{"id":8557,"date":"2024-11-19T00:07:57","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T05:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8557"},"modified":"2024-11-19T00:07:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T05:07:57","slug":"the-phantom-of-the-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/19\/the-phantom-of-the-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phantom of the Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 21st<\/sup> Century Film Corporation\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence and gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwight H. Little\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gerry O\u2019Hara and Duke Sandefur\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Misha Segal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Elemer Regalyi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 3, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, Alex Hyde-White, Bill Nighy, Terence Harvey, Stephanie Lawrence, Nathan Lewis, Peter Clapham, Molly Shannon, Emma Rawson, Mark Ryan, Yehuda Efroni.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think we can all agree that the 80s was a great decade for horror movies. It\u2019s a decade that gave us blood-soaked chillers like Friday the 13th<\/sup>, The Thing, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser and a great many other ones. At the tail end of \u201989, we got The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> starring Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger) in the title role. Based on Gaston Leroux\u2019s 1910 novel (and NOT the popular Broadway musical), it\u2019s a lot gorier than any of the other film versions that preceded it. While a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release, young Movie Guy 24\/7 thought it was awesome. 30+ years later, my opinion remains more or less unchanged.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story opens in modern day with Juilliard student Christine Day (Schoelen, The Stepfather) searching for something unique to sing at an audition. She finds an old opera piece entitled \u201cDon Juan Triumphant\u201d hidden amongst a stack of dusty old books in a music library. It was written by a composer named Erik Destler, an obscure composer said to have committed several murders in late 19th<\/sup> century London. He may also have been responsible for the disappearance of a young opera singer with whom he was obsessed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Feeling a connection to it, Christine starts to sing it at her audition until she\u2019s knocked unconscious by a falling sandbag. She wakes up in London circa 1885 as the understudy to diva La Carlotta (Lawrence, Buster) in a production of Faust. She has a guardian angel of sorts in a masked figure, the Phantom, that lives in the sewers below the opera house. He comes to her unseen to teach and protect her. Of course, it\u2019s Erik Destler, a gifted composer who made a deal with the devil. In exchange for his soul, people will love him for his music. However, the devil disfigures his face thereby causing him to become a killer who uses the skin of his victims to make facial masks to hide his deformed visage. Erik is in love with Christine and will do anything to ensure she gets the recognition she deserves. In return, he expects her to commit to him fully.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although it has plenty of splatter and gross makeup effects, it wouldn\u2019t be entirely accurate to characterize The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> as \u201cFreddy at the Opera\u201d or \u201cAn Opera on Elm Street\u201d. Englund doesn\u2019t joke his way through this role. He convincingly portrays Erik as a talented man driven insane by desire and obsession. Here\u2019s a guy who skins the stage hand who drunkenly dropped the sandbag and tried to blame it on the phantom that supposedly haunts the opera house. He also murders a theater critic who gives Christine\u2019s debut performance a bad review. Although mostly serious, Englund\u2019s performance is tempered with just enough camp to make The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> great fun. Schoelen is also quite good as Christine, a role that allows her to show off her amazing singing voice. She plays the part with grace and beauty.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yes, there are plenty of great bloody killings in The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> including two beheadings and many slashings. That\u2019s in addition to gruesome, Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type stuff involving Erik\u2019s homemade facial masks. This is definitely one for the gorehounds. I should know. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the Scotland Yard inspector, Hawkins (Harvey, From Hell), investigating the murders. He\u2019s well aware of Erik\u2019s story and vows to stop him. There\u2019s a great climactic sequence in which Hawkins and Christine\u2019s beau Richard (White, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) pursue Erik in the dark, wet, rat-infested catacombs. It\u2019s genuinely thrilling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Artistically, The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> is top-notch material with its gorgeous production design and period costumes. Even modern day Manhattan looks great. Speaking of which, the bookend scenes in NY were meant to be a lead-in for a proposed sequel (The Phantom of the Opera 2: Terror in Manhattan) that never happened. It\u2019s too bad, I\u2019m sure it would have been more fun than Jason Voorhees\u2019 rampage through fake New York in that year\u2019s Friday the 13th<\/sup> Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Oh well. We\u2019ll always have London.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although not a success, The Phantom of the Opera<\/strong> is the last great horror film of the 80s. A combination of Hammer horror and slasher flick, it\u2019s a B-movie done right.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Phantom of the Opera (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 21st Century Film Corporation\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence and gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwight H. Little\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gerry O\u2019Hara and Duke Sandefur\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Misha Segal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Elemer Regalyi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 3, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, Alex Hyde-White, Bill Nighy, Terence Harvey, Stephanie Lawrence, Nathan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Phantom-of-the-Opera-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8841,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557\/revisions\/8841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}