TERROR AT THE OPERA
Argento at his considerable best
It ain't perfect. Our heroine cries out "I can't get out!" in a burning room before she even tries the door. She also neglects to remove one of the eyeball things (if you've seen it, you know what I mean) when she frees herself from ropes and stumbles away. And the ending doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. But this is one of the most inventive horror movies I've seen in a while.
One absolutely wonderful shot of a telephone being destroyed at a most inconvenient time is worth the viewing right there. (not to mention numerous POV shots, which even take on POV's of birds, lines of sight which can't even be seen by the supposed subject because she's blindfolded, and a delightful tracking shot viewed from the back of a woman's head)
Argento's killers always seem to wear leather gloves...well, this one wears gloves ON the gloves! Also features an incredibly intense scene in the heroine's apartment...just when you think you have it figured out (hell, I admit it, I thought I had it all figured out the moment we're treated to her distorted POV) (yes, POV through eyedrops), it all gets twisted around. The resolution of this scene seems to come from so far out of left field that it initially pissed me off, but I'd forgotten that it had been set up previously.
I also dug the Macbeth production. I don't know much about the opera itself (the play, yes. The opera, no.), so I don't know what are Argento's flourishes and what's called for in the, uh, script? Whaddya call an opera's script? (note: after I posted this review, I was shortly afterward told that it's called a libretto)
My biggest problem with the movie is the overuse of heavy metal music, again. You'll find few people who love metal like I do, but it was just distracting in the context of this film, and only served to make me wish that (during the murders) an appropriate operatic piece was being played instead, or wishing that anything else would be played in the scene where she's running down the street.
But overall, a fine, fine film. Thanks to Danny - I genuflect in the direction of Texas tonight. (BTW, I take it that another actress's eyes were used in the extreme eyeball closeups on the heroine? They seemed like the lids were genuinely getting damaged, and I doubt that the lead actress would have been subjected to that. Then again, you never know...)