Robert Englund's Phantom of the Opera (1989)

[marissamayhem]

Has anyone else seen this, in my opinion, atrocious version of Phantom of the Opera?

I just saw it today and I was left utterly speechless. It serves as a scary, gore film with lots of blood and horror. It was a good movie in that respect but as a true to form Phantom movie? Not even close.

SPOILERS

Erik killed a LOT of people and it was not done nicely, as if you could kill someone nicely. heh. He cut off peoples heads and he even killed a man with a towel just because he insulted Christine. (How he did it, I don't know. Blood seemed to just come from nowhere. :confused:) He killed to carelessly too, as if they just happened to be a small nuisance that he could easily discard. I see Erik as a murderer, yes, but I don't think he just kills for the heck of it like this movie portrayed.

All sympathy is thrown out the window here. In the novels, movies, and plays, whether you want Christine with Erik or Raoul, you feel the phantom's pain. You feel bad for him and what he's been through. This movie totally kills that by making the phantoms disfigurement, not something he was born with, but something HE inflicted on himself by making a deal with the devil! WTG. I have zero compassion for the phantom in this movie because this "hell" he goes through is his own fault! Also, the reason he kills people is so that he can use their skin to cover his face! UGH! Would Erik really do that? I think not. And his disfigurement was absolutely horrid to me. It was bloody, like he had NO skin at all. I see Erik as looking like a living corpse but LIVING all the same. This guy literally looked like he was decomposing. It looked like leprosy or something. He wouldn't have been able to live for very long like that.

In the end, Christine ends up killing the phantom. :rolleyes: Then she goes back to present day and Erik has gone through time to find her. (Whaaat?!) He FORCES a kiss on her and she rips his "skin" off and kills him again. I think that annoyed me most of all that HE kissed HER. The kiss that Christine gives is supposed to be the Phantom's redemption but clearly not here.

There was also a prostitute, an attempted rape on Christine (well it looked like it to me!), and no Persian/Madame Giry. Raoul was notably absent and replaced with "Richard" who is one of the managers of the Opera. (He is of course killed by fire and stabbing.)

I thought that the few moments of opera were boring too. The girl who played Christine was .. weird. She kind of whipped her head around when she sang which was REALLY distracting. We didn't even hear the Phantom sing and the movie kind of implied that he couldn't. That he only just wrote. Don Juan Triumphant was horrible as well. It's supposed to be violent and sexual, yet it was simple and boring.

The movie isn't all bad, I suppose. It had it's moments, like the fact that they included a scene where Christine is at her father's grave (disregarding the fact that she is AMERICAN and her father is buried in LONDON) and the Phantom plays the violin for her while "Richard" watches. They also included the fact that after Christine is taken, she tries to kill herself by beating her head against the wall. It also included a young Molly Shannon, so yay for that! :D


This movie just all around sucked as a Phantom of the Opera movie, but it was good for a laugh at how wonderfully 80's it was.

[MissDay7000]

I found this adaptation...interesting--not bad, mind you--just...interesting. As soon as I found out that Robert Englund was going to play the part of Erik, I prepared myself for something gory...I mean come on, with Freddy what else are you gonna get? And yeah, it was gory, and I couldn't watch a lot of the end because of the scenes with the rat catcher (I have the worst phobia of rats on the planet--can't even look at them), but on the whole, I thought it was okay. As you said, DEFINITELY not true to Leroux or just a regular Phantom plot, but as a plain movie period....I'd give it 6 stars, I guess.

P.S. And yeah you're right...VERY 80's as well. LOL...

[marissamayhem]

I agree with you that it was a pretty good movie if you look at it solely as a movie. If you look at it as a Phantom of the Opera movie, I don't think it even comes close to any of the others. It didn't feel like Phantom. It was like some gore movie that used some POTO elements. I guess the wording on the back of the box made it all misleading. "Retelling of Gaston Leroux's novel", that was what hooked me. I knew it was going to be gory but I figured that since it said a retelling that it would somehow follow the book. Boy was I wrong. :D

[F-warp]

Being a fan of slasher flicks and POTO, this movie was incredibly enjoyable for me. It might not have been up to par with the Chaney version (but then again what is) but it definitely managed to be deeper than the average slasher flick.

I love that Erik's mask is made of human skin. It's such an original way of solving the problem of the full face mask so that it doesn't get in the way of the actor portraying emotion.

Plus it's just great to see a movie that makes Erik into a proper psycho.

[Mrs Nadir Khan]

This is one of those films I have little desire to see. I'm no wimp, but I am an elitist snob when it comes to Phantom films. If Erik has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, the storyline loses its charm for me. Sorry all who enjoyed this film. It's just too unlike POTO for me to wrap my mind around, if that makes sense.

[F-warp]

This is one of those films I have little desire to see. I'm no wimp, but I am an elitist snob when it comes to Phantom films. If Erik has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, the storyline loses its charm for me. Sorry all who enjoyed this film. It's just too unlike POTO for me to wrap my mind around, if that makes sense.

