What actually happens
A funeral with an unusually strong mortician
Tommy, a young man, is stabbed to death in Morningside Cemetery by the Lady in Lavender, a woman who is actually the local mortician in supernatural disguise. At the funeral, Tommy's friends Jody Pearson and Reggie say they think he took his own life. Jody's thirteen-year-old brother Mike is hiding nearby and watches the mortician, nicknamed the Tall Man, put Tommy's very heavy coffin back into the hearse with hardly any effort, instead of finishing the burial. Mike tells a local fortune teller what he saw. She makes him put his hand in a box, something seems to grab him, and she tells him not to be afraid, after which he pulls his hand out unharmed.
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A mausoleum with excellent security
Later the Lady in Lavender seduces Jody and takes him to the cemetery. Mike has been following his brother, and a short hooded figure scares him out of his hiding place, so he interrupts them. Jody brushes off his warnings about the figure. Early in the movie comes the scene people remember. Inside the mausoleum, a flying silver sphere chases Mike, a caretaker grabs him, and the sphere kills the caretaker. Mike runs from the Tall Man and slams a door that cuts off the Tall Man's fingers. The fingers keep moving and drip yellow fluid. Mike grabs one and escapes with it.
A finger with its own agenda
The finger that keeps moving is enough to convince Jody that Mike is telling the truth. Before he can take it to the sheriff, it turns into a flying insect. Reggie sees the insect attack them and joins the brothers. Jody goes to the cemetery alone and is chased off by dwarves and a hearse with no visible driver, until Mike picks him up in Jody's Plymouth Barracuda. They run the hearse off the road and find that a hooded figure was driving it, a shrunken and re-animated Tommy, and they stash him in Reggie's ice cream truck. Jody and Reggie decide to take on the Tall Man, and Mike is left at an antique shop run by Jody's friends Sally and Sue. There he finds an old photo of the Tall Man and asks to go home. On the way, he, Sally and Sue find the overturned ice cream truck, and a mob of hooded dwarves attacks. Mike escapes and assumes that the girls and Reggie are dead.
A room full of canisters and a portal to somewhere hot
Jody locks Mike in his bedroom and goes to the mausoleum to deal with the Tall Man. Mike gets out and finds the Tall Man waiting at his front door. The Tall Man kidnaps him in a hearse, but Mike escapes and makes the hearse hit a pole and explode. Back in the mausoleum, Jody destroys the silver sphere with a shotgun. Mike, Jody and Reggie find a bright room full of canisters with more dwarves in them, and Mike briefly sees through a portal to a hot red world where the dwarves work as slaves. A power outage splits them up. Reggie opens the portal and barely escapes the vacuum it creates, then the Lady in Lavender stabs him in the storm. Jody and Mike run, and the mausoleum disappears. Jody plans to trap the Tall Man in an abandoned mine shaft.
The ending, explained
Jody's plan works. The Tall Man attacks Mike at home, chases him outside, and falls into the mine shaft, where Jody sets off an avalanche that buries him. Then Mike wakes up in bed, still afraid of the Tall Man. Reggie is alive and tells him that Jody was killed in a car wreck a week earlier, so everything Mike experienced was a nightmare brought on by grief. Reggie promises to look after Mike and suggests a road trip. Mike heads for his bedroom to pack, and the Tall Man is there, and hands come through the mirror and pull Mike inside.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits in Phantasm.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Phantasm scary?
Yes, Phantasm is a 5 out of 10. It has jump scares and a few gory moments, and the fear comes mostly from its dreamlike mausoleum scenes. The dread is medium and fades within a night.
How does Phantasm end?
Mike and Jody bury the Tall Man in a mine shaft, then Mike wakes up and Reggie tells him it was a grief nightmare after Jody's death. The Tall Man then appears in Mike's bedroom and his hands pull Mike through the mirror.
Does the dog die in Phantasm?
No dog dies in Phantasm. Dogs are heard barking at a couple of points, and none is seen.
Is there a post-credits scene in Phantasm?
Nobody has confirmed whether Phantasm has a scene after the credits.
Was it all a dream in Phantasm?
Reggie tells Mike near the end of Phantasm that Jody died in a car wreck a week earlier and that everything Mike went through was a nightmare caused by grief. Then the Tall Man shows up in Mike's bedroom and hands pull Mike through the mirror.
