The Phantom of the Opera Reviews

Casting Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series) as Gaston Leroux's venerable musical monster was probably a painful inevitability, so it may be just as well that veteran schlock producers Menahem Golan and Harry Alan Towers have gotten it out of the way. The results are high on gross-out horror effects calculated to keep the coveted teen market awake and interested. However, despite some stylish bits of direction from Dwight H. Little (HALLOWEEN IV) and a few beguiling moments from Jill Schoelen (THE STEPFATHER) as the high-pitched heroine, Christine, audiences generally are likely to spend much of the 95-minute running time battling boredom. In streamlining THE PHANTOM for the MTV generation, the filmmakers have jettisoned anything resembling a plot to concentrate on slice 'n' dice bloodletting. When she is accidentally hit on the head with a sandbag, Christine is transported through time to Victorian London, where she encounters the Phantom. As in past versions of the story, he lives in a sewer and lurks around the opera house, but this time around the Phantom has gotten the short end of a bargain with the devil; trading his soul to become a first-rate composer, he has ended up with his face scarred by an evil dwarf. For his trips to the outside world, the Phantom literally puts on the faces of his murder victims.