Hey now, don't judge something you've never seen. I rip on the 2004 version all the time but at least I had the common courtesy to sit through the whole thing before I started ranting on about how bad it was.

Besides, the whole Englund version is up on youtube. Most versions of phantom are. Just do a search for "phantom of the opera Robert Englund" and it should pop up.

[marissamayhem]

This is one of those films I have little desire to see. I'm no wimp, but I am an elitist snob when it comes to Phantom films. If Erik has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, the storyline loses its charm for me. Sorry all who enjoyed this film. It's just too unlike POTO for me to wrap my mind around, if that makes sense.

I'm exactly like you. To me, there are certain elements of Phantom of the Opera that you can't take out if you want it to be a true POTO film. It had none of the things that made me fall in love with this story so I just didn't enjoy the movie.

[Why So Silent]

HAH. I can't believe I haven't posted here yet. What have I been doing?

I saw this movie a little after I saw the 2004 movie. At that point I was in the state of uber-phangirlism and wanted to see/read everything that had to do with POTO. I read Leroux's book and tore through my Kay document (as it's not like you can find a physical copy).

I was told by some older relatives that there were previous POTO movies, though not about the musical, but that drew more from the novel(s). So I went to my local Blockbuster to rent them. I grabbed Claude Rains' version and also noticed Robert Englund's "Phantom of the Opera" on the shelves. "Where have I heard that name before?" I wondered in all innocence as I rented it anyway and sat down to watch it in my house.

Boy was I surprised.

It's basically one of the 70s/80s slashers but with Freddy falling in love with the girl and a "If I can't have her, no one can" kind of thing going on. And in all actuality, I have to say I enjoyed it. Believe it or not, Erik actually does have a personality. He was an embittered old man that lost his way and sold his soul to music, but unfortunately ended up having to steal people's skin and sew it onto himself...

Erik falls in love with Christine because of her amazing voice. I think that if he could have ripped out her voice box and just kept that it would have sufficed, but unfortunately for him he needed the entire girl. He had lived alone in the Opera House basement for a while, so there is some whore-mongering where he forces the girl to name herself "Christine" during their activities. Death comes to everyone he hates, with no remorse, because hey, he's basically living in Hell anyway. Christine seems to him to be the one possible (if incredibly minute) chance to have a piece of Heaven, but of course she HAS to fall in love with someone else. It really is worth the watch, this is a totally different Erik, which I think is actually a little closer to the Leroux version of Erik than the incredibly romanticized ALW version.

And if that description doesn't help, I'd say rent it just so you can see how he kills Carlotta. Classic. ^_^

[ChristineJ16]

I saw this movie years ago. Yes, it's pretty gory, but there's also some interesting aspects to it as well. The graveyard and masquerade scene were really cool! Of course tho we all know how the masquerade scene ends, ugh! Soup anyone, lol! I just recently watched this again and was surprised to see Bill Nighy in it. Ya know, Davy Jones from the Pirates movies. Never knew he was in this, but then again I haven't seen this in years. But anyway, this movie has it's moments, it's not completely horrible.

[F-warp]

I'd just like to clear up that while this movie IS gory...it's not technically a slasher since none of the rules of the slasher genre apply.

-No teenagers in an isolated place
-Nobody but Erik has sex during the movie
-Nobody ever say they'll "be right back"
-It takes place in the past (slashers ALWAYS take place in the present)

So remember; just because it has Robert Englund and a lot of gore, doesn't automatically give it the title of slaher.

It's like the Argento version. Everyone always says the Argento POTO is really porn. Anyone who says the Argento version is porn, has obviously never seen a porno-flick.

[Mrs Nadir Khan]

Hey now, don't judge something you've never seen. I rip on the 2004 version all the time but at least I had the common courtesy to sit through the whole thing before I started ranting on about how bad it was.

Besides, the whole Englund version is up on youtube. Most versions of phantom are. Just do a search for "phantom of the opera Robert Englund" and it should pop up.

Understandable, F-warp, that you say I should watch it before judging it. But I have seen snippets of it. I was looking for Phantom of the Opera music videos (you know, the things were the cut out sound, paste clips together with a song playing) and I found one for it. I saw some images from it before going, "Dear God, what am I watching." I managed exiting just before my dad entered the room. The video was this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYzTqEVZLBE) and I was like, "Graphic? Oh I can handle graphic." I think I was lying to myself when I said that or something. I was just a little disturbed. Y'know. And then there was the time my father attempted to rent it for my halloween party, which is another story at another time involving me, my sister, my dad, and two best friends. One was like, "Hell yes! Gore!" and the other was like, "Erm... My mother doesn't want me seeing R rated films". Then there was me going, "Erm... Uh... Dad. I asked for the Lon Chaney version." So, we didn't get it. We didn't even get the Lon Chaney version which I then watched on Youtube. But, it was what got me watching the youtube music video.

