MonsterHunter

I think I must have missed the wedding. You know, the one where Dario Argento (Suspiria) got married to the steadicam. I think John Carpenter gave the bride away. When you watch Argento’s take on The Phantom of the Opera (not to be confused with the regular version of the film he did about 11 years later), you’re alternately impressed with the sweeping shots of the opera house and nauseated by the floating views he uses to follow some of the action.

The movie starts out promisingly enough, the camera swirling around a rehearsal of Macbeth that the opera dudes are getting ready to put on. The director is a movie director who apparently likes to try his hand at updating these stuffy old operas with some new fangled ideas. Here those ideas involve having trained ravens flying all over during various scenes. The ravens get a couple of big scenes in this movie, including an attack on the killer while the opera is being performed.

Betty gets a chance to star in the opera when the original star breaks her leg. Betty puts forth a good performance as opening nights go with the exception of the falling spotlights and the death of a stage hand, who makes the mistake of getting in the face our hooded killer and gets his head impaled on a coat hook in one of those private boxes that all the big wigs pay big bucks for.

Periodically we also get shots of a pulsating brain and then we see some woman tied up and we see another woman and one or both of them get killed, and I was never sure of whether these were visions the killer was having or just daydreams that Betty was having. Later Betty has this dream that she is tied up and sort of violated by a hooded killer, at least I think it was her. Sometimes Dario can be a bit opaque with his imagery. Some attribute that to him using symbolism and being arty. I like to think it’s the result of bad editing and poor continuity.

After her performance, Betty is given congrats by everyone. After the show, Betty and her stage manager boyfriend go off to his uncle’s mansion (which looks like a really big, ornate museum) and she just isn’t in the mood. He goes off to get some Zima or something and this allows the killer to slip in, tie her up and tape her eyes open with his nails. Then he hacks up the stage manager when he returns while forcing Betty to watch. I’ve been on worse first dates.

Following the death of the stage manager, the next day’s practice at the opera house starts off with a cop named Inspector Alan nosing around, investigating things. There’s also a scene where the killer sneaks into the prop room where they store stuff for the show like Betty’s fugly costume and those ravens. The ravens don’t like the killer and escape their cages and fly all over and generally harass him until he smacks some of them down. He steals some or all of the costume, but leaves a clue behind. Later when the seamstress gets the costume to repair it and refit it for Betty (she’s been pounding down too many beers after each show apparently) she notices a piece of jewelry that’s stuck to the costume and it has a date on it. I never figured out what exactly this had to do with anything.

Betty gets herself tied up again and the killer and the seamstress have this fight. The woman actually gives a pretty good account of herself, whacking the guy with an iron and knocking him out briefly. Then she doesn’t keep her eyes on the prize and instead of finishing that sucker off, she lollygags around, taking the dude’s hood off. The killer gets up and kills her and then he lets Betty go again and disappears.

She decides she needs to chill out at her pad and Inspector Alan tells her that he’s assigned some detective to watch her at her place. As is to be expected in cases such as this, we end up with a real detective and the killer posing as a detective. Once the identity of the killer is revealed, the entire sequence makes zero sense and actually just makes things harder on the killer for no reason.

Betty and the director finally put their heads together and come up with a plan to smoke out the killer. Their plan is to put on the opera like normal and then at some point they let all the ravens loose in the auditorium. The ravens fly around and swoop to and fro snatching hairpieces and doo-dooing on people until all the ravens set upon a single person. The ravens manage to peck his eye clean out of the socket. The killer is angered and a hostage situation ensues where time can be taken to explain everything. The movie concludes with a final chase scene that felt tacked on.

Dario creates some really good shots (though his use of opera and heavy metal music that sounds like the Ronnie James Dio era of Black Sabbath leave a lot to be desired - one or the other is fine, not both) and gets these big panoramic views of the opera (when the ravens are solving the case) that will leave you impressed with his command of the camera.

Though not as annoyingly impenetrable as something like Argento’s Inferno, the movie still fails to sustain much in the way of interest. The story isn’t all that intriguing and has stretches that leave you scratching your head either because what went on didn’t make any sense (the ravens) or was simply superfluous (the ending). Basically this is a slasher version of The Phantom Of The Opera, which probably isn’t the worst idea you could have come up with, but the way Dario executes it, with it’s bad mystery and weak payoff, you won’t be buying any tickets to see his Opera again.

© 2008 MonsterHunter