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[0:05] Jesse McAnally: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally.

[0:07] Andrew DeWolf: And I'm Andrew DeWolf.

[0:09] Jesse McAnally: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, the podcast where I try to get Andrew to appreciate musical theater week by week, show by show.

[0:15] Andrew DeWolf: And it is the penultimate episode of our Phantom Month coverage.

[0:20] Jesse McAnally: Ooh, Phantom Month, but also part of June and maybe April.

[0:24] Andrew DeWolf: We're almost done.

[0:26] Jesse McAnally: Almost done.

[0:27] Andrew DeWolf: We're almost we had to hit the big ones, you know.

[0:30] Jesse McAnally: Um, stuff left after this?

[0:32] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, there's so much.

[0:34] Jesse McAnally: There's so much still left is the sad part.

[0:36] Andrew DeWolf: There's probably like TV episodes and all sorts of new things.

[0:39] Jesse McAnally: The Wishbone episode has been requested multiple times.

[0:42] Andrew DeWolf: Oh my goodness.

[0:44] Jesse McAnally: We're gonna have to do another Phantom month at some point.

[0:46] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, every May, I guess, until we die.

[0:49] Jesse McAnally: They won't stop making this shit.

[0:51] Andrew DeWolf: No, Eric Portrait of a Living Corpse.

[0:53] Jesse McAnally: I actually know the filmmaker.

[0:57] Andrew DeWolf: You know what? I actually think I figured it out why there's so much Phantom stuff.

[1:00] Jesse McAnally: Is it the public domain?

[1:02] Andrew DeWolf: No, no. It's that rats are incredibly fertile.

[1:05] Jesse McAnally: Almost made me spit my drink out, you son of a bitch.

[1:11] Andrew DeWolf: This is probably the most infamous adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera.

[1:15] Jesse McAnally: If you could even call it an adaptation of Phantom of the Opera.

[1:19] Andrew DeWolf: It's on the verge of like, I'm not sure you really can.

[1:23] Jesse McAnally: There's enough there. Strangely, there's character names, there's specific elements there.

[1:28] Andrew DeWolf: There's enough.

[1:36] Jesse McAnally: Compared to this.

[1:43] Andrew DeWolf: Gaston LaRue said, but Father, in case you haven't picked up what we're throwing down, this week we are talking about the infamous Dario Argento adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera.

[1:56] Jesse McAnally: Q the trailer?

[1:58] Andrew DeWolf: Maybe credit room.

[2:20] Jesse McAnally: There should be multiple trigger warnings. We don't often do content warnings at the beginning of our episodes, but this has a few that might be a little weird if you're not just expecting a normal episode of Musicals with Cheese.

[2:33] Andrew DeWolf: There is bestiality, rape, um, general sexual assault and violence, blood, guts, um, animal abuse, let's not forget that one.

[2:48] Jesse McAnally: Then you also have the real life, um, incestuous overtones between Asia Argento and Dario Argento by just the way he represents her in this film.

[2:58] Andrew DeWolf: We're gonna go there.

[2:59] Jesse McAnally: Very nice.

[3:00] Andrew DeWolf: Um, how could you not go there? I think is the answer to the question.

[3:05] Jesse McAnally: Um, and I'm sure there's a couple other things, because this movie really does hit a lot of those things. But now that you know that what we're going into for this, this is not this is not your grandmother's Phantom of the Opera.

[3:17] Andrew DeWolf: This isn't anyone's Phantom of the Opera. Are you fucking kidding me?

[3:19] Jesse McAnally: This is Dario Argento's The Phantom of the Opera is a film written by Dario Argento, Gianni Romoli, and Giorgio Ferrara with music by Ennio Morricone.

[3:29] Andrew DeWolf: Does that name sound familiar to you? If it does, it really should. Composer of The Thing, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Hateful Eight, one of the most prolific Italian composers of all time, and as far as I'm concerned, did a really good score to this film.

[3:41] Jesse McAnally: I think this film actually has a really nice score, but it is based on Gaston Larue's Phantom of the Opera and premiered November 20th, 1998.

[3:49] Andrew DeWolf: And this is the plot pulled right from Letterboxd.com. A man who was raised by rats deep under the Paris Opera House pines for a gorgeous soprano by terrorizing those around her.

[4:00] Jesse McAnally: Um, about right. As far as other ones go, I think it's pretty accurate.

[4:05] Andrew DeWolf: Completely accurate, yeah. I mean, is that the plot to Phantom of the Opera?

[4:09] Jesse McAnally: No.

[4:09] Andrew DeWolf: Not really.

[4:10] Jesse McAnally: But it is the plot to this.

[4:14] Andrew DeWolf: I find this baffling. So I found a Blu-ray rip of this, which also bafflingly included an audio commentary for this film.

[4:26] Jesse McAnally: This does not read as a film that has an audio commentary, nor a gorgeous restoration, which the Blu-ray does. Like this film looks beautiful.

[4:34] Andrew DeWolf: Like it feels like if you restore it.

[4:37] Jesse McAnally: I mean, yes, but it looks like the film has no grain, all the they really took time restoring this film, and then they got two giallo historians to speak and defend the film for the entire runtime.

[4:50] Andrew DeWolf: And even they know that it's a hard job to do.

[4:55] Jesse McAnally: These gentlemen trying to defend this film and failing. But the most interesting fun fact I got about this is this film exists because an Italian film magazine put a survey out to the movie-going people. What would you like to see Dario Argento adapt into a film?

[5:11] Andrew DeWolf: And overwhelmingly, they picked the Phantom of the Opera.

[5:15] Jesse McAnally: Which baffled both the historians and Dario Argento, because several years before, he made a film called Opera, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a much more accurate version of the Phantom of the Opera.

[5:45] Andrew DeWolf: The final note is a real killer. Where a masked man is literally just murdering people at an opera house because of a woman. He basically already made an adaptation of Phantom of the Opera.

[6:03] Jesse McAnally: And they were like, you know what you should do is adapt Phantom of the Opera. And he took that personally. He was like, alright, I'll do it, but like, no, this is a rat boy.

[6:14] Andrew DeWolf: And for all the things that we're about to say about this, I do like opera. I think opera is weird and interesting.

[6:20] Jesse McAnally: But the historians are immediately like, it's weird that they voted overwhelmingly for that and that this was the public's choice, considering no one fucking saw the movie.

[6:32] Andrew DeWolf: Which, well, word of mouth, they probably the first guy that saw it was like fucking scene? Oh no. He fucks rats. Don't go to you don't want to watch this.

[6:41] Jesse McAnally: Do you know anything about Dario Argento or giallo altogether?

[6:44] Andrew DeWolf: No, like nothing.

[6:46] Jesse McAnally: So giallo is a form of Italian horror, which inspired a lot of American filmmakers and a lot of horror films. Specifically, like even someone like Brian De Palma is very inspired by giallo in a lot of his films like Dressed to Kill, and a lot of it has bled into the Phantom of the Paradise when we covered that.

[7:05] Andrew DeWolf: So there's pieces of giallo in there.

[7:08] Jesse McAnally: But the person that the people call like the granddaddy of giallo films is Dario Argento, who would make films like Suspiria.

[7:16] Andrew DeWolf: Have you seen that one?

[7:18] Jesse McAnally: I know that one's like a big I've not seen it.

[7:21] Andrew DeWolf: I've heard of it. Obviously, there was a remake recently, I think. Um, so I've I've heard of it, not seen it though.

[7:28] Jesse McAnally: So aspects of giallo are as followed. Like, usually it's very bloody, gory, a lot in a ways that you couldn't get away with in American films because they had the rating system at the time. Um, there would be people stalking women or men, and they would have black gloves and a knife, and that would be like the tell-all of giallo killers.

[7:49] Andrew DeWolf: Um, they get there would be the most violent, horrific blood-soaked scenes you would ever find, but also they'd be framed beautifully. Like, that's the thing, like beauty with blood and uh Italian film is weird, it is very different than um the narratives that we see, specifically with Argento's and a lot of others.

[8:10] Jesse McAnally: He does this thing where instead of just speaking one language and then dubbing it like everyone's gonna speak Italian, he has every actor speak on set the language that they speak.

