You play a good game, boy, but the game is finished. Now you…pop? Funko will be adding a crucial figure from horror history to its lineup, as Phantasm’s The Tall Man has been announced to receive the Pop! treatment. This is a real treat for fans for a number of reasons, the primary one being that there are actually very few licensed Tall Man properties on the market.
Funko is certainly no stranger to giving horror icons their Pop! due, with genre staples like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Leatherface, and more all part of the vinyl toy collection. With Phantasm’s The Tall Man joining the Funko family soon, it shows the company going for a deeper cut aimed at a less marketable series.
While Phantasm has seen five movies released from 1979 to 2016, there has only been one notable figure of The Tall Man in that time. That one came from NECA, which the company released in 2005 as part of their Cult Classics line. That 7” figure came with an “evil minion” and his famed sentinel, which Funko has also included in The Tall Man’s hand. (Middle of Beyond has also taken to the Phantasm franchise, releasing an awesome – and heavy – ornament that is an essential for any horror fan’s tree.) Other details are definitely strong on this Pop!, with The Tall Man sporting a raised eyebrow, combed-back hair and trademark mortician outfit.
Phantasm celebrates its 45th anniversary this year, making this a fitting tribute to one of the great horror films of the late 1970s. It’s also a nice homage to The Tall Man portrayer Angus Scrimm, who passed away in 2016, the same year as his final performance as the character in Phantasm: Ravager. Now, if we can just get a Mike Pearson…
Hopefully this Tall Man Funko can bring even more awareness to the Phantasm franchise, which doesn’t have the following of some of the aforementioned properties, partly because the sequels are lacking. But it might take a little more than its current fanbase and sales of a 4” vinyl figure to get that video game moving…
Will you be adding The Tall Man to your Funko Pop! horror collection?