Opera

Get off the Argento train now, every stop after this is Argento getting too into his daughter.

As usual, Argento brings the style and he brings it in spades. The film has wonderful visuals, from the loving shots of the opera house to the gruesome gory deaths. But the story is pretty silly with an unsatisfying reveal and the characters are dumber than dirt, flaws that can be found in earlier Argento films, but never as severe and distracting as they are here. Consequently, the film becomes kind of a hollow exercise in style rather than suspenseful and engaging escapism.

Very stylish. Dumb characters, especially the costumer who taunts the killer. The killer was quite easy to figure out but the motivation felt tacked on at the end. The music during the killings didn't fit the opera theme at all. I enjoyed the opera bits. What was the deal with the little girl? Overall, memorable for the contraption the killer places on Marsillach's eyes. Fav scene: just really creepy the first time Marsillach is bound and she has to witness a killing you know was coming.

After Suspiria, this is easily Argento's most visually impressive and well-paced. Scene after scene left me in awe of his inventiveness. The story, as usual, only sort of makes sense, but the experience is incredible.

More eye candy from Argento, Opera is in his top three as far as artistic aesthetic goes.

Stylish junk, and the last Argento film worth a damn. There are some incredibly impressive camera moves and moments that are comparable to a more steely virtuosic Bava, but Argento lacked his 'elegance' and was pretentious in a way that Bava never was. And it was that pretense to artistry that led to his downfall as he became lost in a labyrinthe web of hype and delusion. Regardless, with Opera Argento was at the peak of his technical powers, and its best scenes rank among the genre's finest.

I'm basing my score on the murder scenes like the other Argento films I've seen, and this has the most memorable so far. On the other hand, RIP your musical tastes sir.

The sound, visuals and pacing were all fantastic (maybe the hilarious euro metal could have been scaled back a little), and while the violence was fairly wrenching and brutal, it was still artistically appropriate. The film has trouble establishing plot consistency, but I'll go ahead and say it doesn't exactly matter. Especially commendable were the last scenes in the heroine's apartment building, holy hell was that a lot of movie to juggle.

"Opera" (or "Terror at the Opera" in the US) is a giallo (a stylish Italian whodunit) by the italian horror master himself, Dario Argento. Like "Suspria" (often called his masterpiece), "Opera" is heavier on visuals and atmosphere rather than story. Also, like "Suspiria," the story isn't always completely coherent. I will say, though, that "Opera" is much more coherent.

One of the most disturbing things I have ever seen and probably one of the weirdest things to ever be committed to film. The movie starts with a close up of a raven cawing while a woman sings opera. There is a production of an operatic version of M...(read more)acbeth. And, there is one of the most impressive and horrifying slow motion bullet scenes I have ever seen. Dario Argento is an incredibly strange man. I still prefer Deep Red, but this one has a higher rating just because of the way it i

Very good, occasionally great Argento giallo that sometimes feels like it's missing something holding it together but is nonetheless an enjoyable time. The raven stuff is really good and the eye related horror is legitimately frightening. Good film.

The movie has some moments of Argento brilliance, and the gore is great. The problem is that the plot makes *absolutely no sense*, and that's even by 80s Italian horror standards. Also the use of metal in the soundtrack seems to be more of a coke-induced decision than anything else.

As dumb as most of the Argento films are.

Dario Argento's [Phantom of the] Opera. People usually cite either Tenebre or Phenomena as the last good Argento. If you're in the Tenebre camp, you might not enjoy this, but if you could handle the relative wackiness of Phenomena, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this. In some ways, despite the weak script it actually seems like a return to form as a more straightforward murder mystery rather than Phenomena's telepathic insect powers.

This Argento film ranks close to Suspiria for me. A lot of it felt like Tenebre, and it seemed to have flashbacks to another movie so I was surprised to find out it was not related to a previous film. My favorite thing about Argento films is the lighting effects. There wasn't much of that here, but the amazing camera work made up for it.  

What in tarnation. What in the fuckin goddamn heck.

While the narritive may not be his greatest, Argento's late 80s romp might be one of his most suspenseful. There are some wonderful set pieces with all the fantastic gore you'd expect plus a peep hole scene to end all peep hole scenes. Oh and there is eye stuff. Lots of eye stuff.

It has the visual flair of other Argento efforts and there is of course the murders, but out of the 4 Argento films I've seen, this one is my least favorite. I've no idea what was going on with the mother subplot and the murderer's motivations are thin. I found myself also missing the Goblin score from previous films. The use of rock music (also used in Phenomenon) seems completely jarring.

Argento is one of the most over rated directors ever, this effort being boring and annoying.