[8:22] Andrew DeWolf: So some people are speaking Italian, some are speaking English, some are speaking Spanish, and then you just dub it into whatever language it's coming out in. So if you look at the American version of this Phantom of the Opera, Julian Sands and Asia Argento and a lot of other they are speaking English, and then everyone else is speaking Italian that is dubbed over.

[8:42] Jesse McAnally: Gives it a bit of a weird vibe.

[8:44] Andrew DeWolf: It feels like you're in a nightmare world.

[8:46] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it kinda does. I mean, if anything is going right for this, because I think there's some good things that you can oh yeah, maybe say about this. Obviously, the score is really good. You already mentioned that.

[9:47] Andrew DeWolf: But that's kind of separate.

[9:50] Jesse McAnally: Um, cinematography and set design, great.

[9:53] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like some of the stuff, like the sets and the just the way everything is shot, looks really nice.

[9:59] Jesse McAnally: It's really just the actual content, like the story and like what they chose to put in that is just horrendous. Like just it just ruins everything.

[10:10] Andrew DeWolf: It um, it is an unpleasant, unpleasant experience. And a lot of big choices being made. And usually I respect the big swing even if it misses. I still respect it.

[10:24] Jesse McAnally: I actually really uh, I really like some of the super weird choices that they've got. My personal favorite, and I'm just gonna bring it up already because I just want to talk about it.

[10:33] Andrew DeWolf: Well the Teletubbies uh vacuum team.

[10:36] Jesse McAnally: I mean the rat mobile, excuse me.

[10:38] Andrew DeWolf: Rat mobile? Amazing, incredible, completely out of place. Makes no sense.

[10:47] Jesse McAnally: There's this guy who's he's the he's the rat catcher.

[10:50] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, you know what? I think we just have to go into it.

[10:52] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, yeah. We just have to go into it. We can't, we can't.

[10:54] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. So if there's anything I'm gonna say that is closer to the Gaston LaRue novel than most, is the LaRue book isn't a novel in the traditional sense, it is a bunch of vignettes, basically. It was really serialized.

[11:07] Jesse McAnally: This also feels like a bunch of vignettes really serialized, but not the same vignettes.

[11:14] Andrew DeWolf: Oh no, no. It just feels like things are happening in a little mini scene, and the phantom's gonna save a child from a pedophile.

[11:24] Jesse McAnally: Oh, yeah, we trigger warning pedophilia too. If you can think of something that you should be triggered by, it's in the movie.

[11:32] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[11:35] Jesse McAnally: Speaking of the movie, yes, what let's go.

[11:35] Andrew DeWolf: Let's go.

[11:39] Jesse McAnally: Okay. The film opens with they just do the opening to the Batman Returns, where a mother dumps their child into a river.

[11:48] Andrew DeWolf: Not because it's deformed, they just do it, and then the child is taken in by rats.

[11:53] Jesse McAnally: The script originally called for Julian Sands' character of the Phantom to have a literal rat face. He would just kind of look like a rat. So when the rats took him in, it's like, oh, what of us? Now it's just like, you know, rats decided to take care of this baby, and he thinks he's a rat because of it.

[12:11] Andrew DeWolf: Look, they loved the rat face makeup though, because they still used it.

[12:14] Jesse McAnally: Oh, they did. But the actor Julian Sands, um, who is not the first choice for the phantom, but he refused to put on the makeup. He said that's a very stupid idea. I'm not doing it.

[12:25] Andrew DeWolf: Do you know who the You know what? He was right. We applaud him for this.

[12:30] Jesse McAnally: Do you know who the first person who was reached out to play the phantom by Dario Argento was?

[12:34] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think I could even guess.

[12:36] Jesse McAnally: Who is it?

[12:36] Andrew DeWolf: John Malkovich.

[12:38] Jesse McAnally: Oh my lord.

[12:39] Andrew DeWolf: Who apparently got the script and burnt it out of anger that he would even be considered.

[12:44] Jesse McAnally: That might be apocryphal, but that is what the rumors say.

[12:48] Andrew DeWolf: You know, it was the right choice. Um, the historians in the audio commentary went on to say, like, this isn't even the worst film that John Malkovich has been involved with, so I don't believe it's the script alone that caused him to say no.

[13:01] Jesse McAnally: I think it's money.

[13:03] Andrew DeWolf: Which, you know what? Fair.

[13:05] Jesse McAnally: Okay, so we got the we have the phantom, he's raised by rats. No deformity, just rat baby.

[13:11] Andrew DeWolf: Bait yeah.

[13:12] Jesse McAnally: And that which I'm trying to remember the exact order of events, because this this is like a scatterbrained kind of movie.

[13:18] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, don't worry, I have them written down for us right here.

[13:21] Jesse McAnally: Okay, because I feel like the next thing, like the next time we see the phantom, is it the scene where the three guys are like over the sewer hole?

[13:29] Andrew DeWolf: Yep.

[13:29] Jesse McAnally: And okay, so I'm right about that. Excellent.

[13:31] Andrew DeWolf: Um, so the next time we see the phantom, he's he's full uh grown man. Uh I don't I don't think we see him though in this scene.

[13:40] Jesse McAnally: No, you get his presence.

[13:42] Andrew DeWolf: Um, he is like this figure of the night who eats the torso off of a man and just leaving the legs.

[13:50] Jesse McAnally: So, like this guy, uh I think he's just like doing maintenance or something. He's in a hole, and the guy gets like chopped up and he gets pulled out of the hole, and all you see is a his it's like a stump.

[14:07] Andrew DeWolf: The stump and legs, like the stump to like his dick balls and legs.

[14:12] Jesse McAnally: Honestly, it's it's good effects. The effects work is not bad. Like it the gore and everything looks solid.

[14:18] Andrew DeWolf: I'd say even some of the CGI doesn't look terrible. Like when that man gets impaled later on, that doesn't look bad. Um the the the rat babies, maybe not so much, but we'll get there. We'll get there, okay? We we'll get there. Oh, we will. Um you hold us to that. So he he kills everybody, and then we find out that he is um well he he meets Christine, and we find out that he is actually telepathic.

[14:44] Jesse McAnally: Yes.

[14:45] Andrew DeWolf: Um, not f figuratively, not he's bullshitting to pretend he's a ghost. No, no, he is literally telepathic and can actually control the actions of others. Um if he if he so chooses to.

[14:57] Jesse McAnally: Oh, yeah, but let's not forget that when Christine comes out to pretend to be singing, she is wearing a top that you can see right through to her breasts. Um very clearly. In fact, a few close-ups insinuate that the director knows this and is using the male gaze to to really highlight that. The director must be really attracted to this girl who's playing Christine.

[15:19] Andrew DeWolf: Who's playing Christine?

[15:20] Jesse McAnally: Well, his daughter, Ozzie Argento.

[15:22] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, okay, yeah, his daughter. That's always good. Um I'm not gonna go phone on the sword for Ozzie Argento. Um, they've had a really rough go at it with the press, but also might have groomed a 15-year-old into a relationship, but also is one of the main speakers against Harvey Weinstein, but also might have groomed a 15-year-old boy into a relationship. There's a lot of things going on, and Italy's a weird place.

[15:44] Jesse McAnally: Let's talk about Phantom of the Opera a little more.

[15:46] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Um, but we also introduced Christine's nurse character, which I know isn't important right now, but I do want to bring up because they might be the only one that really knows what movie they're in.

[16:02] Jesse McAnally: Okay.

[16:04] Andrew DeWolf: Fair enough. I I don't know. I feel like the rat catcher has some sort of idea what's going on.

[16:09] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[16:09] Andrew DeWolf: I I'm talking about like real characters like Opera House side. Like her and Carlotta know what movie they're in. Um but she Carlotta's actually really great in this. Carlotta might be one of the best Carlotta representations in any of the films.

[16:27] Jesse McAnally: I yeah, she does. Carlotta doesn't usually get like a good go at it in any of these movies.

[16:34] Andrew DeWolf: No. She's usually just horrible.

[16:36] Jesse McAnally: And here she's horrible, but it's like funny.

[16:39] Andrew DeWolf: It's exactly. It's right up there with Minnie Driver's portrayal in the movie, which I think is underrated. Um but the fa she just tells the fan he just tells her through telepathy to come to him, and she does, and we're at minute 10, and they're the Phantom and Christine are just chilling together. Things, it's so fast.

