In the Phantasm horror film franchise, the series’ tall supernatural villain is called the Tall Man.
The Tall Man is the central antagonist of Phantasm, the 1979 independent horror film written and directed by Don Coscarelli. Played by Angus Scrim, he appears as the mysterious undertaker at Morningside Cemetery. The character controls deadly silver spheres and commands reanimated bodies known as dwarves, making him one of the franchise’s defining images.
The first film follows teenager Mike Pearson as he investigates strange events surrounding the cemetery after the death of his brother Tommy. Its dreamlike structure deliberately blurs reality and hallucination, so some details are left ambiguous rather than explained through conventional horror mythology.
The character is often confused with unrelated figures called the Pale Man or the Sandman. Those names belong to other films and stories. The Tall Man’s personal name is never treated as his primary identity in the franchise, although later installments expand his mysterious history and cosmic ambitions.