In what will surely be the weirdest film news you’ll hear all week, it has come to light that The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams and his production company Bad Robot, have been secretly putting together a restoration of the cult 1979 horror film Phantasm. Some time ago Abrams revealed that Gwendoline Christie‘s chrome plated villain Captain Phasma in The Force Awakens was named after the film, so it’s clear that he must be a huge fan.
The first still from the new restoration (which has been newly scanned at 4k, almost unheard of for any horror film) has been revealed at the annual Ain’t It Cool News hosted Butt-Numb-A-Thon in Austin, Texas, and it truly is a thing of gruesome beauty. Fans have been clamoring for a Blu-ray release of the film for years now, but as independent distributor Shout Factory revealed when they released their fantastic US exclusive collectors edition of Phantasm II back in 2013, the rights to the original film were strangely not available. I guess now we know why. No release date has been announced for when we can see the fully restored film, but for now check out the still below for a look at what you can expect.
#Peace.Love.Phantasm
