Some movies leave you with a lasting impression, others just don't.
Phantasm belongs to the second group. It's not that it is a bad movie, or that I
didn't enjoy it, but it just wasn't that good either. For me, it didn't have
anything memorable within its 90 minutes, and even The Tall Man himself wasn't
anything inspiring. I mean- after knowing The Slender Man, all I can say in benefit
of this movie is that it was a nice inspiration for some great artistry. Too
bad it's all I can say for this film.
Anyway, this movie's plot is pretty complicated, and not because of its
presentation. You see, the movie twists itself quite a lot, combining gypsies
with ice-cream men with heroic sensibilities, aliens and dwarfs, brotherly love
and much-much grief over death in the family. Anything beyond that might be a
spoiler, and I don't want that to happen.
Our protagonist, Mike, begins as a certain kind of stalker- he follows
his brother anywhere, because his afraid of his brother leaving him behind, to
leave his life alone. In a scene near the beginning, Mike follows his brother
and witnesses his brother doing it, or at least beginning to do it.
And that's a great idea to use in our games. No, not this particular
idea, but… one of the greatest GMing tips that can be given about portraying
NPCs is that they should be given a sense of life. They should feel alive
beyond the scope of their encounters with the PCs. A great way to do that is to
have the PCs meet them in normal situations.
Imagine this scene- the PCs are doing their businesses in the city as
usual, when suddenly they see the villain in a flower shop. "A-ah, this
time we'll get ya!" they'll say to him, for which he'll respond
"Can't I just but some flowers for milady?" or something along those
lines. Or maybe he collects flowers because this is one of his hobbies? Or maybe
because he is lonely and this is his way of escapism?
As an added bonus, try to think about ways to utilize these instances to
make the players feel bad. "Look, if I'll try to kill this woman you'll be
the first to know about it, and then you'll come and take revenge on me, and
then you'll destroy my base (again) and then I'll have to start all over again
(again)." Two benefits for the price of one, I'm taking it…
And that's it for today. How about you? Have you watched this movie? What
have you thought about it? And what have you learned from it?
Tomorrow I'll cover the last five movies of this project, so I hope
you'll enjoy it too.
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