[17:00] Andrew DeWolf: Like, literally, I'm like, I'm 10 minutes in, I'm already lost. Like he's telepathic. We we skimmed over this a little bit. He forces the rat catcher to like put his hand into a rat trap.

[17:12] Jesse McAnally: Oh, that happens a little later, but yeah, that does.

[17:14] Andrew DeWolf: Is it later? I don't even remember when it is. He doesn't force it like force it sounds like he's there and he's forcing his hand.

[17:23] Jesse McAnally: No, no. Telepathically makes him put his hand in the rat trap. It makes no sense. It does at least give the phantom that supernatural thing that all the other ones are terrified to give him.

[17:35] Andrew DeWolf: It's true. Like people would actually think that this is a ghost.

[17:39] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. Um he unfortunately just has rat powers, which is telepathy. But when he's with Christine in this opening scene, he says the iconic line, your female smell.

[17:54] Andrew DeWolf: Your perfume. Your female smell.

[17:59] Jesse McAnally: His wig is not great. His voice is not threatening. He has he has like my voice. It's like if I tried to play the phantom and it's like, Christine, come over here.

[18:11] Andrew DeWolf: Is it one of the main things with the Phantom in every single version that he's like a a composer or something?

[18:18] Jesse McAnally: Oh, that's no, he is not. He is not a vocal teacher. He is not offering anything to her. He doesn't. He's just the rat man that lives in the sewer.

[18:29] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that's it. No talents, no traits, no redeeming qualities.

[18:34] Jesse McAnally: I am so in love.

[18:37] Andrew DeWolf: She's just intoxicated with him because it must be the rat smell.

[18:41] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it's the rat power of seduction. That's one of the main things rats are known for, seducing women. Look at Steve Buscemi.

[18:52] Andrew DeWolf: When do we get the the uh amazing line where it's like he's not a phantom, I'm a rat.

[18:58] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that happens. I think it's a little see this is where I start to get but right after, right after his meeting with Christine is the scene where the rat catcher gets forced to um put his hand in the trap because he killed a rat. Which this is important because it gets the inspector or raul, I forget who it is in this one.

[19:17] Andrew DeWolf: Um, but whoever's investigating all this talks to uh The rat catcher. The rat catcher, and realizes that something is up.

[19:25] Jesse McAnally: It's not Raoul, it's just some investigator guy with amazing mustache, by the way. While that's happening, like that ratcatcher plot is happening. We introduce these two other people, this couple that exist to be murdered.

[19:43] Andrew DeWolf: Well, this has a bit of a slasher movie vibe to it. Like in slashers, you introduce a bunch of characters. Here it's just like here they are and then they die.

[19:54] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it well, it's kind of like I think I talked about this in our Phantom of the Mall, but it's like a it's like the bad slasher movie trope where you introduce a bunch of characters, but you don't kill any of them. You just kill off like random like I think Leprechaun did this, like like Leprechaun has the the main like four, and then the only people that die are these random side characters that have no time on screen other than their death scene.

[20:17] Andrew DeWolf: Uh so it's kind of like that. They set up like, oh, we're gonna do all these stealings and all that, and then they disappear for a bit, and we cut back to them again, and then we steal leave them a bit. At least it builds to something that ends sort of okay with the the cool impale effect.

[20:34] Jesse McAnally: Oh yes, it gets there. But we gotta intro like we don't even kill them yet. We just introduce them, they have a weird conversation, then we cut to Raul.

[20:42] Andrew DeWolf: Top tier worst Raul, is this it?

[20:44] Jesse McAnally: Lower tier, like one of the worst ones ever.

[20:47] Andrew DeWolf: Worst Raul ever? I'm trying to think. So not every version has a Raul.

[20:51] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, sometimes they have a Richard.

[20:53] Andrew DeWolf: A Richard. I I think this is this is near the bottom, though. This this Raul, not great.

[20:59] Jesse McAnally: Does he do anything of interest in the whole fucking thing?

[21:04] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[21:05] Jesse McAnally: He rows the boat, taking Christine away from the phantom, and she's like, my love, my lure.

[21:10] Andrew DeWolf: That's at the very end of the movie.

[21:12] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[21:14] Andrew DeWolf: That's like the last thing that happens.

[21:16] Jesse McAnally: He's on the rooftop with her at one point.

[21:19] Andrew DeWolf: That's true. Yep. That that happens. We had to check that off as a Phantom of the Opera thing. This character is only here because they just are like, we need a Raul, because it's supposed to be an adaptation of Phantom of the Opera.

[21:32] Jesse McAnally: Supposed to. Even though we made him into a rat man. They have like it doesn't even look it doesn't even seem like Christine's interested in him.

[21:39] Andrew DeWolf: Like it's not even like a little. She's very interested in Rat Boy.

[21:43] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. She wants she wants to fuck Rat Boys.

[21:46] Andrew DeWolf: She does fuck Rat Boy. She does not want anything to do with Richard.

[21:50] Jesse McAnally: No.

[21:50] Andrew DeWolf: Raoul Richard. Prince. He looks a little bit like Prince. And then we're just done with that scene and we cut back to the couple destined for death.

[21:59] Jesse McAnally: Yes. The only purpose in the whole thing. They're trying to steal his treasure.

[22:03] Andrew DeWolf: Because the Phantom has treasure.

[22:05] Jesse McAnally: The Phantom has treasure. So they're trying to steal his treasure. I don't know why. Just it they have the die, you know.

[22:11] Andrew DeWolf: Can we just get to the part where the he impales the one guy by throwing him some?

[22:16] Jesse McAnally: Of course we can. Um And then he he like bites the girl's tongue out or something, or is that Yeah, that's a good part. That's nasty. And uh, that it's nasty, but that part's like actually okay. It's like, damn, okay.

[22:29] Andrew DeWolf: Like and that's the part where the CGI looks actually pretty okay. Is the impalement.

[22:32] Jesse McAnally: Like he thro he tries to stab the phantom. The phantom throws him generally somewhere. We don't have leverage, like, cause I thought they were on ground level, and then he just tosses him off screen, and then somehow he falls onto uh uh something stabby.

[22:47] Andrew DeWolf: I feel like he climbed up somewhere at some point. I can't I do I don't really remember. I think that there is a bunch of like camera shots that don't make a ton of sense in this part.

[22:58] Jesse McAnally: Uh I think throughout the movie, let's be clear there.

[23:03] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, probably throughout the entire movie. The fly scene.

[23:04] Jesse McAnally: Oh well, the fly scene's amazing. I don't understand why it exists, but it's there.

[23:09] Andrew DeWolf: He just corners her, bites out her tongue. Some of the most graphic violence I've ever seen, and that's not the thing that gets me. Is right if we bit off the tongue, we cut right to the kids into the pedophile subplot.

[23:22] Jesse McAnally: Oh yeah. And everyone's like, there's still like talk like, oh, the phantom's hunting again. He's back in the theater, and everyone's like, oh, dang it, he's back murdering again. There is so much going on in this.

[23:37] Andrew DeWolf: But all that is conveyed by the pedophile man. Because he's the most interesting character. We have to have him. And I know we don't usually this is very nostalgia critic of us, and it doesn't help.

[23:48] Jesse McAnally: But right after that exposition dump, we're in with the managers, and one of them just starts having a seizure, like through telepathy because the phantom takes over.

[23:57] Andrew DeWolf: No, it's the former manager that does.

[23:59] Jesse McAnally: Oh. The one that just sold, because I think he told them too much or something, and the phantom got mad. I'm not sure. And then telepa telepathically causes him to explode from the inside, basically.

[24:10] Andrew DeWolf: I genuinely could not figure out what was happening um in that scene. The other two managers didn't seem all that concerned, so I wasn't really all that concerned. Um, you know, like maybe he's fine. The makeup looks great.

[24:22] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, yeah. In case you this is what we mean by vignette y shit that just happens, because we could It just This is like it sounds like we're explaining the plot really badly, but like genuinely this is like scene by scene. Like it's just like nonsense.

[24:37] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, did you say nonsense? Right from that scene, we cut to the phantom on the roof in some of the worst CGI I've ever seen.

[24:45] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god, I love this part. I'll let you explain it. Explain it. Because I am I have it up right now. I am watching it as it happens.

[24:52] Andrew DeWolf: So you explain.

