Cheap Terror at the Opera (Video) (Ian Charleson, Cristina Marsillach) Price

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Customer Reviews of Terror at the Opera

Oh Yeah!!
"Opera" aka Terror At The Opera was the first Argento movie I ever saw. It was fantastic! Great storyline, great gore, great Argento style. This movie flowed, music was all heavy metal- yeah!! You have to buy the 2-disc version of this film so you will also have the soundtrack. The soundtrack in this movie is outstanding. Great murders, great gore, great acting, great everything. Argento should be very proud of this film.

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An intense film that is undermined by a lousy ending.
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot. <
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>Dario Argento's Opera was viewed by some as a sort of comeback effort after his 1985 film Phenomena (a.k.a. Creepers) garnered lukewarm reviews and failed to register with a lot of his fans. A lot of fans really looked forward to Opera since it got back to his giallo (Italian thrillers where most of the movie is shown from the killers point-of-view showing his usually gloved hands) roots and lacked some of the ridiculous elements of his insect thriller Phenomena. While Opera is nowhere close to Suspiria (1977)or Deep Red (1975) in terms of greatness, I felt that it was an improvement over his last giallo, 1982's Tenebre. <
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>Opera deals with a beautiful young opera singer who is starring in an extremely avant-garde production of Macbeth. She ends up being stalked by an obsessed fan who ties her to a pole, puts pins under her eyes (so she'll gouge out her eyes if she tries to shut them), tapes her mouth shut and murders people right in front of her in some very graphic and bloody ways. The movie in some respects has a lot in common with Phantom of the Opera. <
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>As is expected of a Dario Argento film, Opera is absolutely breathtaking visually. His camera moves fluidly and the movie features some insane angles and shots. The actual opera of Macbeth in the movie is equally visually captivating. Dario has mentioned that he always wanted to do his own movie version of Macbeth, but wasn't able to for one reason or another, so Opera gave a chance to sort of have some fun with it. <
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>The killings in the movie are also very graphic and bloody, punctuated by some really bad heavy metal music. The first murder in particular has a very gruesome shot of a knife being shoved through a man's neck and into his mouth. I was also very impressed with the scene where a woman is killed while looking through a peep hole: the killer shoots her through the head through the hole, and the bullet continues out of the back of her skull, striking the phone that's behind her. Dario is one of the few directors who can take extreme violence and turn it into something of dark beauty. <
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>Where the movie really is lacking is in some of the acting. I noticed that actors will act great in one scene, only to appear that they're sleepwalking through the next. This is especially apparent in the young woman playing the lead. <
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>The ending also was very poor and seemed out of place. After watching the documentary of the making of the film on the recent Anchor Bay re-release, the filmmakers even admit that the ending didn't turn out the way that they were intending it to. If the movie had ended 10 minutes earlier, it would have turned a good movie into a great one. <
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>Opera will probably go down as the last decent film that Dario Argento made. He went on to make some terrible films like Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome and the atrocious remake of Phantom of the Opera. I haven't seen his latest film entitled Sleepless, but I've heard that it's a return to his Deep Red roots. Whether it's any good is another question, but I really like to think that Dario has at least one more great film in him. One can only hope! <
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EXCELLENT EDITION
This review relates to the film's Anchor Bay 2-disc Limited Edition. <
>"Opera" was made during Argento's golden period and stands among his best works ("Profondo Rosso", "Suspiria", "Inferno", "Phenomena", "Tenebre"). I remember seeing the poster of the movie - a girl with needles taped before her eyes - and was fascinated and wanted to watch it ever since. And when I finally did I was not disappointed. Argento is tremendously good at creating detective stories, but one thing that separates him from other directors - in his movies "what" isn't as important as "how". "Opera" like all other of his giallo films has a tense detective plot with rather an unexpected twist in the end, it's gory, violent and graphic but the main thing about all this - is how it's all done. Any other director would make a simple thriller out of this story but Argento's "how" is what really matters. Atmosphere in "Opera" (like in his other films) is hard to relate. The story itself is very real but all the time you have a feeling that you are in a dream. All those strange sets and empty streets, hidden passages between the walls, secret rooms and real lakes of water in the basements of the old houses (I'm now talking about other films of Argento as well) create an aura of mistique and dream fantasies so that after watching the movie you ask yourself: was it all real? Argento is a true master of creating an atmosphere of irreality within reality. Even if you are not a fan of giallo and italian horror movies "Opera" is definately worth to see because I bet you haven't seen anything like that yet. <
>And a note for Dario Argento's fans: this edition is fully uncut, it has great documentaries and interviews and a bonus CD with "Opera" OST. The only minus (for purists) is that this edition does not have an italian soundtrack. If you're OK with that it's an excellent DVD.