Nothing special. Watch Tenebre instead.

Unsettling and impressionistic like a nightmare. Argento really scales back on the camp aspect of his work and goes heartless and terrifying. With people trapped in tight spaces and crawling in and out of tunnels, it suggests depths of the subconscious and of a past that can never be fully understood. And that the characterization is almost haphazard only intensifies our dizziness.

In this Argento movie we discern three types of characters. First you have extras whose sole job is to state facts that help you follow the plot. Regrettably they tend to do their job best when they are least needed. Then you have the erotic subconsious of the movie: say, a furiously masturbating director. Finally, the main character: someone who expertly puts herself in situations that are needlessly dangerous. This is a hilarious and beautiful movie, the acting is terrible, the dialogue inane.

The most frustrating Argento film I've seen yet, and that's saying something. Opera's premise is fantastic, but that's almost as far as it gets. There's the potential for a horror masterpiece here, so Argento's usual quirks bring the everything down rather than give it more appeal. With an opera theme you'd expect possibly a Gothic atmosphere, but it's wholly contemporary. The operatic score clashes with this, and the power metal is even worse. Some truly disturbing and empathetic murders.

Argento's homage to Phantom of the Opera is a stylish & tense film but also loses the story more than once. It still stands among his better work but fails to reach the heights of Suspiria or Deep Red. There are numerous great scenes and Argento uses all his technical mastery to imbue the film with a delicate atmosphere of terror. Admirably crazy & beautiful but a bit hollow and excessively cheesy even for this genre. It has a strange sentimentality that works like a double-edged sword.

76.500

An exaggerated and overly-emotional tale -- way to prove the opera is just glorified Argento material. This film isn't always happening (lot of the dialogue and acting stinks, the ending makes no sense), but many of the scenes are memorable, especially the money-shot horror moments, which are delightfully terrifying and fucked up. A real visual experience, especially for the pervert.

The filmmaking is great, but the music just sucks. I prefer his Goblin scores.

There are a lot of things that might've ruined this film for me, but the overal visuals, set design, camerawork and Argento's sence of style convinced me. This is also a nice homage to Hitchcock [no surprise here] and Powell's "Peeping Tom". He takes something from the old masters but then turns it into his own creation.

The last 30 seconds might be the most jarring and incongruous moment in Argento's entire oeuvre (which is saying a lot), but their sheer sublime idiocy are almost worth five points in and of themselves.

Rarely have I been so unsettled by a movie. This movie was really hard to watch and the violence was really effective. The needle on the eyelids thing was incredibly horrific. Unfortunately the ending is absolutely horrid.

I would have preferred to watch a DVD of Verdi's Macbeth.

Like the best and the worst of Argento. The visual style is astonishing, some of his best work. Maybe a little overboard on the POV shots, but that's kind of his thing, and there's a lot of other really magnificent shots besides. But once again, it's plagued by some horrendous dialogue and acting. And we have the return of godawful metal music. But the underlying plot isn't bad at all, except for the somewhat unsatisfying reveal of the killer. Overall, sort of brilliant and sort of a dud.

"Argento's Opera is a film of rare beauty, a celebration of love's absence and the ferocious force of the gaze." - Ed Gonzalez

Absolutely beautiful from start to finish. This is probably the most romantic movie I've ever seen that doesn't actually have any romance. A really sad story about two very complex and loveless characters. To me this is an intimate, almost heartfelt horror movie. The camera work is fantastic, particularly the POV shots of both Killer and Victims, it really helps convey all the emotions in each death scene. I effing love this movie!

Overwhelmingly cheesy, gnawingly sentimental and unnecessary "ambitious", but visually stunning. It feels like a bestial adventure with clear parallels to the Phantom of the Opera-story; the whole film's a grand farce. But the camera dances elegantly and confidently around the talentless actors, and Argento light every scene with great care. The script has a violent smell of horseshit and the soundtrack is periodically fantastic, periodically corny... A genuine bimbo.

good movie

Dario is genius

Any plot is incidental to this Argento slasher centered around a pretty nifty gimmick.

Slasher fans will find kills of interest here. It's far from perfect, very far in fact, but atmospheric as hell and featuring some of the most crazily impressive camera moves I've seen. Those alone make it a must-see.

A fairly stupid and predictable plot, but absolutely astounding visuals. Probably the prettiest horror film I've ever seen. Also quite capable of making a person squirm uncomfortably during a few scenes.

A great film that occassionally comes close to being complete awful but never quite falls there. This is the movie that Saw ripped off.

Totally sick -- and in a good way. One of the most beautiful horror films ever made. Do anything you have to do to see this on the big screen