[24:54] Jesse McAnally: I honestly I can't even fully remember the whole scene because I was so dumbstruck by this. But if I what I remember is he's up on the roof, kind of like daydreaming. Two shots just 15 seconds. Two shots of 15 seconds. Um wide of him, CGI background looks terrible, medium of him, baby rats uh floating in the air.

[25:16] Andrew DeWolf: You you like we're gonna have to like post a picture of this on Twitter or something.

[25:20] Jesse McAnally: I think I would get kicked out because I think those are legitimate, like underage naked people.

[25:25] Andrew DeWolf: I yeah, I I it's like you have to see it to believe it though. It is a giant well, I guess maybe it's not supposed to be a giant, but it looks like a giant rat trap with a bunch of just people it with rat faces in the rat trap, like in it's not it's not it's like a mouse trap but with nails attached to it, and then they're like stabbing through these It's so fucking bizarre.

[25:49] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[25:49] Andrew DeWolf: Like, what the fuck is Can't can't can't have an answer.

[25:56] Jesse McAnally: And it's not I don't believe he told Julian Sands what he was looking at. But that like I I we need this is the establishing. This is the medium, and then we just cut into it. No explanation, no elaboration. They're like in hell as well. Like, like I what the fuck is this?

[26:18] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, that goes away. Um, I will take this one. From that same cloud from either heaven and hell comes Oziar Argento wearing basically only leaves. Um, you can see uh most of her naked body. There is blood dripping out from her cr between her legs, and she is uh very much posing for male th the male gaze. And then we get a reaction to that, we get a wide of that, and that is the scene. That is the whole scene of the scene.

[26:47] Jesse McAnally: What are we even cutting to here? I like now. I'm just like, we're like watching the movie, like trying to figure out what the fuck is that.

[26:56] Andrew DeWolf: We cut from that to Carlotta's tonsils.

[26:59] Jesse McAnally: Ah, yes. Have you heard of the Kulishov effect?

[27:03] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, why don't you explain for the audience?

[27:06] Jesse McAnally: So for those of you that didn't take film school basics, the Kulishov effect is the implication that you can put a neutral face against any secondary image, and we will imply meaning by it, thus the basics of editing. So for this, um, they would take the same face and put it against uh a woman, you would imply he is aroused. If you put it next to a baby, you would imply that he is happy. If you put next to a tombstone, you would imply that he's sad or in mourning. So I think that that scene with Julian Sands and then just sending other s random shit in the air for him to react to is the ultimate Kulishov effect. Where you've beat the system, Dario Argento. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel through all of that.

[27:49] Andrew DeWolf: And then and then we cut from that to a close-up on a sore throat.

[27:53] Jesse McAnally: Yes. Um you're and therefore we learn that Christine um must take over for Carlotta because sore throat. We did not see the phantom cause the sore throat.

[28:09] Andrew DeWolf: No, I mean, maybe that's the implication. We're cutting from the phantom to the sore throat, so the the uh it's that's supposed to be cause and effect that doesn't make any fucking sense you're you're giving too much credit here my friend I I really am can we get when can we get to the fucking rat vacuum we're only like we're only like not even halfway through the fucking movie at this point. Um what plot has there been okay so Christine sings um does her thing full on sobbing because the phantom is in the box your guess is as good as mine I don't I remember Sideways did this incredible video about singing while crying and how it's basically impossible.

[28:49] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, um she somehow does it through the power of dubbing. Well, maybe the Phantom was also telepathy manipulating her to telepathy singing but using her voice for himself somehow. Maybe, but she passes out on stage and then that happens. She wakes up to all these children and all these things around her. Honestly, we didn't need any of that for this. For a brief moment, it does become slightly like The Phantom of the Opera though.

[29:23] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, um because I just the rat vacuum we got a while, sir. When is the rat vacuum? We will get to the fireworks factory.

[29:34] Jesse McAnally: Jesus Christ, because then the Phantom comes to her, talks about like, hey, it all was fine and Raoul hears it over in the room. This whole part's kind of Phantom of the Opera like this is like they almost it's almost in the story.

[29:48] Andrew DeWolf: But Andrew, a little bit. Andrew, Andrew. They what do they cut to right after it gets a little phantom-y?

[29:54] Jesse McAnally: Like, I bet you don't remember. Pure, pure insanity. Um jeez. There it is.

[30:00] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, the bath. So much dick, so many boobs all over the place. Honestly, I'm willing to just go with it.

[30:10] Jesse McAnally: Why though? Raoul is there. He watches like these two guys fight while getting high as hell, pushes a woman off of him, and then sneezes in a dude's face.

[30:20] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, wait, no, no, no. Wait, no, I lied. He gets high and hallucinates Christine. Um, so that's a butt. That's not what I meant to show you, but so he gets really high, and then she starts laughing and making a bunch of wild faces at him. Reminder, that's the director's daughter. And then he literally just punches her in the face, basically.

[30:41] Jesse McAnally: No, kicks her in the face, gets angry, and causes a scene because he wants Christine. Oh, a bunch of naked people stand around him. So that just happens, and then we move on. Raoul has a place in the story. There you go.

[30:54] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Okay, then we're not at the rat mobile yet. This the ratmobile's coming, people. The rat catcher hasn't been seen since like the beginning of the movie at this point as well. We gotta get to the pedophile chasing down the child through the catacombs and shoving chocolate in her mouth.

[31:12] Jesse McAnally: The Phantom is a very important plot element.

[31:15] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, definitely. You can't have Phantom of the Opera without that.

[31:18] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it's important. But she hides, and the Phantom comes to him and bites his throat out, tosses candy in the air, bites his throat out, and then there's so much candy. Like this man was filled to the brim with candy. He might have all been the candy man. Uh, and then he comes over, pats her on the head, and says, Run home, little girl.

[31:39] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, is this supposed to be like the oh the Phantom has a heart? He is sympathetic. He kills pedophiles and doesn't murder children.

[31:48] Jesse McAnally: Cause this is like the bare minimum. Like, you are. If this is what you're doing to make them sympathetic, like, Jesus. Jesus Christ.

[31:57] Andrew DeWolf: And then the little girl goes back to dance recital, and the guy's she's like, oh my god, the Phantom just murdered guy, and he's like, nah, he didn't then beats the shit out of her. And then that scene's over. And then we cut to the rat catcher. Ugh, finally.

[32:11] Jesse McAnally: They're just cutting tails off rats and putting them in jars. Okay, so I straight up could not figure out what why they made the rat mobile or why the ratmobile is in the movie.

[32:24] Andrew DeWolf: I don't remember. Do they discuss it in the scene and I just missed it?

[32:28] Jesse McAnally: Nope. He said, look at my new machine. It will do so much with rats. And he says almost right to the camera. But we don't even get what I lied to you. We don't even get to the rat mobile yet.

[32:40] Andrew DeWolf: Because then we cut to Christine and her maid, and the Phantom calls to Christine to come to him. Then Christine goes to the catacombs to find the Phantom, and then she just comes across the rat man in his Ratmobile. Like it chases her. Like it I love the Ratmobile so much.

[33:03] Jesse McAnally: Describe the ratmobile for people, please.

[33:05] Andrew DeWolf: The rat catcher is such a joy, by the way. He's just having a fucking blast in this scene. He's it's like um it's just a big like go-kart with like a vacuum. Did you call it like that's tubby custard or tubby nounu or something?

[33:23] Jesse McAnally: It's like the Teletubby's vacuum. You remember the and it has a little thing. Away go the bubbles. So he's just riding around this little like go-kart size thing around these catacombs.

[33:59] Andrew DeWolf: Um, Phantom's rat family. Honestly, he's the hero that the story needs. Kill the rats. And then I think this is the only death that the Phantom doesn't directly cause. He just accidentally dies.

[34:15] Jesse McAnally: He crashes it and then uh like the the propeller cuts off the poor little person's head. And Christine just walks by that and the story goes on.

[34:26] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. But but the the rat mobile, it has a little vacuum on it, it sucks up the rats, and they get stuck in a little tube. Uh, and then they pop up, and and there's the the guy on the back who grabs them and puts them in his backpack. Uh it also has blades on it uh that don't seem to do anything other than uh kill the person uh that was driving when they crash into a rock.

[34:52] Jesse McAnally: Like Jalo usually involves one murderer, but nah.

[34:59] Andrew DeWolf: But nah. Andrew, I think we're gonna have to put a little pause in our discussion here and go into a mid show and continue afterwards. I don't think we've ever talked about the plot to what we're talking about for this long before.

