Movie Reviews: The Phantom of the Opera

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Title:
The Phantom of the Opera

Cast:

Robert Englund as Erik Destler/the Phantom
Jill Schoelen as Christine Day
Terence Harvey as Inspector Hawkins
Alex Hyde-White as Richard Dutton
Bill Nighy as Martin Barton
Nathan Lewis as Davies
Stephanie Lawrence as La Carlotta
Peter Clapham as Harrison
Molly Shannon as Meg (New York)
Emma Rawson as Meg (London)
Cathy Murphy as Esther
Yehuda Efroni as the Rat Catcher

Directed by: Dwight H. Little

Country: United States and United Kingdom

Distributed by: 21st Century Film Corporation

Genre: Drama/Horror

Year of Release: 1989

Synopsis: Christine Day is a young opera singer who lives in modern day New York City and is searching for some music to sing at her next audition. She tells her friend Meg, who works at a musical library, that she wants something unusual and different. So she comes across an ancient opera song known as "Don Juan Triumphant", written by composer Erik Destler. For some reason, the very name of "Erik Destler" sounds strangely familiar to Christine, but she's unable to explain why. After doing some research, Meg tells Christine that Destler never completed his opera. She also tells her that Destler's reputation as a musical composer was overshadowed by dark rumors about him being a psychopathic murderer responsible for many brutal killings. He was also said to have been obsessed with a young opera star who vanished on the night of his mysterious death, which to Christine remains a complete mystery.

While Meg packs her bags off screen, Christine sings some of the music from the song "Don Juan Triumphant" and the faded ink on the pages rapidly turns to blood, which gets all over her hands. As Meg returns to her, Christine looks back at the pages and her hands, and sees that the blood has vanished. Believing this to be a mere optical illusion, she quickly dismisses it and tells her friend that everything is okay. At the audition, many would-be singers perform, but all turn out to be mediocre to the judge. Upon entering the audition room, Christine offers to sing Destler's song "Don Juan Triumphant" to the judge. As she sings, she has visions of an audience in the theatre applauding her. Suddenly a sandbag comes loose and hits Christine in the head, knocking her into a mirror which shatters. She hears a mysterious voice calling "Christine... Come back to me..." As Christine regains consciousness, she finds herself in 19th century London, where she is an understudy to La Carlotta, a deva who is said to be doing a major performance on stage at the opera house. However, a mysterious figure known as "the Phantom" has other plans. And since Christine is the object of his obsession, he starts to wreak havoc in the opera house and in the streets of London. His desire is to make Christine his student and his bride even if it means murdering the unlucky victims who get in his way or disrespect his beliefs.

Personal Comments: As everybody should know by now, the novel titled "The Phantom of the Opera" was written by writer Gaston Leurox somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century. The novel has since seen many different film adaptations. Especially in recent years around the mid 2000s. I first learned about the story only a few years back when I was first attending college with the release of the 2004 film which was a musical that starred Gerard Butler as the Phantom and Emmy Rossum as Christine Day. I have never seen the 2004 film except for some of the trailers I've seen in theatres for it. But based on what I've heard, it was more of a musical than anything. Whereas the 1989 film focuses more on the horror and the drama than it does on the music. Contrary to some other retellings that have spawned over the ages, the 1989 movie was a more violent and grotesque version of Gaston Leurox's story.

As listed in the cast of actors, the actor who played as the Phantom in this movie is none other than Robert Englund, who most people know as Freddy Krueger from the long running horror movie franchise "Nightmare on Elmstreet", which has been around since the 80s. For those of you who remember Freddy Krueger's freaky facial features, you may find it as no surprise that the character who Englund plays in this film looks strikingly similar to Krueger. Needless to say the Phantom shares a similar background with Krueger in terms of originally starting off as an ordinary human-being who gave his soul to the devil to become a sinister being who brings fear and bloodshed in his wake. In the story of "The Phantom of the Opera", the title character was at first a civilized man named Erik Destler who started his career as a talented musical composer. But even with his musical talent alone, he felt that he was not receiving the attention he thought he deserved. One day, when a strange dwarf-like man listens to his music, he offers Destler the chance for his name and reputation to be immortalized. But, as he accepts the offer, the man, revealed to be Satan himself, mutilated Destler's face so terribly, that nobody could stand to look at him. And he was banished from society. Now known as the Phantom, Destler had lost any shred of humanity that he once had, and became known for his feared reputation as a merciless killer.

Just so nobody gets confused, I did mention in the cast of actors that there are two different characters named "Meg". But just to clear things up, the Meg from present day New York City was played by Molly Shannon, and speaks with an American accent. The Meg from 19th century London was played by Emma Rawson, and speaks with a British accent. Though both versions of "Meg" differ, they both share the same personality and the same role in being a close friend to Christine. Of course, New York Meg appears at the beginning of the film and just towards the end after Christine wakes up back to present day New York City. London Meg appears just after Christine is knocked unconscious at the beginning, and wakes up to find herself in 19th century London. I know this is rather confusing. In fact, I actually found the story itself to be somewhat puzzling when I first watched it. But yeah; those are the two different versions of the character Meg.

