ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Leofwine_draca A Grand Guignol slice of Italian madness from Dario Argento which, whilst not one of the director's best (and how could it be, with such a career resume?), is still above average for the genre. Argento creates one of his most visual movies here, with incredible crane tracking shots (in particular the "raven flight" is very well done), minute attention to detail and colouring of the sets and scenery, plus his acclaimed artistic deaths which are in abundance here. Indeed, TERROR AT THE OPERA contains some of the director's most cruel and flamboyant deaths, including the bravura death of Betty's boyfriend which is a particularly gut-churning slice of celluloid - after getting stabbed in the neck, Argento gives us a couple of shots of the knife-blade actually twisting in the boy's MOUTH before he's stabbed repeatedly, spraying arterial fluid everywhere and making a sticky mess in general. Other deaths involve coathook-impalings and, in one of Argento's cleverest - and cruellest - shots, one victim is shot through the eye whilst looking through a keyhole in a door.This is also the movie with the infamous "torture" sequences in which heroine Betty is abused by being tied up and then having needles taped to her lower eyelids, forcing her to keep her eyes open and watch the gruesome crimes as they are played out in front of her! Not once but twice this happens and it's a very macabre, "video nasty" style image which is unforgettable once you've seen it. Argento makes good use of his opera setting throughout (unlike his PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which he made eleven years later and which is a complete mess) and the only misstep seems to be the grating heavy metal music which he infuriatingly populated his '80s movies with - what gives? TERROR AT THE OPERA is populated by the typical late '80s bunch of Italian nobodies, young up-and-coming actors who never went anywhere outside of their native Italy. Cristina Marsillach is one of Argento's less talented female leads, and her performance is merely adequate. The only character of interest is Ian Charleson, who plays Macbeth's director and is a horror fan to boot - so, sure enough, he turns out to be a sadist! Charleson has good fun with the role though and it's one of the film's more complex parts. Unfortunately, the killer is ineffectual and vacant, although the movie does allow for a nice twist ending involving his character. Watch out for favourite Argento victim Daria Nicolodi, who appears as the unfortunate aforementioned keyhole victim.

Lechuguilla The film begins in an ornate opera house, with a perched raven cackling near an operatic superstar. Suddenly, the prima donna actress storms off the stage in a huff. "I've never seen such lousy direction ... birds on stage ... what is it, an opera or an amusement park," she barks; "I have to sing; how can I do that with a raven on stage that hates me ... It's deliberately destroying my performance." This opening is one of the most clever and amusing intros to a film that I have seen.Soon, the prima donna gets sidelined. And a young woman named Betty (Cristina Marsillach) replaces her. But Betty is reluctant to take the role, as the opera is Macbeth which "brings bad luck". Plenty of bad luck ensues. A maniac, wearing a hood, unleashes terror among the performers.In this typically good Argento directed Giallo, plot misdirection leads the viewer down the garden path; not everything is as it appears to be. On the other hand, characters generally are not very interesting. I could have wished for more suspects and a better plot resolution. And the back-story could have been handled a little better.A few scenes are quite gory. Otherwise, given the genre, the gore is fairly restrained. The ravens are more than mere props. They play a crucial part in the overall plot.Throughout, the camera takes the killer's POV. There are lots of close-ups, especially of the birds and their eyes. As we might guess, a lot of operatic music fills the plot, giving the film a highbrow tone; the music is pleasantly soft and unobtrusive. Editing, prod design, and costumes are fine."Opera" is a fairly good whodunit. But its tension and spine-tingling suspense are what really make it worth watching, far surpassing anything Hitchcock could construe. And those birds make a wonderfully naturalistic contrast to the cloistered culture we associate with the world of opera.

p-stepien Betty (portrayed pathetically by Cristina Marsillach) is an up-and-coming opera singer, who gets her big break after the star diva breaks her leg. Promoted from understudy she becomes the breakaway star of Guiseppe Verdi's "MacBeth", an opera with a long history of bad luck. During the opening night a murder is committed. Even later that evening a masked man gags Betty and forces her to watch him gut the stage manager after which he lets her go unharmed. Who is the murderer and what wicked game is he playing? Dario Argento during the years mastered his trademarks, which include long travelling shots, exquisite classic-inspired sumptuous settings as well as the use of colour (with a specific obsession with red ochre) to instill an unrelenting all-engulfing atmosphere. This time however Dario exaggerated and overused the long shots making his typical slow pace virtually stop to a halt. Almost nothing happens during over 100 minutes, albeit when it finally does occur it is engrossing and damn near to perfection.Sadly this movie has probably one of the worse scores in any Argento movie, save for the absolutely classical and unmistakable captivating beauty of Verdi's "MacBeth". The remaining music however consists mostly of loud and severely outdated heavy metal, that cruelly rape the ears and kill visual enjoyment.Additionally this is probably Argento's 'easiest' movie in the sense, that the script is severely underdeveloped and lacks the prerequisite mystery. Shortly after the first murder it becomes quite apparent that there is only one possibly killer. I naturally expected some twist to turn the events upside down (however illogical the twist), but none happened and the only possible culprit does not fail to not surprise. At the same time he must be one of the stupidest Argento murderers ever with plotting and ideas so thinly planned out, that were it not for the even more imbecilic victims he would have been caught within 30 minutes. But when victims fail to finish him off after knocking him unconscious with an iron or policemen require several days to differentiate a corpse from a mannequin this villain gets more screen time than he deserves.The only mystery worth finding out concerns the reason to the murderer's killing spree, which is suitably wicked and Argento-style twist. Also the ending itself is devious, albeit a lot of substance lost due to the terrible Marsillach, who lacks enough vibrant emotion to convey the terrible truth. All in all not a bad movie, but I fail to find anything worth note in this ultimately repetitive and flawed Argento thriller.

acidburn-10 An opera diva has an accident, which leaves the door open for her understudy to take over the role. Betty (Marsillach) is now the star of Mac Beth, but someone hiding in the trenches has an opera of his own planned out. He gets his kicks out of tying Betty up, putting needles under her eyes (so she cant close them) and murdering members of the opera company before her very eyes."Opera" is certainly one of Argento's more ambitious films, like mixing it up with Shakesphere's Macbeth there is of course the fact that the opera performed in the film is Giuseppe Verdi's version of Macbeth but also Argento, just like Shakespeare uses ravens as an omen of death and misfortune. And like the ravens circling the castle Dunsinane, foreboding the demise of the scheming Macbeth, the ravens in OPERA play a key part in the downfall of the killer. Furthermore just like in the old play the murderer acts on the exhortation of his lover. But I don't want to go as far as saying OPERA is intended to be a remake of the either The Phantom of the Opera or Macbeth, the similarities are far too subtle. It's just a typical Argento masterstroke, and with it he gives this otherwise quite basic thriller a vivid hue of Gothic mystique.Although this movie does have it downsides like the heavl metal soundtrack just doesn't fit in with this movie and the final scenes in this movie are a bit strange.All in all "Opera" is something of a flawed masterpiece but still good.