Bounding Into Halloween Celebrates 50 Years Of ‘Trilogy Of Terror’ And 100 Years Of ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ On Night 30
One more day ‘til Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! One more day ‘til Halloween! Let’s not waste time! The penultimate double feature for the year observes the half century celebration of a cult classic, and the full century honoring of a silent horror masterpiece.
Put on your bifocals, and turn up those hearing aids. It’s time to kick it old school.
Trilogy of Terror (1975)
This made-for-TV horror anthology is from director, Dan Curtis (Burnt Offerings), and it originally aired as an ABC Movie of the week in March of 1975. The three segments are based on short stories by legendary scribe, Richard Matheson (Hell House, I Am Legend, The Stir of Echoes), and Karen Black stars in each one. Let the trilogy begin!
The first story has our lead playing a repressed English professor who gets roofied by a student so he could take pictures of her naked unconscious body, and he uses these photos to blackmail her, but karma catches up with him.
Black takes on double duties for the next segment as twin sisters. One is prim and proper while her counterpart is almost as wild as the apartment tenants from last night’s Shivers. The final, and most popular story has a woman names Amelia fearing for her life as she’s terrorized by a freaky-looking Zuni fetish doll in her apartment.
This may be a trilogy, but you’re better off skipping to the last segment, and then call it a night. The previous two come off as generic episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but in color.
Find out for yourself on TUBI, and there’s no forgetting the trailer:
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
As stated above, this is based on the celebrated 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux, and it’s technically the second adaptation, even though the silent German film from 1916 was lost.
But don’t worry because the story will be rehashed eight more times in the following one hundred years.
Officially directed by Rupert Julian, but with at least three uncredited co-directors and starring Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Unholy Three, London After Midnight) in one of his greatest roles, I present to you The Phantom of the Opera.
We have arrived in the 1890s. Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin) has finally landed her dream job of singing at the Paris Opera House, and she has her music teacher to thank for this.
Erik (Chaney) is an eccentric musical genius with serious homicidal tendencies, and a face that only a meth lab could love, but he talks to Christine through a one-way mirror which gives her the impression that he’s a benevolent spirit of the opera who gives free voice lessons.
This illusion is shattered when Erik reveals himself as a mortal man who has a multitude of red flags before she even tears off his mask, and he claims that Christine owes him her hand in marriage. I don’t think her beloved Raoul (Norman Keery) is going to appreciate that.
Silent films aren’t everybody’s jam, but it’s foolish to think that everyone has good taste (or any taste). Universal Studios built a life-size replica of the Paris Opera House on their soundstage, and it was such a proud achievement, they kept it up for eighty-nine years after filming.
Then there’s the incredible, groundbreaking, and homemade makeup by Lon “The Man of a Thousand Faces” Chaney. It took a copious amount of cotton, spirit gum, and painful steel wires to give The Phantom his skull-like appearance, which was famously revealed in what is often cited as one of the first jump scares in film.
Feast your ears, and glut your soul on Erik’s accursed ugliness on TUBI. The trailer is below:
