Spooky season begins with 'Phantasm' in Rosemont

There's already a little chill in the air this weekend as the calendar approaches the beginning of spooky season, and you can get in that Halloween mood next week with a cult classic.

"Phantasm," Don Coscarelli's 1979 shocker, returns to the big screen Tuesday, Oct. 2, in Rosemont thanks to WGN's Nick Digilio. His monthly film club at the AMC Rosemont 18 returns with a 4K digital restoration of the horror yarn about zombies, a terrifying undertaker known as The Tall Man and a deadly flying silver ball. The movie's fan base grew large enough to allow Coscarelli to make four sequels that stretch as far as 2016's "Phantasm: Ravager."

One of those "Phantasm" phans is none other than "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" director J.J. Abrams, whose Bad Robot production company is responsible for the new 4K print; artists worked on the restoration in fits and starts when they weren't digitally rendering lightsabers and starspeeders. (Want to read more? Coscarelli gives an entertaining interview about that process at slashfilm.com.)

Tickets for the 8 p.m. Oct. 2 screening of "Phantasm" are on sale now at amctheatres.com for $9.99 plus tax. Dinner and drinks are available before the movie at 6:30 in the AMC Rosemont 18's dining room.

Rent this, not that

If you're in the mood for a scary flick but don't want to leave the house, "Hereditary," the masterful directorial debut from Ari Aster, is now available for digital rental and sale.

Toni Collette will be a dark-horse Oscar candidate for her portrait of a woman torn apart by a double-dose of familial tragedy who only unravels further once the secrets of her mother's past begin to unfurl. Alex Wolff, so winning as the kid who discovers the titular video game in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," is a revelation as Collette's son, who bears the brunt of her anguish.

There are no cats jumping out of dark attics or half-naked teens getting slashed by masked killers; "Hereditary" is a serious, adult film about grief and mental illness that takes a supernatural turn.

It's a far better film than another recent digital rental, "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." The fifth installment in the dino franchise seems like it should be an ironic, metatextual jab at the entire series - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) appears in two short scenes to deliver monologues that undermine the film's premise - but no one told director J.A. Bayona, who delivers haunting visuals; his earnest actors, who try to make us care about shallow characters; or composer Michael Giacchino, who eschews John Williams' sentimental theme for a full-throated horror score.

Unfortunately, the screenplay by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly betrays all that hard, honest work with obvious cliches and preposterous twists. Of course, $1.3 billion in global box office means the dinos will be back for another round in a few years. But will we?

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.