The Life of Angus Scrimm

As a child, one of the more striking things about an initial visit to a funeral home might be seeing a mortician or undertaker for the very first time. Often, these take the shape of white-haired, older gentlemen who maintain a somber but otherwise expressionless demeanor throughout the funeral proceedings. Their age and seeming lack of emotion coupled with the fact that they watch over dead people can be unnerving things for a youngster to consider. What if a certain child were confronted with the fact that a very imposing mortician he knows of is in possession of super-human abilities and has a penchant for both killing people and turning the dead into miniature zombies? That’s what occurs in the 1979 film entitled, Phantasm. In that production the part of the mortician, otherwise known as the Tall Man, is expertly played by Angus Scrimm, who passed away on January 9…