The Ghoulish Plot: It’s the end of the 1970s, and nothing is quite right in America, everything is beige and drunk driving is the rule of the land. An orphaned teenage boy named Mike follows his shithead older brother to a funeral and spots a weird tall undertaker who starts lifting coffins by himself while rocking a pretty intense skullet, even for 1979. Super strength is one thing but dude, know when to let the hair go, man.

Their paths continue to cross with the tall undertaker (whose scary bad guy name is “Tall Man”) until they realize he’s directly involved with the disappearances that have plagued the area, so they team up with their buddy the hippie-dippie ice cream man and break into the mortuary to discover that Tall Man is shrinking bodies and turning them into…something else. He also has access to flying silver balls with spikes that only give you a couple of minutes with tense music to dodge them at most, which is pretty tough when you’re busy making shocked faces.

Over the course of the movie multiple dream sequences and flashbacks make it impossible to figure out what’s actually happening, until it all wraps up in an ending that indeed happens as the movie was running out of film, apparently. It’s something about space midgets being used as slaves for something intergalactic. I dunno, man, people had been doing a lot of hallucinogens for a decade and then this movie got made and Jimmy Carter was President and shag carpeting seemed like a good idea.

The Scariest Part of the Movie: this movie has spawned several sequels, and the Tall Man has been rocking the same haircut for decades. Seriously, dude, accept it and shave your head.

Spookiness Factor: the movie is never really sure what kind of horror movie it wants to be, so just as you start to get into whatever phase it’s rolling in everything shifts and you’re never really all that affected by the scares. This might be one of the funniest horror movies I’ve seen in a while.

Rating: 3 out of 10 Australian licorice pieces for this one.