[35:11] Jesse McAnally: No, but we have how can we not with this one? It's so wild, like there's nothing else to discuss.

[35:18] Andrew DeWolf: There there's other things to discuss. We have to like talk about how accurate to LaRue it is, but there's still so much coming. We are literally just at the midpoint of this movie as we are talking about this vignette. Let's go into a mid show and then we'll keep talking about what happens in this whackadoodle movie.

[35:44] Jesse McAnally: Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show because oh but we've got uh we gotta show at you. Uh today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations by our donors over at Patreon. Patreon is this place where you can get tons of cool stuff, such as patron only commentaries, our episodes early, video episodes where for this specific one you will get to see what we are talking about as we're talking about it.

[36:09] Andrew DeWolf: If you want to see that. I am certain Andrew's gonna have to cut a lot of detail out of this one, so you will definitely be getting an extended version of this episode over there, as well as tons of stuff. Um we're gonna get ramped up into it as the summer months come along. Um, it's been a little dead because Jesse is doing something big that's taken up a lot of his time, um, but I promise we'll get to it.

[36:31] Jesse McAnally: But currently we do have a patron that has taken one of our highest tiers of a hundred dollars. Um, and at that tier, they will be able to join us for an episode, which we are arranging. Um, but they also get to have, as long as they're at that tier, Andrew reads something. And this is from Patron Monica Thoreau. Um and Andrew, can you read that right at the bottom of that list there?

[36:53] Andrew DeWolf: Um, wait, hang on. I had the I had the wrong thing open.

[36:57] Jesse McAnally: Oh no!

[36:58] Andrew DeWolf: I would have to actually edit this.

[37:01] Jesse McAnally: I mean, who's gonna care?

[37:03] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's true. Uh wait, where the fuck did my thing go?

[37:06] Jesse McAnally: I actually I actually think I might have accidentally closed it.

[37:09] Andrew DeWolf: I didn't want to.

[37:09] Jesse McAnally: You son of a gun.

[37:11] Andrew DeWolf: I full screened uh I full screened the thing as we were watching stuff, and uh now everything else is gone.

[37:16] Jesse McAnally: Oh shoot.

[37:17] Andrew DeWolf: There we go. It's back, it's back.

[37:19] Jesse McAnally: Okay. So what does Monica Thoreau have to say?

[37:21] Andrew DeWolf: They get a free message, and honestly, I think this is actually an important message for people to get. Monica Thoreau is an optometrist for context. Just a reminder to all people to get their yearly eye exam and not to sleep in their contacts.

[37:36] Jesse McAnally: I'm actually very excited to have them on the show when we do they do get to join us for that episode because um I've been losing my contacts inside my eye like throughout the day. Like I'll blink and then it'll just loop up into the inside of my eye, and I gotta wait for it to dry out to rip it out. So I was loving contacts for a while, and now I'm like too scared to do it.

[37:56] Andrew DeWolf: So I'm gonna get their advice, see what I should do doing. Cause I obviously I'm doing something wrong.

[38:03] Jesse McAnally: You're not supposed to blink, Jack.

[38:04] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, yeah, stop existing. But but it's the worst when I'm on set and I'm like, I freak didn't bring glasses. Fuck! And I just have one contact that's in and the other one that's stuck inside my eyelid.

[38:14] Jesse McAnally: Oh lord, that sounds bad.

[38:16] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's very bad. But our other patrons are Melissa Goldman, Danielle Rennes, Jessica Stampede, Ewan Casty, Monica Thoreau, thank you, Brent Black, Nathaniel Stacey Coombe, Joseph Evans Green, Mary Lou Choquette, John Finales, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, Emily Gracie, Kyle Summers, Jen AC, Scoot in the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Liz Lim, nothing is certain, but Beth in Taxes. Thesbian, Rebel RMS, Jessica T, Mitchell Young, Chai Teacup, Katie McDonough, Chris Mark Coat, Kiji, Marie Anastasio, Layla, RJ Norija, Bjorn Herman, Toriana Fraser, Sammy the Most Lopez, Liana Morton, Kayleigh Blazier, Cinema Genton Reviews, Villainous Miss, Sofiana Ar Lee, The Omega Geeks, Paige Pearson, Maddie Worgle, Elisa Erdman, Annalos Catova, Jessica Varay, Sarah Den Bleckier, Evan Ball, Zachary Torres, Rora Morasso, Mara Fourloyne, Captain Rodastic, Lisa L, Nobody, Renee Thomas.

[39:09] Jesse McAnally: What did Boris say? Puffy Boy, Summer, Julia Hardy, and Jay Cusia. They all give us election financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musical Switch. If you'd like to join them in getting all the fun perks, and maybe one day joining us on the show like Monica will be, come join us over on Patreon.

[39:26] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, let's get back to you know whatever this is we got going on.

[39:37] Jesse McAnally: So where do we leave off, Andrew?

[39:39] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, we uh we just talked about the ratmobile.

[39:42] Jesse McAnally: Yes. For this moment, I do want to say, I want to reiterate something that we said earlier. The cinematography of this film is actually very good. Like we cut right from the rat catcher stuff to this beautiful tracking reflection shot of Christine walking through the catacombs, which would be the best shot in any other film of Phantom of the Opera, and gets like tons of points for me. But also it's in this movie.

[40:07] Andrew DeWolf: It is immediately following a goofy, goofy comedic scene that exists for literally no reason whatsoever. Like some of the most inventive creative shots. It is weird to me, as far as Phantom of the Opera stories go. She has to get there herself. She gets on the boat and then rows herself over there. The Phantom doesn't really like to leave the catacombs if he doesn't have to. And he doesn't like when people get down there. And she goes there and he's just playing away on his organ, and then they just sing a bunch.

[40:41] Jesse McAnally: Is this supposed to be the vocal training, or do you think that they're just chilling?

[40:44] Andrew DeWolf: No, they're just chilling. He's just playing, he's telling her to sing, and then she cries and sings, then crouches down. And one of the most either brilliant or horrendous cuts in film. We cut from that scene directly to a shot of her her posterior. Classy.

[41:04] Jesse McAnally: Like you you can see the rectum and all. Um Classy. I will say the sex scene feels right out of the room. The candles, the long hair, the sexy dress. I mean, what's going on here?

[41:19] Andrew DeWolf: Hearing those film historians justify this scene where it's like, yeah, I get why they felt uncomfortable with this, considering it's a daughter, but I feel like Asia Argento was really kind of appreciated that people might have been uncomfortable with it. But then they go on to say it's actually um stylistically important to the Phantom's narrative, like that he is doggy styling her because he considers himself an animal, a rat.

[41:45] Jesse McAnally: So why would he have sex in the missionary human way?

[41:49] Andrew DeWolf: They actually say this in the comments.

[41:51] Jesse McAnally: Yes, they did. It's stylistically designed to be that way. We can mitigate the effects of it, but you say that, but apparently the first cut of this was three hours long.

[42:01] Andrew DeWolf: So maybe they did do that.

[42:04] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god. Can you imagine three hours of this? Basically, the post-coital chat about where he's from, and he's like, I was abandoned by the river. I was nourished and raised by the rats who became my friends. So he's he doesn't consider himself to be the Phantom. Uh he doesn't I don't think we ever hear that his name is Eric or anything like that.

[42:27] Andrew DeWolf: Nope, nope. In fact, he is he is a rat. This is the self-described. This is the only Phantom of the Opera adaptation that gives you the full backstory right from the get-go. There is no mystery element to this of what he is or who he is. From the moment we know he's a dude raised by rats. If anything, the mystery is the uh the the fact that the title is Phantom of the Opera, and you're expecting him to be the Phantom when in fact he is a rat.

[42:54] Jesse McAnally: Then we cut to Ral trying to figure out where Christine is.

[42:57] Andrew DeWolf: His maid is like, oh, she's disappeared.

[42:59] Jesse McAnally: Get away, I don't like you.

[43:01] Andrew DeWolf: And then our fly comes in.

[43:03] Jesse McAnally: Oh, I love the fly scene.

[43:05] Andrew DeWolf: Okay.

[43:05] Jesse McAnally: I don't remember what happens in the scene or anything because I was just uh watching the fly.

[43:12] Andrew DeWolf: The shot just follows the fly.