I want to go over some of my favorite parts in this movie without giving away too much on the plot. And since very few people know about this movie, I'll do my best to be thorough without spoiling everything. Anyway, as you'd probably expect since this movie is a horror, there's some violence and gore in it. First and foremost, it should be noted that the Phantom is noted for his badly deformed and mutilated face. In this version, the Phantom's face was burned by the devil's touch. A great quantity of skin is absent on the right side of his face, and his nose lacks skin, of which is present on the back of his head, and he only has a few strands of hair. One of his ears is missing, and he has no teeth. To avoid attracting unwanted attention and blend into society, he puts on rubber masks to cover his disfigured face. But it's not as simple as slipping a mask over one's head. Oh no; the way the Phantom does it is by stitching the mask onto his face piece by piece in graphic detail, starting with the artificial cartilage for the ears and nose. And then after applying the rest of the pieces of the mask onto his face, he uses a special cream to cover up the stitches before placing a wig on top of his bald head. But the way he does this is very gruesome and it looks pretty painful. But you'd have to see the actual movie to know what I mean. Anyway, the procedure is pretty gruesome.

Some of the goriest parts of the movie include the scene where La Carlotta finds the corpse of a scene shifter in her closet with his skin completely removed from his body, which literally freaks her out. Needless to say it's rather bloody. And there's a part where the Phantom is confronted by a group of street thugs who attempt to mug him, only to end up dead by his hands. In fact, with little to no effort at all, the Phantom makes short work of the thugs who tried to mess with him. And the sight is not too pretty I might add. And then there's a scene where after the opera critic, Harrison, gives Christine a bad review on her encore performance at the opera, which angered the Phantom. When asked if he would reconsider his evaluation on the performance, Harrison refuses, which prompts the Phantom to murder him in a fit of rage. Probably one of the most disturbing scenes in the entire film is the part where the Phantom kills La Carlotta off-screen, and we later see her severed head in a large bowl of soup which frightens the people in a masquerade dance party. In fact, as I have mentioned before, the Phantom is quite a merciless killer who would not hesitate to kill whoever messed with him or whoever disrespected his beliefs. And he had a quick temper to add to his overall horrifying reputation.

Unfortunately, despite the film's cult following, "The Phantom of the Opera" did not do so well in the box office. In fact, the film was considered by critics to be a box office failure when released in theatres, grossing under $ 4 million in the US. This can probably be attributed to an over-saturation of horror films in theaters in 1989, a trend which also hurt the box office of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday the 13th sequels, as well as the poor timing of releasing a horror-themed Phantom film at the height of popularity for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Rumor has it that there was a sequel planned. But the sequel was never made due to the film's poor reception. But despite its critical failure at the box office, the movie is still considered a cult-classic by its fan base despite its small numbers. "The Phantom of the Opera" has seen many theatrical feature length adaptations. Besides the 1989 movie, there was a silent film released in 1925, which starred Lon Chaney as the Phantom. And then there was a film released in 1943 which featured Claude Rains in the title role. And of course there was the 2004 film that most audiences may be familiar with, which starred Gerard Butler as the Phantom. Interestingly, the 2004 film did fairly well at the box office, grossing $ 51,225,796 worldwide.

Overall: The Phantom of the Opera may not be the most popular movie that Robert Englund has ever starred in. But I have to admit it sure is refreshing from the usual horror films we have nowadays. In fact, I have to say that this movie is actually pretty good for a film that was never that popular. And despite its failure at the box office, it remains one of my top favorite movies ever. Partly because I enjoy a horror film that can provide a great deal of suspense in its atmosphere as well as providing the audience with a great deal of violence and gore. And partly because I'm a big fan of Robert Englund for his most noted role as Freddy Krueger. And if you enjoyed Freddy Krueger films and are a fan of Robert Englund, then I would recommend this film. Despite the negative reviews, it's a fun film, and it's great to watch on Halloween when there's nothing interesting playing in the theaters or the movie channels.

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Fail-Seeker's avatar
This was terrible for me. I hated this one. For me, the best English adaptations are:
1.) The Phantom of the Opera (1943) - Featuring Claude Rains as the Phantom and the singer Susanna Foster as Christine.
2.) The Phantom of the Opera (1962) - Hammer Horror version featuring Herbert Lom and Heather Sears.
3.) The Phantom of the Opera (1990) - Featuring Charles Dance as the Phantom/Erik and Teri Polo as Christine.
4.) The Phantom of the Opera (2004) - Joel Schumacher's adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart musical, starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum.

Worst versions are:
1.) The Phantom of the Opera (1989) - Directed by Dwight H. Little, featuring Robert Englund and Jill Schoelen.
2.) The Phantom of the Opera (1998) - Directed by Dario Argento, featuring Julian Sands and Asia Argento.

Do you agree with this?