Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38089 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-07-29
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dario Argento's 1998 Phantom of the Opera is about as far from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version as it's possible to get. Grand Guignol isn't in it as he ransacks Gaston Leroux's poignant original for all its darkest elements and slathers them in gore. This phantom is no masked stranger, his scars sensationally exposed in the last reel. Instead he is Julian Sands in vampirical mode, an enigmatic wraith with extraordinary, literally mordant, powers, raised by rats in the sewer beneath the Paris Opera. Above ground, the authentically drawn twittering and jealous world of the opera house falls unsuspecting prey to his machinations.

As his quest to turn sweet-voiced Christina (Argento's daughter Asia) into a prima donna gathers pace, so the horribly mutilated bodies mount up, meeting their demise in increasingly bloody ways. Sands generates an erotic charge verging on the kinky. His ratty friends share more than the festering food on his table. Somehow, the tragic romance at the heart of the tale survives this boisterous treatment and the overall effect is curiously stylish, marred only by a poorly dubbed soundtrack. A cult movie in the making; definitely one to enjoy after a good night out at the pub.--Piers Ford

Video Description
DVD Special Features Dario and Asia Argento Filmographies
Scene Selection
Behind-the-scenes Documentary
Promo and TV Spots
Original Theatrical Trailer
Original Trauma Trailer
Alan Jones Film Notes
Tartan Terror Trailer Reel

Video Aspect Ration: Anamorphic Widescreen
Feature Length: 100 mins approx
Language: English
Country: Italy
Disc Format: PAL DVD 5
Region Code: 0

Synopsis
Italian horror maestro Dario Argento tackles Gaston Leroux's tale of love and revenge set in a Paris Opera House, which comes complete with its very own phantom (Julian Sands)--a tortured man whom was abandoned as a child and raised by the house's resident rodents. With his usual visual flair, moody atmosphere, and penchant for blood and gore, the director presents a very different twist on this timeless story. His daughter, the beautiful Asia Argento (XXX, TRAUMA), stars as the phantom's love interest and aspiring opera star.

Customer Reviews

Lord of the rats
Once upon a time, a baby boy was washed into the Parisian sewers, where he was raised by telepathic rats to become the Phantom of the Opera, a serial killer, rapist and rat fetishist.

Yeah, it sounds ridiculous. It IS ridiculous. And Dario Argento is clearly not even trying to make this gory, schizophrenic "The Phantom of the Opera" work. Instead, he apparently is determined to eradicate any traces of Gaston Leroux's original novel, and load the remaining shreds down with lots of gore, poor scripting, and a romantic lead that really should be eaten alive by rats.

The baby who would later become the Phantom of the Opera was abandoned by his parents, and raised by a bunch of telepathic rats (I wish I were making this up). This doesn't explain how he learned to walk, talk, dress, wear a ghastly wig, play the organ, write music, and decorate his underground lair -- or why the rats would even do this. But it becomes pretty clear early on that Argento just isn't bothering with logic here.

In due time, the Phantom (Julian Sands) hears the songs of the young diva Christine (Asia Argento), he contacts her and they immediately fall into a passionate love/hate affair. No reason, they just do. And the Phantom's passionate, psychotic attachment to Christine leads to more disgusting deaths, as he tries to make the budding diva into a megastar of the opera -- but his increasing murders lead to possible destruction for both ill-inducing lovers...

My mother likes to tell the story of some people she knew in college -- apparently they had some sort of rat fetish, and would have sex while making rat squeaky noises. As far as I know, they never went to the level of rat masturbation/orgy (as the Phantom does at one point) but it did creep out their roommates.

That story was all I could think about while watching this florid, hysterical, illogical mess, which only has a few scattered names and ideas from Leroux's novel. The script is simply a disaster -- a muddled mass of bizarre unanswered questions (Telepathic rats? Flaming traps in the sky?) and glaringly predictable "twists" -- will the pedophile be horribly killed by the Phantom? Do you need to ask?

Even worse: the dialogue. Argento must have been asleep when he wrote this grotesquerie ("Your sweet female smell flows though my veins like the rolling ocean..."). That goopy adolescent stuff is basically when the Phantom says all the time, when he's not calling people fat cows. And Christine basically just yells all the time that she hates/loves/is going to have sex with him. Just make up your mind already.

It must be admitted that Argento has some magnificently opulent sets, and the whole ratcatcher in his rat-killing go-cart is unintentionally hilarious. But the rest of the time, we're treated to very explicit gore for its own sake -- impalements on a chandelier, tongue ripping, etc. And the whole rat thing is presumably meant to make us squirm, but it just made me wonder if Argento has some sort of furry fetish.

The final indignity to this disaster is the casting. It's weird enough to have a maskless, unscarred Phantom, but Sands is stuck with the role of a crazy, bloodthirsty rapist and murderer, who evokes zero pathos. And Asia Argento (yet again) plays a lusty sexpot who obviously can't sing, and spends most of the movie getting hysterical. The rats give good performances, though.

Dario Argento was obviously not even trying to make a good movie in "Phantom of the Opera," and instead piled on everything that could make it fail. Well, it worked -- it's a florid, hysterical, ghastly mess that lacks anything worthwhile.

Phantom of the Opera?
I have read the fantastic Gaston Leroux novel several times over the last few years, it's a story I know well.

There have been several film adaptations over the decades - most of which bare little resemblence to the original story.

Putting a mask on a bloke and sticking him in an opera house does not make it Phantom of the Opera.

If this film hadn't called itself Phantom of the opera then I might have viewed it more postively - but I couldn't help but see how far from the title this film crept.

As I say, this may have got a 3 or 4 star rating from me if it hadn't have sold itself as something it wasn't.

Brought up by rats? This is the Jungle Book of the sewers!!!

A disappointment
I'm not an Argento fanatic, buying up all the DVDs from Europe, but he is nevertheless a director I truely admire. What's upsetting about this film is both that it is mediocre in its own right and it was done by Dario Argento. We expected more, and we got a film that could have been filmed by anyone. Seriously. I can count on the fingers of one hand the moments that stamp this film as an Argento effort. I can't defend it, and I don't have the slightest inclination to.

Just viewed as a film, rather than an Argento film, it's only just passable. Julian Sands is the wrong choice for the Phantom, but I doubt anyone could make anything of the role. Though he lives with rats in caves his hair's very nicely done and the caves are always well lit. His hygiene is impeccable. He talks in "poetic" language which could come from the most embarrassing efforts from a bottom-set English class. He has no physical deformity, which could be Argento's way of saying that the disfigurement is mental, but this would work more if any of the characters were characters. They're not. Character development is not really Argento's strong point. Why does the Phantom kill people? I'm not really sure, since he kills some but spares others without rhyme or reason. Why does Christine love him? Again, I've no idea. On the other hand the comic relief is actually funny and Ennio Morricone's score is far too good for this film- but your film's in trouble if the most memorable part of it is the music.

And as I've mentioned above, we don't get any advantage from having Argento direct it. His creativity with the camera is almost snuffed out. Very few of the deaths are anything to write home about. It was a relief to find that his next film was Sleepless, a much better effort which showed he hadn't burnt out.