[43:14] Jesse McAnally: The maid is just in there, the shot follows the fly, she throws a shoe at the fly and then finds the mirror passageway.

[43:20] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, but for some reason, we had to have this shot where we are literally like we are the fly, sort of.

[43:27] Jesse McAnally: We were following behind the fly.

[43:29] Andrew DeWolf: It's weird.

[43:30] Jesse McAnally: It's visually confused.

[43:33] Andrew DeWolf: It doesn't make any fucking sense.

[43:37] Jesse McAnally: So the rat catcher is alive, we discover.

[43:40] Andrew DeWolf: Fuck, what does he do? Does he come back and do something? I can't even fucking remember.

[43:44] Jesse McAnally: She spies on Christine and the Phantom when they have their non-consensual um sexual escapades.

[43:51] Andrew DeWolf: Ah.

[43:52] Jesse McAnally: He just likes to watch. Um, he's like Denny in that way.

[43:55] Andrew DeWolf: The rat catcher in this is probably the best character, although I might just be saying that because I really like the ratmobile.

[44:03] Jesse McAnally: Um, I don't know why the rat catcher wants revenge so bad. Um, considering, you know, he's not the reason why your friend died.

[44:14] Andrew DeWolf: Well, he I mean, I feel like we can talk about the fact that maybe telepathy pushed the rock in in the way.

[44:24] Jesse McAnally: Maybe, maybe. I mean, with a film like this, you can't justify it.

[44:29] Andrew DeWolf: Um, but the Phantom, after like a really romantic night, you are my love, you are my love. He comes back, finds her at his piano, and he's like, hey, you're gonna be singing for Christine tonight while kissing her down the neck and all that.

[44:42] Jesse McAnally: And she's like, oh, or for Carlotta tonight. She's like, oh, that's neat. He's like, I need to go. She's like, oh, can I come too? And he's like, nah, she's like, but I really want to come. And then let's just see how that pans out real quick.

[44:54] Andrew DeWolf: Like, no, I want you to want to be here alone, stay here.

[44:58] Jesse McAnally: I'm coming too. And then immediately start strangling her and screaming at her face.

[45:04] Andrew DeWolf: Immediately violent.

[45:06] Jesse McAnally: I know we've talked about a little bit about how like some of the phantoms are like romantic, like lover boy types. This is probably the farthest on the opposite side of the spectrum you can possibly go, but the problem is that the movie doesn't realize that.

[45:24] Andrew DeWolf: No, not at all. The movie thinks it's romantic.

[45:25] Jesse McAnally: They think they've made like a proper beautiful phantom.

[45:32] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, but in all reality, this is literally the most gruesomely violent, unlovable phantom.

[45:40] Jesse McAnally: Literally, we're skimming through the movie and we're at a part where he's biting off Carlotta's ear.

[45:46] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[45:47] Jesse McAnally: So after this moment, so he like makes the veil threat like Carlotta, something will go wrong. It has to do with the laws of gravity. But then he just sneaks into Carlotta's room, bites her ear a lot, and then scrapes her boobs.

[46:02] Andrew DeWolf: Make I think his comment is like, oh, what why does a woman like you have such big boobs? Something horrendous like that, and just scrapes it.

[46:11] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, and then he scrapes them, and it's so weird because like Carlotta doesn't seem like she realizes that she's like hurt until she looks in a mirror and sees that she's bleeding.

[46:21] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, but she also the bizarre. But it also has like a weird like it's a horror moment, but it also has a bizarre comedy moment because her beauty mark is now on her nose as opposed to her chin.

[46:30] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, and her like main the first thing she does is pop it off her nose and put it back.

[46:36] Andrew DeWolf: It's it's a very weird scene, but it's building up to probably one of the best parts of the movie. It's the chandelier crash, which is I think pretty uh pretty fun scene.

[46:47] Jesse McAnally: Where he like takes his shirt off, lumberjacks a pole, uh load-bearing pole while Carlotta's on stage, and it just smushes all the bodies.

[46:57] Andrew DeWolf: I guess it's kind of implied in every version of the Phantom that this happens, but I don't think I've ever seen one where they're so explicit about it.

[47:04] Jesse McAnally: Like, when the chandelier falls, people get crushed.

[47:08] Andrew DeWolf: Twenty-five to fifty people in the audience, just completely innocent people that have done nothing at all, are just dead instantly.

[47:16] Jesse McAnally: Of course.

[47:18] Andrew DeWolf: But then it ends on a comedy shot of Carlotta covered in dust and like wah wah music.

[47:23] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it's so it's it's a perfect encapsulation of what I think the whole movie kind of is. Just horrific, gruesome violence, followed by she gets bonked on the head comedically in her hair.

[47:36] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, followed by weird comedy. The only thing it doesn't have is just some like odd sexual assault, but I guess that the previous scene covers that.

[47:44] Jesse McAnally: Oh, just you wait. Um, the Phantom comes back to Christine and is like, you will sing Juliet, and she's like, No, I hate you. You're terrible. I hate you. And then he just, you know.

[47:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[47:59] Jesse McAnally: The sexually assaults her as the rat catcher looks on. You know, rat catcher, it's maybe it's time for you to do something, buddy.

[48:07] Andrew DeWolf: Horrendous.

[48:08] Jesse McAnally: Christine, like, it's a horrendous, difficult to watch unpleasant scene. Let's just say that one.

[48:13] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, which you can say it's supposed to be unpleasant to watch, but I feel like the problem is.

[48:17] Jesse McAnally: It's right after Carlotta gets bonked on the head and wah wah music plays.

[48:21] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like t the problem is it's the the movie is totally just fucking everywhere.

[48:27] Jesse McAnally: So it's like what how did you say fucking everywhere?

[48:30] Andrew DeWolf: Because she wakes up from that to try to find out where the phantom's doing, and how about you tell us what he's doing?

[48:35] Jesse McAnally: Oh god, is this this scene?

[48:37] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, it's that scene.

[48:38] Jesse McAnally: Uh he's fucking the rats.

[48:41] Andrew DeWolf: How does one fuck a rat?

[48:44] Jesse McAnally: Do I have to describe this?

[48:45] Andrew DeWolf: Why don't you describe it?

[48:46] Jesse McAnally: I feel like you'd do it better, is the sad thing. Well, he's just covered in rats and he's just he's just uh obviously aroused.

[48:55] Andrew DeWolf: Oh my god and then they go into the pants.

[48:58] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, oh wow, and they've got the shot of the rats.

[49:02] Andrew DeWolf: Jess, why are you making me watch this again? I already had to fucking see this shit.

[49:05] Jesse McAnally: And then they start attacking Christine because how dare she take away their lover, I guess, because the rats are sexually jealous of Christine.

[49:16] Andrew DeWolf: Again.

[49:17] Jesse McAnally: Again, like, totally, where the fuck is this movie supposed to be? Like, is this a comedy?

[49:24] Andrew DeWolf: Let me just say, I feel like you've been with us for 55 minutes. We have not made a word of this up. There's not like one bit of hyperbole for the sake of like comedy.

[49:34] Jesse McAnally: I don't think we could. This is one of those movies where it's like you have to just see it to believe it, but I I don't want to tell anyone to see this, because honestly, I don't think you should watch this.

[49:48] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think anyone should watch this.

[49:50] Jesse McAnally: It's funny because before we started recording and remembering what happens in this movie, you're like, I enjoyed it, you know. It's kind of goofy.

[49:57] Andrew DeWolf: I actually kind of still in in my mind, I'm like, it was still kind of fun to watch. I respect it for being so fucking bonkers.

[50:07] Jesse McAnally: The problem is though, like, for a normal audience that isn't fucked in the head like like you or I might be.

[50:07] Andrew DeWolf: Might be.

[50:16] Jesse McAnally: Is anyone gonna fucking enjoy this at all?

[50:21] Andrew DeWolf: No, no.

[50:22] Jesse McAnally: So Christine escapes, runs Sorrow, goes to the rooftop, um, is eavesdropped on by the Phantom, is told that she has to go on for Carlotta, then does three minutes, let me just say, like, that's a pretty quick thing. We're rushing to the end at this point.

[50:36] Andrew DeWolf: During her performance, the Phantom flies down or no, no, no, the rat catcher, the real hero comes on stage to out Christine and slut shame her.

[50:48] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, because this is this is the way to handle this.

