Terror at the Opera

Year: 1987

Director: Dario Argento

Written by: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini

Threat: Psychopath

Weapon of Choice: Needles

Based upon: Original

IMDb page: IMDb link

      Terror at the Opera Terror at the Opera

Other movies in this series:
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Rish Outfield's reviews
I'm a big Dario Argento fan. Well, maybe not a big one, but I've seen most of his movies (actively seeking them out as opposed to stumbling across them from time to time) and have enjoyed most of them. I've mentioned the two categories of Argento films: the symbolic, gory, compelling mysteries, and the symbolic, gory, confusing mysteries. This was another one of the nice, former ones. They're always colorful, always poetic, always haunting.
Both tyranist and I delighted in a scene where a little girl is chastised by her evil mother and responds with the best retort ever:
"Crawling around in that vent. You're covered with dust. It's disgusting!"
"You're the one that's disgusting--you're always naked!"
SLAP!
I enjoyed this movie. It was poetic and lovely and very gory, as usual for Argento. But this one didn't let its poetry overtake its prose and made clear and logical sense (until the end, that is).

The tyranist's thoughts
Just when I've lost faith in the ability of horror to be both visually pleasing and full of mystery, we watch a Dario Argento film. When his movies aren't so overly stylish that they are indecipherable, I find his gory mysteries to be quite intriguing and well worth my time spent watching them. This was such a movie with the only flaw appearing at the very end after the mystery has unraveled.
The lovely Cristina Marsillach plays a young opera singer who gets her first big break singing Lady Macbeth when a car accident removes the previous diva from the roster. But then things start to get worse and worse. She is tied up and forced to watch a masked killer mutilate several people. The ingenious bit is how the killer forces her to watch. He tapes needles under her eyes that are positioned to prick her eyelids should she attempt to close them.
I found this to be vastly entertaining and easy to watch in the tradition of Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Trauma. Truly a nice effort by Argento and crew. Lop off about three minutes on the end and the movie is very, very good. Definitely check it out if you get a chance, but try to look for the unrated version as there is some very good gore here.

Total Skulls: 20

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS skull
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex skull
Unfulfilled promise of nudity skull
Characters forget about threat skull
Secluded location
Power is cut skull
Phone lines are cut skull
Someone investigates a strange noise skull
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer skull
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer skull
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence skull
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence skull
Dark and stormy night skull
Killer doesn't stay dead skull
Killer wears a mask skull
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain skull
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore skull
No one dies at all
Virgin survives skull
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots skull
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending skull
What the hell? skull