The Phantom of the Opera (1989)

Title: The Phantom of the Opera (1989)

Director: Dwight H. Little

Cast: Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, Bill Nighy

There’s a couple of cheesy versions of Phantom of the Opera out there, I’d say that the most incredibly outlandish version I’ve seen to date is Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera (1998), which had the titular Phantom raised by rats. In that one The Phantom also had these crazy surreal visions, which translated into some really crazy Ken Russell type visuals, you might want to check out that version of Phantom of the Opera, just for kicks. If you’re in the mood for seeing something out there, plus it’s a bit on the gory side. Another outlandish version would be Phantom of the Paradise (1974), which is this crazy rock and roll version of Phantom of the Opera that feels like Rocky Horror Picture Show’s long lost brother (or sister). That version of Phantom of the Opera I’ll be reviewing today was directed by one Dwight H. Little, the director behind such horror classics as Halloween 4: The Return of the Michael Myers (1988) and  Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995). This version of Phantom of the Opera is runner up for first place as the stupidest version of Phantom of the Opera ever made. This doesn’t mean it isn’t watchable, on the contrary, it’s highly watchable in its cheesiness and goriness.

This version starts out in modern times with a young would be soprano named Christine Day, trying to get her big break in a new play. She’s looking for an impressive piece to sing for her try out, so she goes to this old book store where she finds this ancient opera composed by a guy called Erik Destler. The opera? Something called “Don Juan Triumphant”. So anyways, she makes it to her audition and as soon as she starts singing it, a sand bag falls from the rafters of the theater, hits her on the head; this for some reason magically sends her back in time to 19^th Century London, or is she just remember a past life? I don’t know, the filmmakers don’t make it very clear, but I’m going with the ‘it’s all happening in her head’ theory. Anyways, when she wakes up in 19^th Century London she’s part of a theater group practicing for ‘Faust’. On this theater group, Christine is not the star of the show, she’s just the understudy, she wants to be a star, but she’s just an understudy. But wait, the mysterious Phantom of the Opera is in love with Christine and wants to make sure she ends up being the main attraction because her voice is “like the voice of an angel”. Who will the Phantom kill in order to assure Christine’s success?

What sets this version of The Phantom of the Opera apart from all others is that Robert Englund, a.k.a. Freddy Krueger, plays the Phantom, and he does a good job at it too. In this version the Phantom doesn’t just wear a regular mask on his face; he uses human flesh (which he sews onto his own face) as his mask! Another distinctive feature of this version of Phantom of the Opera is that it’s gory. Argento’s Phantom of the Opera is the goriest, but this one is a close second. Why is this version so gory? Well, it was made in 1989, when gory, make up effects filled horror movies where the norm. Wait, scratch that, gory horror movies were making huge loads of cash in theaters is what I meant to say. Freddy Krueger was a house hold name, so where Jason Voorhees, Pinhead and Michael Myers. I’m guessing that Robert Englund made this film to try and get away from playing Freddy Krueger, unfortunately, the producers had other plans. What they really wanted to do was exploit the fact that Englund was known for playing Freddy. This is evident in the makeup effects work for The Phantom, which looks exactly like Freddy’s burned face.   The promotional work for this film also makes it abundantly obvious; they wanted to make people think this was another Nightmare on Elm Street film.

Certain elements will remind you of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, for example how the entire film is supposed to be a dream? Like the fact that the main character is a boogy man of sorts killing people in morbid ways while cackling away? So yeah, expect some similarities with the Nightmare on Elm Street films, they are no coincidence, in fact, I’d say they were entirely intentional. This does not surprise me when we take in consideration that the film was produced by Menahem Golan, an exploitative producer if there ever was any. He’s part of the team who made all those Missing in Action movies back in the eighties, which were made to exploit the popularity of First Blood (1982) and Rambo II (1985). The same exploitative logic applies with this version of Phantom of the Opera; it wasn’t made because Phantom of the Opera adaptations were particularly ‘hot’ during 1989, it was made because Nightmare on Elm Street movies were making millions and the producers wanted to make their own cheesy version of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which they did in the form of this movie.

