The Phantom Of The Opera
And next he'll be Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof"
The it seems that every decade or so,
there is a revival for The Phantom Of The Opera. It pops up in a new
movie or a television show or the soundtrack to the Broadway musical
is digitally remastered to 3.0 Dolby surround sound with special
guest sousaphone player blah blah blah. I can't say I've ever been a
fan of the 1910 story or the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. I've only
seen two musicals in my life and they were Les Miserables and Miss
Saigon. Despite my lack of knowledge or feelings toward The Phantom
Of The Opera, there is a large swath of people that absolutely love
it. Many a Phantom poster has adorned the walls of teens and college
students. I suppose the romance factor has a lot to do with it's
popularity rather than the the main characters with the disfigured
face. The 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney is considered a true
horror classic, but for today's review, I went with something a
little different. Something a bit more 1980's. Something a bit more
Robert Englund-y.
The Phantom Of The Opera is a 1989
adaptation of the 1910 story written by Gaston Leroux starring Robert
Englund (A Nightmare On Elm Street, 2001 Maniacs) as The Phantom Of
The Opera/Erik Destler and Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather, When A
Stranger Calls Back) as Christine Day. In modern times (read: 1980s),
Christine Day is an opera singer preparing for a big audition in New
York City. Determined to get the role, Christine seeks out an old and
unique piece to help her stand apart from the other singers. With the
help from her friend Meg (Molly Shannon, Saturday Night Live, Night
At The Roxbury), Christine discovers a piece entitled “Don Juan
Triumphant” by an obscure composer named Erik Destler. They learn
that Destler had committed a few murders and may have been
responsible in the disappearance of a young opera singer. Alone in
her apartment, Christine sings the song, causing blood to drip out of
the paper, but it is just a hallucination. During her audition, a
falling sandbag breaks a mirror and knocks her out and when she
awakens, she is in London in 1881. She is now the understudy for a
play, where the Phantom Erik Destler teaches her from the shadows. He
encourages her to practice, saying that only she can sing the part of
Margueritte in the play Faust. Through strange circumstances,
Christine gets the role, which causes an uproar in the opera house.
It is revealed that the Phantom, much like Faust, has sold his soul
to the Devil, granting him the gift of creating beautiful music, but
also a horribly disfigured face. Christine's performance is hailed
and she celebrates with her fiancee Richard. The next day, her
performance is given a poor review and the Phantom kills the
reviewer. His obsession with Christine leads to more murders and
shows that he has some supernatural abilities. With the murderous
Phantom closing in on Christine, will she be able to survive and make
it back to her own time?
Pimp Of The Opera
I don't often say this, but who exactly
is the audience for this movie? The movie won't appeal to the fans of
the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical because it is far too violent and
gory. It doesn't really appeal to horror fans either since there are
extended scenes of opera singing and general romance. Ultimately, we
get a strange mash-up of a few different genres that never mesh well
together. The story is pretty faithful to the original, but the plot
goes way off through the addition of time travel weirdness. The whole
time travel angle is nonsensical and unnecessary. I suppose they were
going for an angle to separate the movie from other adaptations, but
the modern scenes are so heavily steeped in the 1980s that it looks
very dated today. There's no leg warmers or comically giant cell
phones, but the clothes and items like synthesizers ooze 1980s
grossness. The movie tends to get boring as it makes sure to check
off all the important bits and pieces from the story. There's some
action and suspense sprinkled throughout, but it's really nothing
special.
So who is this movie good for? People
with morbid curiosity, like me. I couldn't really believe that Mr.
Freddy Krueger himself was in The Phantom Of The Opera. It should be
no surprise that Robert Englund could pull off this role. Once could
find similarities in the way Englund portrays the Phantom and Freddy,
but there are some differences. His Phantom is far more driven and
obsessed, lacking the bizarre charm of Freddy Kruger. The film takes
a heavy turn towards horror towards the end, which, coincidentally,
is the best part of the movie. The makeup used for the Phantom looks
good, but it's hard not to compare it to Freddy. I didn't
particularly care for Jill Schoelen performance as she seemed
confused and out of place for about 90% of the movie. It was fun to
see a young Molly Shannon, though, randomly showing up in an obscure
horror movie.
"Does anyone else smell hot dogs cooking?"
The Phantom Of The Opera is a
well-known story and trying to add a modern horror twist to it just
doesn't work. The whole time-traveling deal is not handled very well
and makes me question why they even bothered doing it in the first
place. The movie has trouble deciding who it wants to appeal to as we
jump from romance, to action, to horror, to musical. Just about every
fan of each genre will find things not to like in the movie. The
large amount of gore and violence will turn a lot of Phantom fans off
and the plodding romance theme will sure to bore horror fans. Robert
Englund is very enjoyable, but I was annoyed by Jill Schoelen's
lackluster performance. The only real reason to see The Phantom Of
The Opera is just to satiate your curiosity. It's a strange idea and
certainly very different, but not very good.
4/10
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