DARIO ARGENTO'S TERROR AT THE OPERA. (1987) DIRECTED AND CO-PRODUCED BY DARIO ARGENTO. STORY AND SCREENPLAY BY DARIO ARGENTO. STARRING CHRISTINA MARSILLACH, IAN CHARLESON, URBANO BARBERINI, CORALINA CATALDI-TASSONI AND DARIA NICOLODI. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is one of legendary director Dario
Argento's most successful films. I personally loved it, with the
lushness and rich colours of the sets, the glamour of the opera-house
and the inventiveness and sheer stabbiness of the villain.
It's hard not to think of Gaston
Leroux's classic tale THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA when
you're watching it. There's no phantom, though, not unless you count
the killer when he gets half his face burned off in a show-down. But
ooops, mon Dieu, I'm
spoiling it...!
The
story is not dissimilar to that of the THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in
the sense that it's set in the world of opera. Well,
d'uh...! Furthermore, an
established diva is replaced by an inexperienced ingenue
when she is hit by a car. The
beautiful young ingenue is
called Betty and, naturally, she sings like a dream in the director's
musical production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, or
'the Scottish play' if
you're superstitious, haha.
Speaking of
superstitious, Beautiful Betty thinks that the whole shebang and
shooting-match is cursed. Weird stuff is happening to her, both on
and offstage. The weirdest thing of all is when a psychotic killer
stabs her lover to death in front of her. I'm sure you'll admit that that's pretty weird.
Well
actually, the weirdest thing of all is when the killer attaches
these needles under Betty's peepers, forcing her to keep her eyes
open and watch the mutilation. It's a sadistic, cruel CLOCKWORK
ORANGE-type mechanism that
becomes the motif, if you will, for the whole film.
More
murders are to follow. The most gruesome is probably that of the
mouthy young Wardrobe Mistress. What she doesn't have
done to her with that big scissors is scarcely worth talking about.
The poor wee girl. Beautiful Betty, who by now is getting used to seeing the
world through an apparatus of lethally pointy steel, is convinced
that she is the
killer's real target, but why? No-one knows.
This
film is so bloody. My
favourite scenes would probably be the ones in Betty's apartment,
when the killer is trying to get to her through the vent. These
scenes are tense and claustrophobic. They reminded me a lot of Klaus
Kinski's sick-in-the-head voyeuristic landlord
in CRAWLSPACE (1986).
Crawlspaces are scary spaces and unknown quantities. I honestly
wouldn't be comfortable having one in my house but they work
extraordinarily well in horror films.
There's some
fantastic music in the film by such groovy personages as Brian Eno,
Roger Eno, Steel Grave, Claudio Simonetti and even Bill Wyman from
The Rolling Stones. 1987? That would have been about the time that
Bill was making headlines in the tabloids for marrying a stunningly
beautiful young one called Mandy Smith. That was a big story for a
while back then, nudge nudge, wink wink.
Oh, and
there's a few bits and pieces in there too by a couple of young
fellas by the name of... what were they called again...? Oh yeah,
Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. Never heard of 'em before. To be
brutally honest with you, movie fans, I'd be surprised if they amounted to
anything...!
Dario
Argenta's ex-lover and the mother of his now-famous actress daughter
Asia plays the part of Betty's agent, Myra. There was apparently some
bad blood on set between the director and his ex Daria Nicolodi, a
renowned theatre actress, on account of the problems in their
personal relationship, but this didn't stop the film from ending up
as one of Monsieur Argento's masterpieces.
The
ending of the film is mad. Let's just say that the hills
are alive with the sound of
screaming...! I like
the character of Mark, the director with all the big plans. He
reminds me of that ginger fella Max Branning from EASTENDERS.That's
not a bad thing. Old Maxie is one of the guys on TV who are living
proof of the fact that bald men can sometimes be devastatingly sexy.
I also
love the fact that we have a few suspects to chew on as well before
the final curtain comes
down.
There's nothing like a good old whodunnit. The
fat glossy ravens deserve a shout-out too. They're so well-trained! I
love this film. It mightn't have a Phantom, exactly,
but it has blood and guts galore and a dressmakers' ransom in needles
and pins. What more could you possibly ask for...?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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