasoline fireballs you know it’s a thing from the ‘70s, and maybe you’re not seeing them as much anymore because people are using more digital type stuff, but there’s a funny story from the first movie. The great special effects guy from the time, Roger George, I didn’t know his history, but the day he showed up I was a little taken aback because he had been in a fire explosion so the side of his face was kind of scarred and I thought wow, this is gonna be interesting! So he’s coming out of his truck and he has this box and I said, ‘What’s that?’ and he said ‘This is a neck flame bomb I had it left over from my last movie, I’m just gonna put it on the front seat of the hearse and see what happens’. (laughs) So he did it, and wow! It was awesome!”

From massive fireballs to flying spheres, to four barreled shot guns, there’s definitely a lot to love and cherish from the Phantasm franchise. However, arguably the most important component of the wild universe that Coscarelli wonderfully built is the character of the Tall Man, played by none other than the legendary Angus Scrimm. Sadly, the man who depicted one of the most memorable villains of all time passed away last January, but Coscarelli and Hartman will never forget what it was like to work with the man himself, or the inconceivably important role that he played in the success of the series.

“I’ll tell you about the first time I showed him the finished Phantasm: Ravager” Hartman says with a hint of fond reflection in his eyes. “So, I had Don’s approval, but I needed Angus’ approval. So, I picked him up at his house to go to a screening room to watch it, and Angus is like, ‘David, who’s going to drive me home after the movie?’ I was like, ‘Well, Angus, if you like the movie, I’ll drive you home. If you don’t like the movie, Don’s driving you home’. And the whole movie I’m waiting, I’m watching Angus, just the Tall Man, sitting there, stoic, and I’m like ‘Ah man, I can’t read this guy!’ and I don’t know if he’s liking it or not. When the movie ends, he comes up to me and says, ‘David’ and I’m just shaking and I say, ‘Yes?’ and he says, ‘You will be driving me home’. I mean that was one of my happiest, greatest moments, just getting his approval. Watching some of these scenes now, though, is very difficult for me, and I’m sure for Don. Don has known this guy for decades, I’ve only had a short time with him and he’s impacted my life. Being able to watch those scenes and some of the dialogue Don and I wrote for him, and the mortality he’s dealing with in the film, is, to me, is a very poignant and very emotional moment to watch in the movie, and I hope so for the fans as well”.

As for the man who arguably knew him best, director and friend Don Coscarelli, the one thing that keeps entering his mind is how sad it is that Scrimm couldn’t be at Fantastic Fest with the rest of the team, basking in the glory of all of their years of hard work, and ushering in the latest entry in the treasured franchise.

“He loved to work, he loved to play the Tall Man, and the saddest part is, he just loved to meet the Phantasm fans, and he would’ve just loved to be here for this” says Coscarelli with a mixture of pride and sorrow. “These last two days, he should’ve been here, it’s just a crying shame that he isn’t”.

Phantasm: Ravager hits theaters everywhere on October 7th, 2016.