Sittin’ here at midnight, wishing Reggie Bannister, star of the Phantasm horror franchise, a fond farewell. The actor and musician passed away earlier this week, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
In a public Facebook post, Phantasm writer-director Don Coscarelli shared a heartfelt tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator, which reads in part:
“In the Phantasm series, only Reggie could turn a simple role as an ice cream vendor sidekick into an unlikely action hero for the ages. He channeled himself into that role. All the fans who met him at the horror conventions could attest that in-person, Reg was cool, funny, loyal, and steadfast. Reggie the character was Reggie the friend. In real life, he embodied all the qualities of his character in Phantasm and no one questioned that Reg was that guy, the one willing to lay his body down on the fires of hell for his friends.”
Bannister played his Phantasm character (also named Reggie) across all five films in the series, spanning from 1979 to 2016. He also popped up in other cult movies, including Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep (“His improvised scene with Bruce Campbell in Bubba in which the two men argue about a scarab beetle infestation in Elvis’s rest home is a classic,” the director wrote in his tribute) and the 1997 horror all-star game that is Wishmaster, among several other indie genre movies.
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