Don Coscarelli

What I admire about Don Coscarelli is his refusal to play by Hollywood's rules. Born in Tripoli and raised stateside, he built the Phantasm franchise almost single-handedly, wearing the hats of director, cinematographer, writer and editor. That kind of total authorship is rare, and it gives his horror a handmade, dream-logic strangeness you can't manufacture with a big budget. Bubba Ho-Tep proves he had range and a wicked sense of humor too. He's a cult figure for good reason, and I think filmmakers who guard their personal vision this fiercely tend to outlast the trend-chasers.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Don Coscarelli

Name (Japanese)

ドン・コスカレリ

Reading

どん・こすかれり

Born

February 17, 1954 (age 72)

Origin

Tripoli, Tripoli District, Libya

Occupation

film director / cinematographer / screenwriter / film editor / film producer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Horse

High school

Woodrow Wilson Classical High School

Awards & achievements

• Bram Stoker Awards
• 2012 Time Machine Award

• Official sitehttps://www.phantasm.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/don_coscarelli/
• Xhttps://x.com/DonCoscarelli
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%20Coscarelli
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%89%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B3%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AC%E3%83%AA
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q720360

Tags

• Tripoli District
• film director
• cinematographer
• screenwriter

Last updated

November 2, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.