SXSW Interview: Don Coscarelli On Angus Scrimm

I was very lucky to speak with Don Coscarelli this week in honor of the beautiful new 4K restoration of Phantasm, and though most of the interview will be shared before the restoration's wide release, I wanted to share a snippet in anticipation of tonight's screening. 

On the passing of Angus Scrimm, Coscarelli said the following:

It's really sad for me. He was a close friend. I've known him for decades and decades. The good part about it is he lived to be a full 89, and he had a beautiful, wonderful life, and we should all be so lucky. But it was really a tough goodbye, and maybe the saddest part was the outpouring on the web, and that he was not able to witness that. You know, it's like they're only appreciated after they're gone. And I wish he could have read some of those postings that I read. They were so heartfelt. But that was because he appreciated everybody who liked his performance, and who wanted to meet him. He was more interested in meeting them, and asking about them, than talking about himself. He was not interested in that. But the good news is we've got this loving restoration of his early work, and we've got the brand new Part 5 coming out, and his performance is fantastic in it, he's just great. And it was also, his sequences were filmed before he got ill. So he's very powerful in them.

Look for the rest of my interview in coming weeks, but if you're at SXSW, please check out tonight's screening of the new restoration of Phantasm. I saw it at BNAT, and it's absolutely stunning. Get the screening details here.