I might be the only person on this site who loves both Cannibal Holocaust and Paul Williams. So, as a huge Paul Williams fan, the songs in Phantom of the Paradise really struck a chord with me, as did the 70s vibe.
As for the rest? Even at his best DePalma borders on kitsch, and indie-DePalma falls indie kitsch vat and what he drags out of it doesn't smell too good. Not to menton the atrocious song dubbing... Let's just say I can only name 3 rock musical horror comedies and this is my second favorite (between Rocky Horror and Little Shop of Horrors).
Still, the soulful songs, Paul Williams and the big screen premiere of the wonderful Jessica Harper (who would go on to star in 1977's Suspira) makes this film a recommend.
And if you can't handle me at my Cannibal Holocaust, you don't deserve me at my Paul Williams.
Phantom of the Paradise is a wonderful mix of genre. Its probably Brian De Palma's most original work despite being heavily inspired by other famous stories. The production design is like no film I've ever seen and the costume work is great. This is a very unorthodox musical but it really works. The characters are solid as well. Especially the one played by Paul Williams who also composed all the music. This is an essential watch for genre film fans.
"As long as it sounds good, nobody's gonna care what it's about."
I'm not into musicals at all, in fact I mostly hate them but I had a good time with this. I was drawn in by the weirdness, it's weirdness for weirdness' sake but very captivating nonetheless. I mostly liked the musical numbers, memorable stylish costumes, really nice set pieces, eccentric characters and a great score. I'm not the best person to talk about or analyse the critic on the music industry here but it's pretty clear it has a lot to say and still feels relevant today. Paul Williams ends up being the standout performance as Swan, pretty hateable villain. Cool design for The Phantom's costume, a crossbreed between Owlman and Darth Vader. The horror elements fit perfectly with the central theme. The makeup and blood looks very cheap. Not too sure what to think about the last few minutes.
This movie is good, but the songs are great.
Dislike musical movies in general. This one was good though.
What an interesting film. I first learned about this as part of Scream Factory's Blu-ray releases. I viewed the trailer and thought it looked interesting, and indeed it is when I finally watched it tonight! As the description above says, it's a rock opera version of Phantom of the Opera mixed with Faust, and I'd say a bit of Black Swan as well towards the end. I really like the different characters, the 70s music/score, especially the female lead singer, Phoenix. She reminds me of someone I follow from Crunchyroll who also happens to sing. Neat to find that the film released right on Halloween too.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-11-01T06:19:26Z
[6.1/10] Phantom of the Paradise isn’t a good movie exactly. It’s frantic and sweaty, and in places downright nonsensical. It’s a living cartoon that infrequently grasps at profundity at platitude about life and fame and the purity of art man, but more often than night finds itself mired in technicolor muck. Whatever points it wants to make, tunes it wants to spin, and stories it wants to tell soon become lost in the cinematic sinkhole of random plot beats and eleventh hour supernatural angles that threaten to swallow the movie whole.
But it at least has the decency to be a bonkers, unrestrained, colorful version of a silver screen car crash, which gives it a certain charm. I can’t pretend I’m going to be racing to rewatch this movie, in all its overblown glory. And yet, it feels like the perfect movie to cue up with a group of friends at half past midnight, laugh at its scraggier parts, enjoy its ambitious parts, and appreciate the sheer, unrelenting camp that infuses every frame.
Writer-director uses that backdrop to throw Phantom of the Opera, Faust, and Picture of Dorian Gray into a blender, along with a jukebox from a 1970s club, to create something that is, at a minimum, unique. The result of that mixture is more a jumble than a picture with any clarity of purpose, but it at least produces some of the noticeably weird and eye-catching.
It tells the story of a young musician, Winslow Leach, who has his musical life’s work stolen by evil music producer and star-maker, Swan. When crusading to right that wrong, Leach runs into Phoenix, a young singer who’s perfect to belt out his tunes, but soon he finds himself disfigured during his vengeance-fueled rampage. What follows is multiple deals with the devil, a half-baked love story, and a drug-fueled explosion of a third act climax.
Taken as melodrama, or a fable about the cruelty of the music world, Phantom of the Paradise hits nothing but sour notes. The supposed romance among Leach, Phoenix, and Swan has all the sturdiness of cotton candy in a downpour. Likewise, the heightened tale of the fickleness of showbiz has nothing but tired clichés, even when they’re dressed up in a goofy smorgasbord of the unreal.
Producers are unscrupulous. Perfection breeds jealousy. True greatness goes unrecognized. Fans are sheep. And so on and so on and so on. It’s all surface-level, 10th grade notebook-level observations.
Despite that superficiality, it is a gleefully unhinged film, turning everything up to eleven from the jump with color and light and over-emoting at every turn. The title character pops up in steel teeth, crazy eyes, a flowing cape, and a giant bird mask. He gets boarded up in an enveloping recording studio where his mechanical tunes are processed into sweet melodies. He kills an interloping frontman with a stage prop lightning bolt. DePalma cuts and stitches together tons of impressionistic, loony montages where mugging characters interpret the music or scream or dance or do some other set of wild activities in quick succession.
It all plays like someone’s deranged fever dream, but in a colorful, oft-fun sort of way. While this isn’t my cup of tea, it feels tailor-made for someone to enjoy with a few chemical enhancements. That leaves sober-minded folks like yours truly a little more bewildered by the parts of the story that...well...make no sense. But at the same time, even the staunchest teetotaler can appreciate the wild and surrealist energy that runs through the film like an electric shock.
Rest assured, there’s not a lot of what you would call “acting” amid all this psychedelic bric-a-brac. Most of the performances veer somewhere between emotional outbursts you could get from the cheap seats and background actors in an Applebee's commercial. But the high volume, rough-and-tumble style suits the rest of the movie, so most of it isn’t too tiresome outside of those rare pauses when the movie tries to get serious.
Thankfully those moments are few and far between. More often than not, Phantom of the Paradise opts for a more tongue-in-cheek comic feels, replete with plunger-smooshing homages to Psycho. That silly scene features Beef, the peak of the film’s more ridiculous characters, a preening glam rocker who definitely knows what type of movie this is. His exaggerated shenanigans soothe the audience through some of the film’s more operatic swings and misses, with his amusing theatrics.
It all culminates in a combination of a grand guignol performance at the titular Paradise concert hall. The film climaxes with a goth rock showdown, a hastily-cobbled together wedding and assassination attempt, a last minute rescue, a weirdly shot and exposited reveal of the Dorian Gray-esque twist, a supernatural tragedy and instance of mutually assured destruction, and a pair of unmaskings to reveal the scarred beasts and human beings that lie within.
To try to ascribe a point to all of this mishegoss would be a fool’s errand, but damnit, it has spirit. If you squint, you can perceive some commentary on the obliviousness of the young and fanatical, cheering on faux dismemberments and ignoring real deaths so long as sex, drugs, and rock and roll continue to be sold. But really, that’s picking up patterns in static. The totality of the film, but its third act especially, plays like an excuse to put on a show and go as big, bold, and absurd as possible in whatever space can fit all of that craziness.
In that, Phantom of the Paradise isn’t good, but it is entertaining. It fails mightily in much of what it tries but goes for broke in every attempt. That’s all I ask for from bad movies, and it’s that clamoring vigor that’s forged a cult for this Phantom ever since he and his cohort first burst from the balcony. The film imparts a valuable lesson for its all, both in its text and in its very existence -- if you’re going to be a failure, at least be a loud and garish one.