Jody Pearson

**Jody Pearson** is a musician from China Grove, and the brother of series protagonist Mike Pearson. He is the first to believe Mike about The Tall Man's presence. After he is killed off in the original film, Jody returns in the sequels as an antihero partially under the Tall Man's influence.

## *Phantasm*

As the film opens, Jody and his ice cream man friend Reggie have just lost a member of their band trio named Tommy, and are at his funeral. Jody forbade his little brother Mike to attend as he felt that it was too soon after their parents had died in an accident. It's revealed later in a conversation with another friend that Mike is afraid of Jody leaving town to pursue his career, and stalks him.

Jody is seduced in the local bar by the Lady In Lavender and follows her to the graveyard to have sex, only for Mike to follow them and be disturbed by the Lurkers. Running after his screaming brother inadvertently saves Jody from the Lady In Lavender.

Later, when Mike returns from Morningside with the Tall Man's finger, Jody accepts his story and plans to alert the police, only for their evidence to turn into a flying, dangerous insect. With Reggie present, they kill it and are forced to deal with the Tall Man on their own. Jody goes to investigate Morningside and finds out everything Mike told him is true and flees with his brother, who brought the Cuda to him. On the way, they kill one of the Lurkers and discover it's Tommy.

Jody calls Reggie and the three secure Tommy and plot their next move. On his instructions, Reggie takes Mike to an antique shop for safety. After Mike later returns, shaken up by another of the Tall Man's attacks, Jody locks him in a room and returns to Morningside. Mike escapes and follows him, and they meet Reggie there.

Together, the trio find the White Room, but are quickly separated when the power cuts out. Jody prevents Mike from helping a wounded Reggie, who was stabbed by the Lady In Lavender, and the two flee as Morningside dissipates.

Jody leaves Mike to set up a trap at the old mine shaft, and Mike accidentally becomes bait, leading the Tall Man to the trap. Together, the brothers defeat the Tall Man, who is supposedly trapped forever. At that point, Mike wakes up from his dreams and it is revealed that Jody died from an accident several months ago, and none of it ever happened.

Reggie promises to be as good of a replacement for Jody as he can be, and Mike agrees to go on a road trip with him, clutching Jody's photograph.

## *Phantasm II*

Jody is briefly seen in the same photograph as the last movie, and his death at the hands of the Tall Man is what inspires Mike to hunt the villain down.

## *Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead*

Jody finally returns to Mike and Reggie in the form of a renegade Sentinel. He is unable to prevent the Tall Man from kidnapping Mike and is damaged in the fight, though still strong enough to guide Reggie towards Mike.

Interfering in one of Reggie's dreams, Jody opens a dimensional fork to the Tall Man's lair and the two rescue Mike from his clutches. Back in reality, Reggie wakes up and Mike falls out through the Fork. However, Jody says the Tall Man has locked onto him and is unable to disengage the Fork. He reminds Reggie of the previous instance in which Reggie shut it down (in the White Room in the original film).

Jody reappears later in the Boulton mausoleum to inform Mike of the Tall Man's plan to create an army of spheres. After Mike disappears in the middle of an alien conversion process, he tells Reggie that "seeing is easy. Understanding takes a little more time." and promises to keep in touch.

## *Phantasm IV: Oblivion*

Jody returns to Reggie and persuades him to pursue Mike once again as the latter is in danger. He wishes things had been different, but they're not.

In Death Valley, he appears to Mike to find out what he's got planned, only for Mike to become suspicious of his motives and the method of his return from death. Jody reveals that he didn't die in the car wreck, but was kidnapped by the Tall Man.

He later finds Mike in the future Los Angeles and ushers him away out of fear of possible "infection". The two reunite with Reggie in Death Valley, though Mike tells him not to trust Jody. Together, Jody and Mike visit Jebediah Morningside in the 19th century, on the night that he becomes the Tall Man. As the Tall Man notices Mike, Jody is seen jittering, possibly unable to interfere.

In an unknown cemetery, he finds Mike again and tries to kidnap him, but is stabbed to death by the latter, who was now convinced his brother was gone. Despite this, Jody was able to return in a new body and finally take Mike to the Tall Man in the Boulton mausoleum and assist him in surgery. With the use of a tuning fork, Mike freezes Jody and the Tall Man, and uses the sphere with the blade to stab Jody in the neck. Jody whispers that he did truly die in the car wreck.

## *Phantasm V: Ravager*

In the nursery home reality, Jody is mentioned early on as having died years ago, leaving Reggie to raise Mike. Despite this, Jody is there when Reggie passes away from dementia.

In the post-apocalyptic world, Jody comes to the rescue of Mike and Reggie with the Battlecuda, and drives off. Later, when they're on the road, he queries Mike about the rest of the freedom fighters, but is told they're all dead. He notes that they're once again a trio now (a reference to the original film, which began with the loss of Tommy, who was part of the band trio). At Mike's suggestion, Jody drives the Battlecuda north, where it's cold, only stopping to pick up Chunk and Rocky on the way.

## Notes

* In a deleted scene from *Phantasm V: Ravager*, Jody was still able to transform into a sphere. However, in the final film, there is no explanation of how he escaped from the Tall Man's control.
* Including the archive footage from *Phantasm II*, Bill Thornbury is one of four actors to appear in some form in all five Phantasm films, along with Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm and A. Michael Baldwin.
* Jody had a cameo in Roger Avary's unproduced *Phantasm's End* script - his corpse would've been amongst the Tall Man's trophies on the Red Planet.
* In the original film, the iconic Barracuda belonged to Jody himself. However, the later films depict Reggie as the owner. It's possible Jody left the car to Reggie, or that Reggie owned a different car.

## Appearances

* *Phantasm* (1979)
* *Phantasm II* (1988) - Archive footage, photograph.
* *Phantasm III: Lord Of The Dead* (1994)
* *Phantasm IV: Oblivion* (1998)
* *Phantasm V: Ravager* (2016)