"Only love and music are forever," says the Phantom: "But hell is getting what you desire." A ghoulish, gory interpretation of Gaston Leroux's novel, transformed into a horror movie from Duke Sandefur's screenplay, based on Gerry O'Hara's screenplay, directed by Dwight H. Little. Frightening atmospherics and action in comic-book sequence take precedence over acting, though Jill Schoelen, as the Phantom's protégé diva Christine Day, is pleasingly appealing both in voice and face.

The composer Eric Destler (Robert Englund) sold his soul to Satan in exchange for musical immortality; but in addition to losing his soul, he suffered permanent disfigurement of his face. The film delights in displaying the ghastly facial repairs he must perform with needles and thread on the deteriorating flesh of his physiognomy.

In late 20th-century New York City, while looking for something "fresh" in the rare collection of a music library, Meg finds for her friend Christine a score of the incomplete opera Don Juan Triumphant by the 19th-century British composer and serial killer. In Christine's hands for a moment the notes on the page seem to turn to blood.

On stage as she begins to sing for the audition, she's knocked unconscious by a sandbag swinging down from behind the scenery. Upon regaining her senses, she's on the stage of the London Opera a century earlier without memory of her future existence, an understudy to the diva, La Carlotta (Stephanie Lawrence).

"Your voice and your heart must be one," instructs her teacher, whom she refers to as an angel sent by her deceased father but who refuses to allow her to see him. When Carlotta becomes indisposed, after the shock of finding Joseph the scene shifter skinned alive in her closet, Christine sings like an angel with incredible passion as Marguerite in Faust.

Investigating the murder of the stagehand, Scotland Yard's inspector Hawking (Terrence Harvey) questions the owners of the theatre, Martin Barton (Bill Nighy) and Richard Dutton (Alex Hyde-White), dismissing rumors of a ghost.

Richard proposes marriage to Christine after her splendid debut, though the critic of the Gazette, Mr Harrison, writes an unflattering review. Having dispatched three ruffians on the street at night after his gold, the Phantom in a steam room confronts Mr Harrison about his bad press, asking if he'd reconsider with a box seat for the next performance. "I think I'd rather die than subject myself to another night of that shrieking," to which the Phantom replies: "As you wish."

In the graveyard visiting her father's tomb, Christine accepts the Phantom's proposal to join him in a destiny of immortality, while Richard watches from the locked gate. Below the streets, the prisons, and the sewers, the musical genius with scarred face and psyche retreats with his prize to his hellish cavern where she sings for him from his opera, astonishing him: "Impossible! No one's heard that music."

Exclaiming that she will be his bride that night and fixing upon her finger a ring, he proclaims: "You love the music. I am the music." But the inspector and Richard are determined to save her from an evil fate. Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version is far superior to this slasher.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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