Director: Dwight H. Little
Writer: Duke Sandefur (based on the novel by Gaston Leroux)
Starring: Robert Englund and Jill Shoelen
Currently OUT OF PRINT On Video
Body Count: 10
Review: The Phantom novel is presented here in a somewhat skewered adaption, with lots of blood thrown into the mix, and starring Robert Englund in the title role. The story is basically the same as it always is, only this time we have a wrap-around framework story set in the modern day (kinda reminds me of an older Roger Corman flick from the 80s called Frankenstein: Unbound, in which a modern-day scientist time-travels back to the day of Mary Shelley).
Englund is awesome as always, and the plot isn't too bad, but there's just not enough here for horror fans--and way too much for Phantom fans. Anybody who likes the absolutely awful melodramatic Andrew Lloyd Weber musical will no doubt be appalled at the fact that the Phantom is not the charming-yet-disfigured crooner he was in that production, but Englund's brutal depiction of the Phantom is about the only creative thing in this film. It works for a little while, but not for 90 minutes.
Trivia: Jill Shoelen was kind of a late-80s/early-90s scream queen, with roles in Phantom, the snake movie Curse II: The Bite, and the great 50s-homage flick Popcorn--which is actually very similar in plot to Phantom of the Opera, but a much more superior movie.
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