Review #217: Phantom of the Opera (1925)

This review was originally written in October 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #72: Phantom of the Opera (1925)

"A movie about singing, surely this one isn't going to be another silent film" I said to myself. I was wrong, of course- though I'm pretty sure this is the last silent film on my list- but while Phantom of the Opera was another silent film, and it's pretty slow much like the last two (I watched it at 1.5x speed and it felt like it was moving normally), I was pleasantly surprised by this one!

For anyone not familiar with this story, it follows the cast and crew at the Paris Opera House, where legend says a "phantom" has been living in secrecy and manipulating the events that unfold therein. The main characters are Christine, an understudy that has unknowingly been in close contact with the phantom for many years, and Raoul, a soldier that is in love with her (which is unwelcome news to the Phantom, who- since he's actually a living person rather than a ghost- is himself in love with Christine). The Phantom tries to manipulate Christine into loving him back, but when she sees his horrific face, she tries to escape his grasp. This doesn't go well, and it leads to a deadly confrontation between the Phantom and the townsfolk.

All in all this movie was actually shockingly good compared to the last two movies; the last two were slow, plodding, and did basically nothing with any part of the medium. Scenes in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror tended to be sparse events, with nothing noteworthy happening on-screen, and even the title cards rarely gave any interesting information, and the plots seemed fairly disjointed as a result. In Phantom of the Opera, however, this is completely reversed- this actually felt like a movie, in every sense of the word except for the lack of sound and audible dialogue. Scenes were full of action, characters felt like real people instead of just a body moving from one side of the shot to the other, and even the title cards felt like they were delivering a necessary part of the experience (because the plot was much more complex than "a man finds a vampire and gets scared by it, the 90-minute story". This felt like a full story being told in silent film form, rather than just someone using silent film to try and create a story. The actors still felt like their movements and reactions were extremely exaggerated (many scenes felt like a pantomime rather than just someone acting out a scene) but I suppose this is to be expected, and at the very least it didn't detract from the experience.

The plot of the story is well-worn territory for me, as Phantom of the Opera is a popular story that's been remade like five hundred times. But it still felt fun seeing this version of it. I think it's a little goofy how the entire conflict could have been resolved by "Hey, just leave the building, that's literally all it takes to get away from the Phantom" but I guess if Christine just chose not to go do one last show before running away with Raoul, or if she chose to meet with him anywhere outside of the place where she works to discuss secretive plans to escape her tormentor, then there'd be no movie. It's dumb but whatever. I also think it's interesting that (compared to other versions of the story I've seen), the Phantom wasn't disfigured on one side of his face and he didn't suffer an accident to become who he was, he was just a really ugly dude. That's all, he was ugly and Christine was fine with him holding her captive until she saw how ugly he was. There's probably something to be taken from this but that's beyond the scope of this review.

Anyway, this movie was definitely a pleasant surprise but I do need to remember I had to watch it at 150% speed in order for it to feel like it was moving at a normal pace. If someone was just looking for A version of this movie to watch, I probably wouldn't recommend this one, but if they wanted to watch this one specifically I wouldn't stop them (I'd just make sure to recommend they speed it up).

Overall Rating: 6/10 Hot Mirror Torture Chambers

Horror Mask Trivia: Apparently, Lon Cheney (the Phantom) designed his makeup himself, and it was kept a complete secret to even the cast of the film- so when Mary Philbin (Christine) saw him in his unmasking scene, her reaction was real! I may have joked about how he's "just an ugly guy" but it seems like a LOT of work went into the Phantom's look and mannerisms, to evoke a very specific horror experience. (And apparently it worked- Gregory Peck has said that his earliest movie memory was being terrified by this film as a child.)