You’d be forgiven for wondering what’s so wrong about appearing
in an adaptation of this literary classic, but then this long-forgotten
remake of Gaston Leroux’s 1909 gothic romance features considerably
more time travel, decapitation and flayed human corpses than its French
author probably intended.
Of course, it’s hardly surprising that the gore level has been
ramped up – this particular Phantom is played by Robert Englund,
better known to horror fans everywhere as Freddy Krueger, while the director,
Dwight H. Little, honed his craft on the subtle drama of Halloween IV.
Our story follows Christine, an aspiring singer in modern day New York.
While searching for the perfect audition piece, she stumbles across a
crumbling manuscript from an unfinished 19th Century opera. When she
begins singing the piece on stage, a counterweight tumbles from above
and knocks her unconscious. Suddenly – and without any explanation – she’s
back in turn of the century London, where she is the understudy to Carlotta,
a snooty diva about to open a new performance of Faust.
But Olden Days Christine has a spooky mentor – the legendary Phantom,
his face mangled and burned by the Devil himself (played, apropos of
nothing, by a midget) following a Faustian pact. The lusty Phantom, fixated
on the notion that the young ingénue is the only person who can
bring his music to life, sees to it that anyone who might stand in the
way of her success meets a sticky end, with the emphasis firmly on “sticky”.
People are gutted, skinned, beheaded and impaled as the maniacal spectre
seems more intent on upping his body count than pining for the object
of his obsession.
In the midst of all this high camp carnage is a very young looking Bill
Nighy as Martin Barton, owner of the opera house and Carlotta’s
potential lover. He huffs and puffs about superstitious stage folk, and
even conspires with the local critic to ensure that Christine does not
overshadow his beloved diva, but – disappointingly – the
Phantom leaves him unscathed throughout the movie. The last we see of
Nighy, he’s sobbing on a staircase after Carlotta’s decapitated
head bobs to the surface of a large bowl of soup during a costume ball.
This means he’s absent for the completely ludicrous finale, in
which Christine returns to modern day New York, discovers the Phantom
is still alive – and recording his opera on new-fangled synthesisers.
She finally defeats him by stealing the floppy disc which contains his
life’s work and dropping it into the sewer. Just like in the book,
really.
Need to know: Christine was played by Jill Schoelen, who can also be
found as the lead in the equally preposterous slasher movie, Cutting
Class (see: Brad Pitt). Christine’s love interest was played by
Alex Hyde White, an actor best known in cult movie circles as Reed Richards,
aka Mr Fantastic, in the filmed-but-never-released 1994 Fantastic Four
movie, produced by Roger Corman. Robert Englund’s mangled face
make-up was created by Kevin Yagher, who produced the mutant pooch for
Man’s Best Friend (see: Ally Sheedy) and John Carl Buechler, who
supplied special effects for Trancers (see: Helen
Hunt) and Carnosaur
(see: Diane Ladd). He also directed Troll (see: Julia
Louis-Dreyfuss)
and Ghoulies Go To College (see: Matthew Lillard). Phantom of the Opera
was produced by video shelf saviour Menahem Golan, whose other notable
productions include Gor (see: Oliver Reed) and Superman IV (see: Jim
Broadbent). For more fun with Robert Englund in his Elm Street guise,
see: Patricia Arquette, Johnny
Depp.
Availability: A DVD edition was released in the US in 2004.
