There is in existence a film in which Robert Englund (yep, Freddie) plays the iconic movie monster the Phantom of the Opera. The 1989 Phantom of the Opera is a hilarious, half 80s AU retelling that I saw on Hulu sometime in fall 2014 (doesn’t seem to be there anymore). It was the bad movie I needed and deserved.
On her series Loose Canon, film critic and producer Lindsey Ellis reviews this gem as part of a two-part discussion of Phantom, in which she dissects the character of Erik (The Phantom), as depicted in the novel and ensuing adaptations, pre- and post-Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera musical.
Cover image for Lindsey Ellis’s Loose Canon: The Phantom of the Opera Part 1: Before Broadway [red background, features Lindsey Ellis looking to the left, thinking, and an image of Lon Chaney’s silent film version of Phantom]
The book ends with the author contending that despite his deeds, Erik was not an inherently bad person and could have been a great person had the world not been so shitty to him and that he did not deserve to be demonized, but there were many circumstances, some within his control–but many not–that made him the way he was. That he wasn’t a ‘monster,’ but a flawed human. So, that’s actually a pretty sophisticated moral for a turn-of-the-century pulp horror novel. Let’s see what Hollywood does with that!
One of my favorite parts of this review is that Ellis reviews the many Phantom-based films not just in terms of novel vs. film or film vs. film, but about how narratives about good vs. evil and nature vs. nurture can limit not just our concept of characterization and writing, but of human emotion and behavior. Oh, and hitting that sweet spot between mocking and academic discussion.
But in all of this [decades of film adaptions] something’s missing….I think we need to take this tragic emotional breakdown of a character–and make him sexy. Or at least try to.
Video contain spoilers, brief clips of gore from the films, rape mention, abusive relationship, that musical that spawned all sorts of Nice Guys™, Gerard Butler yelling while attempting to sing.
Was this the first non-queer thing I’ve reviewed so far? That won’t last long.
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