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Written by Josh B Taylor
On Friday night, December 21, Shudder aired their latest Joe Bob Briggs Movie Marathon Special titled A Very Joe Bob Christmas. After his summer and Thanksgiving specials, I was eager to stay up all night and watch some holiday horror classics.
All month long I was wondering what movies he was going to host, thinking of classics like Black Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night or Christmas Evil; but then Shudder was announced that it was four movies from one film series.
It instantly made me think of the Silent Night, Deadly Night films, and then made me think of what films they’d show. Parts one, two, five, and the remake were my guess.
About two hours before the marathon was about to start, I decided to watch a classic MonsterVision episode on YouTube, to get into the Joe Bob spirit, and decided to watch his episode of showing Phantasm 2.
Little did I know that at 9 p.m. when the Joe Bob Christmas special started, he announced that he was showing a Phantasm marathon. Tons of people were upset about this and derided the decision online — but I was screaming and shouting with joy that this was his decision! I instantly texted my brother, a much bigger Phantasm “phan” than myself, and he was upset to be missing this marathon.
In the beginning of October, I went to the AFI Theater in Silver Spring, MD to watch Phantasm in theaters, with the director, Don Coscarelli, in attendance. When I met him, & purchased a copy of his book True Indie: Life and Death in Filmmaking, I mentioned to him that when I was younger; my cousin, brother, and I would make home/short movies in our backyards, and for our soundtracks, we used one track from Phantasm 2, “Thoughtful Moments” quite often.
Back to Friday night, and this was the first of many thoughts to start rushing through my mind that they were showing the Phantasm series. The Phantasm films he selected were Phantasm one, three, four, and five. I was bummed that part two wasn’t selected, but since I pre-watched part two before the marathon, I had watched all Phantasm films this past Friday night/Saturday morning.
Throughout the marathon, Joe Bob had “Darcy the Mail Girl” come out, and give him letters from fans to read. He also had special guest Reggie Bannister on to talk about the series, play games, and even suit up as the iconic ice cream man he’s known as throughout the Phantasm films.
It was an amazing night, and filled me up with so much joy as a horror fan to watch another Joe Bob Special. Honestly this is one of my favorite moments of 2018, and am so delighted to hear that he is going to be doing weekly shows on Shudder next year.
As I’m finishing up this article, if anyone that missed this marathon can catch it now on the Shudder App (as well as his summer and Thanksgiving special).