Like most Cannon Films, the ideas and situations on this version of Phantom of the Opera are so ludicrous that they end up being funny. For example on this version of Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom actually sells his soul to the devil so he could become famous; the twist comes when the devil gives him his fame, but burns his face as well. Oh and the ludicrous angle? The devil is a midget? Okay, not enough craziness? How about having The Phantom have intercourse with a whore to release his sexual frustrations with Christine? And that’s without counting all the gory deaths, of which there are many. Actually, this movie was so gory that the MPAA had the producers edit a huge chunk of the film down, so there’s tons of gore actually missing from this one! In the end, what we ended up with is an entertaining, cheesy, gory movie, that will horrify Phantom of the Opera purists and entertain the horror fans, cause its freaking Freddy playing The Phantom. I thought it was funny that at one point The Phantom is wearing a suit that has the exact same colors from Freddy Krueger’s famous black and red sweater; a nudge to the Nightmare on Elm Street films? Sure it was! Then Christine wakes up and it was all in her head and yet again, it feels like a Freddy film.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Popcorn (1991)

Title: Popcorn (1991)

Director: Mark Herrier/Alan Ormsby

Cast: Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, Jill Schoelen, Kelly Jo Minter, Ray Walston, Tony Roberts

Popcorn is one of those films that celebrates the act of going to the movies with your friends; the joy of watching some cheesy, half assed and unintentionally funny b-movie at your local theater as the pop corn flies through the air and the crowd cheers at the screen as it watches a film through their red and blue tinted 3-D glasses. Oh the fun of watching a movie with a rowdy audience! Popcorn also pays its respects to that time in cinemas when certain film producers marketed their films through the use of gimmicks. One particular producer from the 50’s was famous for promoting his films this way, his name was William Castle. For example, for his first self produced film entitled Macabre (1958), Castle would give you a thousand dollar life insurance that a family member of yours could cash in case you died of fright while watching the film. He also stationed nurses and hearses outside of the movie theater just in case! These gimmicks proved to be successful and Macabre went on to be his first self produced hit. Other films with equally interesting gimmicks followed, for example for The Tingler (1959) starring Vincent Price had one of the most interesting of all these gimmicks. In the film, there’s a creature that attaches to your spinal cord and comes to life whenever you show fear and dies only when you scream in terror!  So Castle rigged theater sits to vibrate during the most terrifying moments in the film, as Vincent Price’s character  hollers from the screen “Scream! Scream for your lives!” Needless to say, everyone in the theater was screaming at a given point in the film. God what I would give to be one of those lucky people who got to see these movies this way! But alas, all we have today are films that pay homage to that bygone era. For example, the film I’ll be reviewing today entitled Popcorn.

In Popcorn we meet a group of film school students who discover that their university has just cut the budget for their film class, so in a desperate move to find funding for their film class, their professor organizes an all night horror film festival to show three classics horror films that used gimmicks to promote themselves. One of the films is called ‘Mosquito’ and on that one, at some point in the film a giant mosquito will hover on top of the crowd. Then there’s ‘The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man’ in which at some point in the film, theater seats are rigged to give audience members a harmless jolt of electricity! The final film of the night is called ‘The Stench’ and on that one, odors are released into the crowd that would go in accordance to what is happening in the film. The students hope that the gimmicks will draw in the crowds. So, one day, while preparing the theater for the festival, the group of students stumble upon an old film canister, unbeknownst to them the film held within is called ‘The Possessor’ a film that was made by a cult leader (and filmmaker) called Lanyard Gates. The Possessor is filled with grotesque imagery that somehow resembles the nightmares of one of the film students! How could this be? How can she be dreaming about a film that she’s never seen? The mystery unravels as the all night horror film festival marches on!

