Taking detours through horror, action, sci-fi, cult, and exploitation films, with pitstops along the way for classics, foreign gems, low budget obscurities, B-movies, and other overlooked and underseen cinematic roadside attractions.
Angus Scrimm, best known as The Tall Man from the Phantasm films, has passed away. He was 89. Fangoria has a nice obit.
I guess it's not a total shock given his age, and it is comforting to know that, according to Phantasm director Don Coscarelli, he "passed surrounded by friends and loved ones," but still, it's sad he's gone.
:(
Scrimm starred in four Phantasm films (1979/88/94/98), with a fifth film, Phantasm: Ravager set for release later this year. Also, there's a 4K restoration in the works of the first film, which is exciting. Scrimm is a big part of why the original Phantasm works so well. His strong screen presence and booming voice, he's a screen villain like no one else and when combined with the other nightmare imagery of the movie it makes quite the impression.
Here's a clip from an obscure horror film Scream Bloody Murder (1973), Scrimm's second credited screen role. He's a bit stuffier and his character doesn't last long. Neat movie though, worth the look.
Scrimm as Dr. Lyme in the very strange and weirdly entertaining Nic Cage film Deadfall (1993)
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (2005) from the Masters of Horror series. Scrimm gets kooky.
An old school class act and forever an icon of the horror genre.
RIP
Angus Scrimm
1926-2016
Damn. It's been a rough week for great cinematographers. Back on the 27th of December, the great Haskell Wexler died (his work on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Bound for Glory being real standouts) and now news comes down today that the legendary Vilmos Zsigmond passed away on January 1st.
Zsigmond was 85.
Born in 1930 in Hungary, escaping after the 1956 Russian Invasion, Zsigmond came to America where he worked his way through low budget exploitation pictures (such as the excellent The Sadist [1963], which I wrote about HERE) before getting a break on his first high profile picture, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) for director Robert Altman, which was quickly followed by Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand (also 1971). Both films would announce the arrival of a true master cinematographer, with McCabe's beautiful gauzy and hazy imagery and the marvelous lighting work and stunning crossfades found in Hired Hand.
At this point, I'm just going to list some of the great films he's worked on. You might not know the name Vilmos Zsigmond, but you've more than likely seen his work:
McCabe & Mrs. Miller The Hired Hand Images Deliverance The Long Goodbye The Sugarland Express Obsession Close Encounters of the Third Kind The Deer Hunter The Rose Heaven's Gate Blow Out Real Genius The Witches of Eastwick The Two Jakes Maverick The Crossing Guard The Ghost and the Darkness The Black Dahlia
Zsigmond worked with directors like Atlman, Fonda, Boorman, Spielberg, De Palma, Cimino, Rydell, Miller, Nicholson, Donner, Penn, and Allen. He won an Oscar for his work on Close Encounters and was nominated for Deer Hunter, The River, and Black Dahlia. He received a lifetime achievement award from The American Society of Cinematographers in 1999 and, more recently, one from The Cannes Film Festival in 2014. I'm not overstating things here when I say that Vilmos Zsigmond was one of the greatest cinematographers in the history of cinema.
He lived a long life and produced some great work. We can all hope to be so lucky.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
The Hired Hand (1971)
Images (1972)
Deliverance (1972)
The Long Goodbye (1973), one of my all-time favorite movies, a lot of which has to do with the amazing cinematography work of Zsigmond. I love it so much I posted two photos!
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Behind the scenes on The Deer Hunter
Heaven's Gate (1980)
Blow Out (1981)
The Two Jakes (1990)
The Crossing Guard (1995)
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Pictured here is Vilmos with long time friend, fellow Hungarian, and fellow cinematographer László Kovács. The two of them studied film together in Budapest and escaped when the Russians came in.
They barely made it out with footage they shot of the invasion, footage which later was incorporated in Zsigmond's documentary Hungary Aflame. The footage also appears in a doc detailing the friendship of Kovács and Zsigmond, No Subtitles Necessary: László and Vilmos (2008).