[50:52] Andrew DeWolf: I get that he's the rat catcher, but like, come on, man. Why are you gonna catch so many rats?

[50:58] Jesse McAnally: And then the phantom flies down like Batman and then kidnaps her.

[51:04] Andrew DeWolf: He takes her. Like, literally in the most like the way you take something off the show. In front of everyone, he just like he jumps down and just grabs her, and I guess it's too crowded for anyone to stop him.

[51:17] Jesse McAnally: I I don't know. It doesn't look that crowded. It looks like a pretty bare stage to me.

[51:21] Andrew DeWolf: Um, so I think they might be full of it. They're just like, you know what, like I don't want to deal with this. I'm going home.

[51:30] Jesse McAnally: And then he takes her back down to the fucking catacombs. Christine apologizes for some reason, says, Oh, I'm so sorry, forgive me. I'm so sorry that I walked in on you having sex with your rat family.

[51:39] Andrew DeWolf: I'm so sorry that I don't know why she's sorry.

[51:47] Jesse McAnally: But she is in the wrong and is now apologetic to the Phantom, and then Raoul comes there with a gun and shoots him.

[51:58] Andrew DeWolf: Then then it's it's kinda over at that point. Like, literally comes in, big old gun, just shoots him several times.

[52:06] Jesse McAnally: Rats don't know what guns are, though, so he just walks up and tanks it.

[52:09] Andrew DeWolf: It's just like how Christine dogs don't know what Taco Bell is. Christine is desperately in love with this rat man who she's seen earlier, uh, pictured earlier having sex with a family of rats.

[52:23] Jesse McAnally: Um, she is in love with him. Can you imagine what this man smells like?

[52:27] Andrew DeWolf: I would rather not, but then he just the phantom decides. You know what? You deserve to be free. Put you on the boat, follow the cave to the river. Get out of here.

[52:36] Jesse McAnally: And then she's like, no! She fucking loses her shit screaming.

[52:43] Andrew DeWolf: She's so upset.

[52:45] Jesse McAnally: Raul is credit to that actor. The most confused expression on his face.

[52:53] Andrew DeWolf: I have no idea what I would feel either in that situation.

[52:57] Jesse McAnally: Credit to that actor nailing that feeling. Christine, like, like, in desperately pleading with Raul to come back.

[53:06] Andrew DeWolf: To go back.

[53:08] Jesse McAnally: And guess who the true hero that stands up after for to kill the phantom? It's the rat catcher.

[53:12] Andrew DeWolf: Stab him right in the tummy.

[53:16] Jesse McAnally: I mean, the rat catcher, he's a stand-up guy. All he does is he catches rats, he's damn good at it. Has the rat mobile machine. He invents a cool machine to catch rats. He has a blast doing it.

[53:27] Andrew DeWolf: And this fucking guy telepathically puts his hand in a rat trap and uh crashes his ratmobile, maybe. I'm gonna blame the phantom for that.

[53:34] Jesse McAnally: I I don't know. But the phantom has been shot twice, stabbed a bunch of times, still not taken down, then just some guy stabs him and does the final blow.

[53:48] Andrew DeWolf: Just it's just some dude.

[53:52] Jesse McAnally: He falls into the water like the penguin from Batman Returns once again.

[53:57] Andrew DeWolf: And the rats cry over his corpse.

[53:59] Jesse McAnally: Christine cries over his corpse, and then the most Italian freeze frame on Christine's face occurs, and then the credits roll.

[54:07] Andrew DeWolf: We do at the end here get a really good um like Christine yell. You know how the phantoms they sometimes go, Christine!

[54:14] Jesse McAnally: Christine!

[54:17] Andrew DeWolf: Christine!

[54:21] Jesse McAnally: Come in!

[54:27] Andrew DeWolf: I feel like he does a pretty good one.

[54:29] Jesse McAnally: I think he does the best one.

[54:31] Andrew DeWolf: Like um, I'm so sorry. The mechanism of rat hunting machine was made by Simon Blades, who might have the coolest names on the planet.

[54:43] Jesse McAnally: Alright, we that's the whole movie. I mean, we just spent the entire episode nostalgia critic in this movie.

[54:49] Andrew DeWolf: We couldn't not.

[54:50] Jesse McAnally: How could we not? Is there even anything else to say about this fucking garbage?

[54:55] Andrew DeWolf: It basically ruined Dario Argento's career.

[54:58] Jesse McAnally: Like they describe it as Argento's's folly. And opera is a much better film than this. Dario Argento's has not made a particularly great film since this, sadly.

[55:09] Andrew DeWolf: This is a very bad fucking movie, though. Like it's not just bad in like a ho ho, it's bad. It's not even like one particular thing.

[55:18] Jesse McAnally: It's like it the it it's totally everywhere.

[55:22] Andrew DeWolf: It the story makes no fucking sense. I mean, that whole time we were explaining the plot, the only time we brought up the phantom having telekinesis was in like the first ten minutes.

[55:32] Jesse McAnally: That just doesn't really even do anything later into the movie. They just like forget that that's a thing.

[55:35] Andrew DeWolf: Like it's just it's all fucking nonsense.

[55:42] Jesse McAnally: I have heard from these historians that did this commentary that the Italian dub is better.

[55:48] Andrew DeWolf: I'm sure it is. I can't imagine it's that much better, though.

[55:52] Jesse McAnally: The thing that I find so interesting is that Dario Argento talks so much shit about other directors.

[56:02] Andrew DeWolf: I think that's the funniest thing on the planet is like half the time it's like, I think he ripped this off, but I also know he's talked so much shit about this guy that I don't think he would openly rip it off.

[56:16] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god. So just hearing about everyone like he's talked shit about it, like Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, all those types of things, like it's just interesting.

[56:26] Andrew DeWolf: It's just interesting. Dario Argento's is a fascinating man.

[56:30] Jesse McAnally: Um, I'm sure his family life is equally fascinating. Who cares what we think, Andrew?

[56:36] Andrew DeWolf: Very late in the game, it's time to compare our opinions to those over at of those people at Letterboxd.com. It's time for a previews.

[56:45] Jesse McAnally: It's time for preview.

[56:50] Andrew DeWolf: It's time for previews.

[56:52] Jesse McAnally: I feel like this would be a very easy previews to just say that everyone said it was a one-star and just ignore the text of the review.

[56:59] Andrew DeWolf: You would.

[57:01] Jesse McAnally: There's some wild ones in there though.

[57:04] Andrew DeWolf: Um, because you know, there's those ironic people.

[57:06] Jesse McAnally: It's true.

[57:07] Andrew DeWolf: It's true.

[57:08] Jesse McAnally: You have to guess.

[57:08] Andrew DeWolf: You have to you have to play a guessing game with those ones.

[57:12] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[57:12] Andrew DeWolf: First one. Dario Argento's, thank you so much. I love you for this. No, this is ironic. This is a one star.

[57:19] Jesse McAnally: That is correct. I'm not getting tricked. I'm not getting tricked on the first fucking one, Jess.

[57:25] Andrew DeWolf: Next one.

[57:26] Jesse McAnally: Okay.

[57:27] Andrew DeWolf: Your female smell flows through me like a melody of the oceans. Actual line from this movie.

[57:35] Jesse McAnally: It's true though.

[57:36] Andrew DeWolf: Oh my god. I can't say it's a fucking five-star. That's a one star. Like, there's no fucking way. That was a five star.

[57:44] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god.

[57:46] Andrew DeWolf: In a Bart Simpson voice. What happened to you, Argento's? You used to be cool. One star. One star.

[57:54] Jesse McAnally: That is correct. Excellent. Excellent. If I had never heard of The Phantom of the Opera, and I was told this is a sequel to Mouse Hunt, I'd believe it. Like, it's so fucked totally that.

[58:06] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. I mean, um. I like Mouse Hunt a lot better than this. This might be ironic, but I'm I'm still gonna go with one star.

[58:15] Jesse McAnally: That is a five-star.

[58:17] Andrew DeWolf: I had to guess. I had to guess. I am genuinely speechless. Uh like one star. Like, I I who's giving this a five.

[58:25] Jesse McAnally: That is a one star.

[58:27] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, okay. And last one. I want to do a case study on whatever the hell is going on with the Argento's family.

[58:33] Jesse McAnally: Oh no, no, you know, no, you don't. You don't. I think the less I know about that group of humans, I feel like the better off. I feel like I already know too much.

