In my time conducting interviews with members of the horror filmmaking community, I’ve learned to gauge the course of an interview by the first few minutes. It’s been important to determine—and determine quick—whether the person to whom I’m speaking is shy and in need of a bit of gentle prodding, or bombastic and talkative and in need of some chamomile. Sometimes I’m speaking to someone afocal who needs to be kept on track; and sometimes I find myself speaking to someone with only the barest amount of involvement in a given project, who might even be confused why they’re even speaking to me.

In the information age, aren’t surprises great? Though the film may have premiered to some lukewarm reviews, everyone lost their collective stuff earlier this year when it was announced the low-key, somewhat-anticipated horror movie “The Woods” was, in fact, a Blair Witch sequel. The announcement came so close to the release of the film that there was no time for rampant speculation on the plot; no time for myriad spoiler leaks and internet debates; just enough time for audiences to go in naïve to the story and soak up the pure experience of it.

In terms of horror franchises, Phantasm has had one of the more protracted—and interesting—histories. When it hit screens in 1979, Phantasm was unlike anything many audiences had seen outside the realm of Eraserhead. The story of two brothers trying to outwit an evil mortician resurrecting the dead for use in extradimensional slave labor, the film worked according to its’ own dream logic and eschewed the rising slasher trend in favor of eerie, trance-like sequences.