That's my two cents.

[MllePaula]

I had the misfortune of seeing this during its original release. I wasn't actually old enough to see an R-rated film, but no one at the cinema cared.

At the time, I was already very familiar with the Lloyd Webber musical, had read the novel, and had seen a few other film versions, the Lon Chaney and Claude Rains movies and "The Phantom of The Paradise."

I wasn't expecting this to be identical to the musical or anything like that. I was always opened minded about movies and looking forward to it.

To put it simply, I hated it. Not solely for the gore...though I'm not fond of gore in general. I just found little or nothing I liked about the plot changes, the acting, etc.. I liked one single thing...the shot of the mysterious violinist at the end.

I forgot about the movie entirely until the 2004 film came along and everyone started to revisit all sorts of Phantom things.

I gave the movie another look not too long ago and found I liked it even less.

[A_Single_Rose]

I found it was okay - pretty bad. I'd give it a 1 1/2 out of 4. When I saw that it was Robert Englund's Phantom of the Opera, I kind of figured it would be gory and not truly Leroux or ALW Phantom, but Englund's Phantom. Of course Englund had to give Erik a skin mask instead of a porcelain mask. What do you expect of Mr. Freddy Krueger. I really didn't like the girl who played Christine Day either. She was kind of a b***h. All of the acting was really "iffy". I didn't like the idea of the flashback thing. It was kind of dumb. The gore was over the top. Putting Carlotta's head in soup? Come on!

Well, that's my opinion. To those of you who did enjoy this film, good for you.

[Lady Gahan]

Do you know that the movie is actually uploaded to youtube?! You can find it there split up into ten parts. I just watched it because it had Robert Englund in it (my boyfriend just made me watch ALL the Freddy movies and now I'm addicted... :D )

But you know what? I love that movie although I'm not really into all that gorey and slashy stuff! I think it's pretty close to what Gaston Leroux actually wrote. Be honest, that whole musical stuff really destroyed the original story. Eric is NOT a nice guy. And even if he kills in the musical or most of the other movies he's still "poor miserable Eric" who must be loved. But that is not the monster I found in Leroux' book. The one there is cruel, sadistic and rather helpless (and very possessive) when it comes to dealing with Christine. He is a genius who doesn't care about anything except the music and the one who brings his music to life. And that is pretty much what I found in that movie. Of course, I'm not talking about the storyline but about the definition of the characters. Eric is a killer. That's what he knows best, besides the music. That's all he is and all he does.
The movie is perfect!

And by the way.... how many of you want to see Charlotta and Raoul die?! Be honest! :p

[The Countess]

Hello Lady Gahan, welcome to the boards. I don't want to mod, considering I'm not one and I'm a noobie, but I think that you're getting a little off topic. Please try to stay track, it's annoying otherwise. For future referance too, his name is spelled with a k.

I, on the other hand, did not find it close to Leroux's book at all. I pretty much share the thoughts of A_Single_Rose (by the way snaps for you!). The entire movie was a bad phan phic gone worse (going back in time, Christine shooting Erik, ect.) Don't get me wrong, I kind of like it, but I only find so toleratable.

[Andrew_Phantom]

It was the second POTO movie I seen, a month or two after seeing Gerry-Phantom in theaters. I borrowed the VHS from a friend and thought it was awful. But after a while I came to like the movie more, and I now have the DVD of it. I like that their's a different personailty to Erik than ALW's version, but I think that according to Leroux and the other versions he atleast had some level of remorse.

[EphemeralSanity]

I have always been a Robert Englund fan, so, hearing him do PotO made me excited.
I got the DVD for Easter (odd, I know, lol) and watched it instantly. I was not a fan at first- too far away from the book and musical. However, in time, I became a bigger fan and now, I do actually like it :)
The whole sell-your-soul for eternal fame seems like FAUST, which I thought was ironic. The deformity was kind of :self-inflicted: in a way, since he made a pact with the devil.
I didnt really feel sorry for Erik, but, I liked the film over-all.
I really dislike how he managed to transcend time to find Christine again though... Ugh.
And I really actually did like the lyrics and tune of the Don Juan song... haha

[angelgirl]

I really liked this movie!
(Ordnarilly, I don't like horror films, even slasher horror films, but I actually was able to look past all the blood and gore and stuff and actually liked it.)
I HATED that they didn't have a chandelier fall in this one! That's like the main thing the Phantom is supposed to do! I wasn't too fond of the changed stuff, either, like Raoul to Richard and him being the Co-Manager, and Christine's last name to Day. (But I liked that she was an American ok.)
I also liked that he had the scary-looking Red Death costume. And killing Carlotta and putting her head in the soup? Pure Genius! I loved it because it was so uncharacteristic and that's what makes movies like that interesting!
Ok, 'nuff ranting,
A.G.