Sentinel Sphere

Sentinel Sphere
Movie Information
Movie Title	Phantasm (1979-2016)
Monster Information
Type	Alien Weapon/Tool
Species	Mechanical sphere
Abilities	Flight

Sentinel Spheres are antagonistic weapons in the Phantasm movie franchise, (1979-2016):

• Phantasm I (1979)
• Phantasm II (1988)
• Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)
• Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)
• Phantasm V: Ravager (2016)

The Sentinel Sphere is the signature weapon of supernatural undertaker The Tall Man. The copy on the ornament's box says. “The flying silver orb is used to drill into the brain of his victims and drain their head-nog. Once alerted to the presence of a creature they fly straight towards them, aiming for the forehead where they can drill directly into a victims brain and drain them of blood.

Appearance

Sentinel Spheres are chrome balls which are propelled by the Tall Man's telekinesis. Powered from the brain matter extraced from the Lurkers during processing the house an array of different weapons and tools including blades of multiple designs/configurations and often a drill bit or spinning circumference saw blades.

Powers and Abilities

Sentinel Spheres possess the following powers and abilities:

• Flight
• Cutting/Sawing/Drilling
• Extends Tall Man's influence in reanimates (sphere's within the body)
• Pursuit/Tracking Targets
• Pumps out vital fluids from target
• Injects Poison

Fate

Sentinel Spheres are trapped and eluded during the franchise's films. The Tall Man crushes one attached to his head but the Sentinel Spheres likely survive as a device of the Tall Man (who survives as well).

Trivia

• When the caretaker is killed in the mausoleum by the sphere, you can see a trail of urine coming out of his pant leg when he falls.
• After filming the scene where his character is killed by one of the silver spheres, Kenneth V. Jones was too tired to have his makeup removed, so he drove home in it. As he did, he was pulled over by a police officer, who was naturally suspicious of him being covered in fake blood and didn't immediately buy his story of being an actor.
• The film was originally rated X, effectively banned by the MPAA, because of the famous silver sphere sequence and because of the Caretaker urinating on the floor after falling down dead.
• The genesis of the story came to Don Coscarelli in a dream. One night in his late teens, he dreamed of fleeing down endlessly long marble corridors pursued by a chrome sphere intent on penetrating his skull with a wicked needle. There was also a quite futuristic "sphere dispenser" out of which the orbs would emerge and begin chase.
• The spheres were designed by craftsman Willard Green, who charged the production a little over $1,100 for his services. Sadly, he died just after production completed at the end of 1977 and never saw his work on the big screen.
• The sphere was thrown from behind the camera by a baseball pitcher and then the shot was printed in reverse. The ball attaching itself to the Caretaker's head was filmed by sticking it on his head, pulling it off and printing the shot in reverse.
• Due to its menacing look and killing properties, the cast and crew jokingly used to refer to the Gold Sphere as the "Rambo" sphere during filming.
• The Gold Sphere is the one armed with a laser, that pursues Mike and Liz crashing through several doors and ends up killing an undertaker by drilling his body from the back to the mouth.
• The scene in which Father Myers has one of his ears cut off by a sphere was shot by having the actor lying on a table, with the camera lying on its side, giving him the appearance of standing upright. The sphere was then just dropped by his head and the fake ear appliance was pulled off his head with monofilament by the effects crew. The sequence ended up having to be filmed twice because the key scene of the sphere passing by his head and the ear being cut off occurred in the split-second between frames on the film of the first take.
• In Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994), (the first and only time in the series) the main characters refer to the dwarves as "Lurkers" and the spheres as "Sentinels".
• Bob Ivy was given his own custom made silver sphere for doing the dangerous hearse stunt.
• The scene in which Reggie finds out that Jennifer's breasts are in fact spheres and gets attacked by them was directly taken from a dream sequence featured in the original screenplay for "Phantasm's End", penned by Roger Avary. Its inclusion in Phantasm IV: Oblivion was intended as a homage/tribute to this doomed Phantasm sequel project.
• Phantasm Sentinel Sphere's can be bought as collector's items.

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