Scary Movie Icon Angus Scrimm’s 10 Best Rated Fright Films

Subspecies, the first film in the direct-to-video franchise shot in Romania, is a cult horror vampire film that stars Angus Scrimm. It is a tale of two vampire brothers, the sons of King Vladislav (Angus Scrimm), a sorceress, and a mortal woman. Stefan, the son of the mortal, wants to co-exist with humans, and the other Radu has more evil plans in mind. From the Fangoria archives, you can check out some photos from the film.

Don Coscarelli's Phantasm is a dreamy and surreal horror you will never forget. One of the most crucial performances in the film, admittedly all of the performances are very good, is Angus Scrimm's The Tall Man. Strange things start happening when a friend of two brothers dies, lured by the mysterious Lady In Lavender. The younger brother, Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), starts snooping around Morningside Cemetary. What he finds is so strange that his brother Jody (Bill Thornbury), friend, bandmate, and ice cream man Reggie (Reggie Bannister) struggle to believe it is real. The scenes in the mortuary and the Pearson home with Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man make this film a classic. The silver sphere and Lurkers only add to the phantasmagoric atmosphere.

I Sell the Dead is a period horror comedy about graverobbing written and directed by Glenn McQuaid that stars Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, and Ron Perlman. Scrimm plays a doctor that blackmails the two graverobbers, played by Monaghan and Fessenden. Things take a supernatural turn when the two find a body with a necklace of garlic and a stake through its heart. Scrimm's character unwisely removes that garlic necklace and stake when the two graverobbers drop the body off. Fangoria has an interview with Larry Fessenden, star and producer of the film, where he talks about I Sell The Dead.

While Incident On and Off a Mountain Road is not a feature film, it is still a very popular part of Scrimm's filmography and is another project he worked on with director Don Coscarelli. This was also the first episode of the Masters of Horror television series on Showtime. In the episode, a woman who gets into a car wreck on a secluded mountain road must try to defend herself against a monstrous serial killer called Moonface. All is not what it seems, however. It stars John DeSantis, Ethan Embry, Bree Turner, and Angus Scrimm as Buddy. You'll have to watch the episode to find out who Buddy is. You can read a review of the show here in an archived review from The Gingold Files.

This film about a lonely one-woman war against an evil enemy force is one of the rare roles where Angus Scrimm wasn't playing the villain. It was written and directed by
James Felix McKenney and stars Scrimm, Christine Spencer, Brenda Cooney, and Don Wood. In the film, Scrimm plays The Scientist, the only friendly face that The Girl has ever known and who talks to her via journal entries that he recorded for her long ago while he cared for her as an infant.

John Dies at the End is one of my favorites of Don Coscarelli's films, and Angus Scrimm has a small role in it. But there are no small roles, and Scrimm is an actor who can make even a short time on screen noteworthy as he does in John. Scrimm plays Father Shellnut, a priest who has the most disturbing news for David Wong, one of the film's heroes and who, with his friend, John, became paranormal investigators and interdimensional travelers thanks to the mysterious drug called soy sauce. It's not soy sauce, as you would typically think of it. The film's narrative is as surreal as the original Phantasm but is more of a horror comedy and a cult horror film. It stars Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, and Doug Jones.

Phantasm II is the sequel to the first film the fans were waiting for. Nine years later, "the ball is back," and so is Angus Scrimm as the iconic Tall Man. The film was somewhat controversial since the fan-favorite lead character Mike Pearson was instead played by James LeGros. It also starred Reggie Bannister, Paula Irvine, and Samantha Phillips. This second round with Mike and Reggie fighting the Tall Man's evil involves psychic bonds and even more graverobbing, lurkers, and surreal storytelling as written and directed by Don Coscarelli. It's another wild ride, and Scrimm's portrayal of The Tall Man is always a film highlight.

It's true; Angus Scrimm is in Chopping Mall, aka Killbots, as Dr. Carrington, one of the scientists, and credited as Lawrence Guy. The film is called a techno horror film and stars a bevy of actors who are familiar faces in horror films. Kelli Maroney as Allison Parks, Barbara Crampton as Suzie Lynn, Paul Bartel as Paul Bland, Mary Woronov as Mary Bland, Dick Miller as Walter Paisley, and Gerrit Graham as Nessler as The Technician. It's one of his minor roles, but it is nice to see him playing other characters in different kinds of films.

Don Coscarelli's third Phantasm film, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, has everything that the series fans have come to love, plus new and just as strange plot developments. There are many more silver spheres and now gold spheres that have arrived in the series. The film marks the return of A. Michael Baldwin as Mike and Bill Thornbury as Jody. Reggie Bannister is also back as Reggie. Interdimensional portals figure even more in this film, and Angus Scrimm still terrifies as The Tall Man.

Phantasm IV: Oblivion is the last film in the series written and directed by Don Coscarelli and explores more of the life of The Tall Man when he was human. Mike escapes through a dimensional fork into 1860s Death Valley and meets the human version of The Tall Man, Jebediah Morningside, a kindly local mortician. Morningside, note that his name is the same as the mortuary and cemetery in the original Phantasm, is a man whose curiosity led him to build a machine that enabled him to travel through time and space. When he arrived at his destination, he became The Tall Man. In constructing the mythos of The Tall Man, Coscarelli said that the idea of the silver spheres came to him in a dream as a teenager. The creation of this quintessential villain and Angus Scrimm's flawless portrayals of the character are legendary in horror history.