So that’s the basic premise for Popcorn, and while it has been used before, I must admit it’s a pretty nifty premise for a horror film. I’ve always loved that idea about a cursed film; last time I saw that premise played out was in John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns (2005) which was also about a cursed film called “The Absolute End of the World” a film supposedly so horrible, so frightening, that simply watching it triggers madness, chaos and death. We also got a similar story in The Ring (2002). On Popcorn the film is called ‘The Possessor’, and it was made by a filmmaker who doesn’t take criticism very well. As a slasher Popcorn functions well, though lovers of gore will be displeased with the fact that many of the deaths on this film are bloodless, though that doesn’t mean they are any less effective. With the villain in this film, the filmmakers were aiming to create another great horror icon, akin to Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. The character was played by Tom Villard, an actor who normally played nerdy characters in such films as One Crazy Summer (1986), it's very interesting how on Popcorn he is playing against type. This was to be the only film in which Villard got a first billing role; unfortunately, the film never took off; it was not a box office hit. Still, I see this film as one of the last bastions of the 80’s horror scene, because even though it was released in 1991, the film retains that silliness, that goofiness that I love so much from films of the 80’s. This was a horror film of the 90’s, but with an 80’s sensibility to it. For example, there’s this scene in which suddenly, right smack in the middle of the horror festival, the projector stops functioning! Of course the crowd goes nuts! So what do the organizers of the film festival do to quiet down the crowd while they fix their technical troubles? They bring out a Reggae band! So suddenly the horror festival is a reggae concert? Ha! How nuts is that? Then again maybe that scene has something to do with the fact that the whole film was shot in Jamaica? 

The way I see it, Popcorn is kind of like the horror version of Joe Dante’s Matinee (1993), another film that pays homage to the era of films promoted with gimmicks. Both of these films pay homage to William Castle and his special brand of film marketing. Cool thing about Popcorn is that while it is a love letter to those old 50’s and 60’s horror films, at the same time it mixes things up and becomes an 80’s slasher, so basically, it’s like a mish mash of two different eras in horror film history, and speaking of mish mashing, to me Popcorn felt like someone took all those old William Castle films, Sam Raimi’s Darkman (1990), Bad Dreams (1987) and The Phantom of the Opera (1943) put ‘em all in a blender and hit puree! My only gripe with watching this movie is that the image quality on the dvd was piss poor. This was a bad transfer all together, the sound was terrible, the image was grainy and dark…a proper release is in order. I managed to enjoy the film anyways, because I know the film isn’t supposed to look this way, all I kept thinking was how much more I could be enjoying this flick if the transfer had been properly handled. I hear the folks at Elite Entertainment might be releasing this film on a special edition Blue Ray soon, let’s hope it looks better than the dvd I saw.

One of the films within a film 'Mosquito'

Popcorn was half way directed by Alan Ormsby, the writer behind such classics as Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1973) and Cat People (1982). Ormsby was responsible for the film within a film segments of Popcorn, that’s right, he’s the guy behind the films they are showing at the horror festival, which by the way are a trio of entertaining segments, a highlight of the picture. The rest of the film was directed by Mark Herrier, an actor who appeared on films like Porky’s (1982), Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983) and Porky’s Revenge (1985). Popcorn was Herrier’s sole directing gig, I honestly can’t imagine why he got this gig though, besides to short films he made, he had no previous experience in directing feature films. I guess this was his one and only chance to direct a feature film, unfortunately, it failed at the box office. So anyhow, that’s the deal with Popcorn my friends. While not an entirely original concept and not an amazing film by any standards, Popcorn remains an enjoyable watch, a forgotten curiosity of 90’s horror before 90’s horror tried being “hip and cool” with films like Scream (1996) and I Know What You did Last Summer (1997). If you’re a horror fan, you’ll get a kick at all the little nods to old horror films, like for example, in the film, posters of classics like The Tingler (1959) and The Incredible Melting Man (1977) are prominently in display in the theater lobby! At the same time, Popcorn displays an 80’s horror slasher vibe to it that I really dug. So there you have it my friends, if you can, search this one out for a night of silly, horror fun! Atrociously bad dialog included! Glad to announce that this popcorn wasn’t stale at all, just remember that in the world of Popcorn, you buy a bag, but go home in a box!  

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5