Phantasm – The story behind the shot

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The 1979 horror film Phantasm faced several challenges during production. It went over budget and filming took much longer than expected. A major issue was the design of the iconic killer chrome ball, created by Will Green, who was more experienced in building turntables for car showrooms than special effects. Green came up with the idea of equipping the ball with various weapons. Because of the complex filming requirements, multiple versions of the sphere were built: one for side-on shots with blades extending, a mechanical version to display the working weapons, a full sphere thrown down a corridor (and reversed in footage to appear as if flying), and a half-sphere designed to simulate embedding in a victim’s head with blood spurting. These spheres likely cost tens of thousands of dollars to create, but Green only charged the production a mere $900. Sadly, he passed away before the film’s release. Once the spheres were built, the crew struggled for four days to light the highly reflective surface without showing the lights themselves in the shots, until they realized they needed to light the set around the sphere, rather than the sphere directly.

The film initially received an X rating – effectively killing its chances in theaters – after a scene depicting a death caused by one of the film’s spherical objects. Surprisingly, the MPAA didn’t object to the way the character died, but to what looked like urine appearing around the body after the death. The director resubmitted the film without any changes, hoping to bypass the rating, but the MPAA refused to reconsider. Eventually, a distributor executive, who happened to be friends with someone on the MPAA board, successfully convinced them to lower the rating.

Here’s the Phantasm trailer….

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2026-03-15 03:23