Good gawd almighty! That was my first reaction once I'd finished watching Italian horror maestro, Dario Argento's version of the oft-filmed "Phantom of the Opera". I think it's safe to say that there's never been another "Phantom" quite like it. It starts out as a sort of twisted variation on the Tarzan legend, with an abandoned baby in a foreign environment being rescued and raised by the resident wildlife. As most people know, with Tarzan it was apes who did the child-rearing. But it may come as something of a surprise to learn that with the Opera Phantom, it was, er, um, rats who did the parenting. At least according to Argento. Which begs any number of questions, none the least of which are: how did the rats nourish and feed the baby, change his diapers, bathe him, teach him to speak English, and play the piano, for crying out loud? Of course, the rats are telepathic, as is the Phantom, so I guess that could explain it. However, that's only the beginning of a film that goes so far over-the-top that I suspect it's still in orbit.
The gore and violence, a staple of most Argento films, are present, but not in the abundance that might be expected; there's a decapitation and a tongue being ripped out, in a grotesque parody of a French kiss, and a few more nasty deaths but, all things considered, it could have been worse. What's not a staple of Argento films is the graphic sex and nudity, (which I'm normally fine with) that includes a bordello scene in which the Phantom's nemesis, Raoul, lies on a chaise lounge, wrapped only in a towel, sucking on a hookah, while surrounded by a phalanx of nightmarish, Fellini-esque characters, all naked and looking like they stopped by the baths enroute to a "Night of the Living Dead" shoot. When a frisky prostitute takes a nose dive beneath Raoul's towel, he's not pleased--he's saving himself for heroine, Christine--and he shoves her away, with no little show of force. There are two vile, yet somehow Disneyesque ratcatchers, who tool around the sewers beneath the opera house in what looks like a modified dune buggy that snatches up rats and...oh, don't ask. At about the time that the Phantom unbuttoned his shirt and let some of the more amorous rats run across his chest and nipples, I started getting bug-eyed. When he got excited and began undoing his pants to allow them access to his manly business, my hair was standing on end. At that moment, I knew that this movie had gone so far over the mark that it wasn't ever coming back. And yet, I found myself hoping that these sex partner-rats weren't the Phantom's mum and dad, because that would be just...eeeeuuuuwwwww. And then, of course, a little voice rose within me and said they're rats, idiot!
Aside from the rats, there are some pretty good performances, believe it or not. Julian Sands is appropriately weird as the murderous, yet romantic, Phantom of the Opera. I was disturbed that he didn't wear a mask (disfigured or not) but his long, stringy, greasy hair was fairly eerie in itself. As demonstrated in earlier efforts such as "Warlock", Sands is adept at playing haughty, mysterious creeps who are vaguely aristocratic and mostly evil. I think if he had portrayed Lestat in "Interview With the Vampire" (reportedly Anne Rice's original intention), it would have been an entirely different movie; there's a certain sexual ambiguity that Sands projects onscreen that would have been entirely suited to that character (and which Tom Cruise didn't have). Plus, he looks good naked. He'd have made a perfect "Dorian Grey", as well. Argento's daughter, Asia, assays the role of Christine, the sopranic understudy who becomes the object of the titular character's affections. Asia Argento doesn't seem to be sleepwalking so much here as she has in other of her father's films. She's a lively and passionate heroine who is confused by the two men vying for her charms. That she beds down with the Phantom on more than one occasion, further muddles the poor girl. These scenes could have had a genuine erotic power (Argento looks good naked, too) and they are well filmed, but I just kept thinking of what the randy Phantom had been up to with the rats in his pants and...oh brother, I just hope he showered before joining Ms. Argento in bed. As rival, Raoul, Andrea di Stefano looks a little like Prince in "Purple Rain" (only with long, stringy hair--what is it with these guys?)--he's brave, but seemingly addled (perhaps by too much toking on the hookah); by the time, he attempts to save the day, he's moving at a snail's pace through the tunnels beneath the Paris Opera House, looking debauched and disheveled and almost as crazed as the Phantom.
Basically a remake (or re-imagining) of Argento's much better "Opera", "Phantom" is a freaky, beautifully filmed head trip that, in spite of its many difficulties and ludicrous plot developments, has a certain queasy charm that will definitely not appeal to all. Dario Argento is an imaginative creative genius who seems incapable of being reigned in, but what would he be otherwise? I sort of like him like this.
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