[58:42] Andrew DeWolf: Like, just from watching this and talking about it, I've already learned too much. Uh, so that's gonna be that could be ironic. I st I one star. I'm sticking to my guns.

[58:53] Jesse McAnally: That is a five-star, and Andrew, that is the end of our reviews game. Now, I know we've gone on a little too long, but there are some things we need to talk about. How Luru accurate is this story?

[59:07] Andrew DeWolf: Um, it does have a lot of the qualifiers. It does have Carlotta, does have Phantom Christine and Raoul by name. It does have a chandelier crash, which I'll even the Robert Englund one did not have.

[59:21] Jesse McAnally: It's true. And the chandelier crash is prominent in like in a big it's a big scene. The Phantom is an outcast that lives underneath the opera house.

[59:31] Andrew DeWolf: No mask, though.

[59:32] Jesse McAnally: No mask. The Blu-ray case does have a mask, though.

[59:36] Andrew DeWolf: He does not wear a mask through in the film. It feels like false advertising. Um give me the yesterday lawsuit. Uh Lasso, the the Poonjob Lasso that you you always talk about.

[59:49] Jesse McAnally: That made it in here.

[59:50] Andrew DeWolf: Not that no, that didn't make uh did it? No, it didn't. Not that I remember. I thought I saw a hanging, but no.

[59:56] Jesse McAnally: Um the rats don't count. There is a rat catcher.

[1:00:00] Andrew DeWolf: I is there a rat catcher. There is a rat catcher. You are correct. Um this and the Robert England Phantom do both have Turkish baths, um, which is just a weird thing. Um that that is in existence for this.

[1:00:15] Jesse McAnally: Um they also have little people in prominent roles. Um so does the Andre Lloyd Weber one. Um, there's the little person devil in the Robert England one, and then of course there's the rat catcher's little buddy in the ratmobile.

[1:00:29] Andrew DeWolf: Are we calling that a prominent role though?

[1:00:31] Jesse McAnally: It's one scene.

[1:00:32] Andrew DeWolf: How can you forget it though?

[1:00:34] Jesse McAnally: You can't forget it. It's the best scene in the movie.

[1:00:37] Andrew DeWolf: I would say that implies prominence.

[1:00:40] Jesse McAnally: Okay, okay, fair enough, fair enough. The Phantom and Christine do kiss.

[1:00:47] Andrew DeWolf: There is not an unmasking at all.

[1:00:50] Jesse McAnally: Unless we're counting um, I mean, he's unmasked as a bestiality enjoyer.

[1:00:56] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I guess that is the ultimate unmasking.

[1:01:01] Jesse McAnally: Oh no! Honestly, having the lawn shady face is easier to come back from than seeing them fuck rats.

[1:01:10] Andrew DeWolf: Uh I mean, apparently it's pretty easy to come back from this because she was immediately into him. She apologized for it.

[1:01:17] Jesse McAnally: She should have knocked.

[1:01:20] Andrew DeWolf: I didn't know. I'm so sorry. It was my bad.

[1:01:27] Jesse McAnally: It's unfucking real, dude. I've talked about this movie for years. I thought about doing a Patreon commentary for it, but it felt like not enough. We we had to talk about this, right? We could not talk about it.

[1:01:38] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, there's just so much going on in this that it's like it's hard to even discuss. Like, it does put in perspective what a phantom adaptation could be. But honestly, if you want like an actual horror um phantom adaptation, I would go for Dario Argento's opera, which is a very dark, very bloody, same, same kind of style, but takes itself seriously.

[1:02:04] Jesse McAnally: It is in the modern day, so if you're really not into that, um that's fine. But it has a lot of the same tell tales and honestly feels more intrinsically connected to the narrative than this one is.

[1:02:17] Andrew DeWolf: Honestly, if they had just found another actor to play the phantom and dumb like some kind of mask, this might have worked.

[1:02:23] Jesse McAnally: Do you think the rat face would have fixed all the issues?

[1:02:26] Andrew DeWolf: No, but you would remember it as the rat face phantom.

[1:02:30] Jesse McAnally: Now I just remember it as the rat phantom.

[1:02:33] Andrew DeWolf: Um I did post your response where the girl has fallen in love with the rat man.

[1:02:42] Jesse McAnally: It's it really is just kind of bizarre how in love with with the rat guy she is at the end of this movie. And I'm just like, this guy lives in the sewer and has like a family of rats that he puts into his pants.

[1:02:55] Andrew DeWolf: Like this guy has to smell rancid. Like, like you know, you know what, like what cat piss smells like? That's this guy.

[1:03:03] Jesse McAnally: I will say, they are Italians. They may not smell that great to begin with.

[1:03:06] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, that's just mean.

[1:03:10] Jesse McAnally: No hair as well. His hair is in is I mean, it's a wig, but it's like an unwashed, like, like it's meant to look like he hasn't like bathed. But he's also clean-shaved.

[1:03:21] Andrew DeWolf: That's always the thing that bothers me, where it's like, they have this long hair, but they don't got no facial hair.

[1:03:26] Jesse McAnally: Did just babyface. He looks kind of like um like a dark elf or something like that.

[1:03:33] Andrew DeWolf: A DD dark elf.

[1:03:36] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. My brain immediately went to Santa's elves.

[1:03:40] Andrew DeWolf: Um, not not that, not that. Uh so Andrew, where does it fit in your ranking of all the Phantom of the Opera adaptations we've covered on this show?

[1:03:49] Jesse McAnally: Just to run through the ranking as it is. Again, my tier list, I just go A B C D, A is the best, B, uh middle, C below the middle, and D is bad. Uh D is just G is D is essentially generally reserved for just stuff that I I would never want to watch again willingly. Or things that I just consider like I would never recommend this to anybody or anything like that.

[1:04:13] Andrew DeWolf: So in A, we have Phantom, the American musical, and Phantom of the Paradise, which I still think I still think those two are are just like up above the rest. They're just very solid. In B, we have Phantom, uh 1989, Robert England, uh, really good. Phantom of the Opera, the Weber, obviously. Uh that one's pretty solid as well. We have Phantom of the Auditorium and Phantom of the Opera with Lon Cheney, also still in B tier. Uh, all of these are just pretty pretty solid across the board.

[1:04:44] Jesse McAnally: Alright, this is where we might be putting the Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera.

[1:04:49] Andrew DeWolf: In B tier?

[1:04:50] Jesse McAnally: One of one of these two tiers that we're about to talk about, C tier or D tier.

[1:04:55] Andrew DeWolf: So C, we have Phantom of the Opera the Movie, with the Weber version, 2004, I think. I haven't seen it in a while, so this placement is kind of iffy. I'm not sure where this belongs. And then we have Phantom of the Mall, Eric's Revenge, which I didn't really enjoy very much, but there were a couple things that like saved it from D tier.

[1:05:16] Jesse McAnally: And then down in D, we have Love Never Dies, which I just kind of fucking hate. And I feel like I have to put this in D tier.

[1:05:22] Andrew DeWolf: I I don't think that there's enough. You have the Ryan Natcher redeeming it. I think it's above Love Never Dies, but in D tier as well.

[1:05:27] Jesse McAnally: Above Love Never Dies, yes, but it I think it has to go in D.

[1:05:34] Andrew DeWolf: This movie is totally a fucking disaster. Plot-wise, a fucking disaster. The topics that they want to they seem to want to discuss and like show on the screen. I don't want anything to do with this shit. It's fucking weird.

[1:05:51] Jesse McAnally: Um and then there's the whole like backstory stuff where it's like the direct the director's daughter is the Christine character and the way that she's portrayed, and you have to see that with that in mind.

[1:06:03] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, sweetie, you will be in love with the rat king. He fucks the rat, so do a fuck out of him.

[1:06:13] Jesse McAnally: And not a single lie detected. Mamma mia. It's it's it's almost a shame because like the cinematography at times is actually very I don't even say this is probably one of the best looking versions of Phantom. It's it's it's really a shame. And like I'm a horror movie fan. Some of the gore in like the kills are interesting. Um I actually I think the scene with the chandelier crash is really cool, but then you juxtapose it immediately with a comedic element in the same scene for no reason.

[1:06:49] Andrew DeWolf: And it's just it's like it doesn't know what it what it's trying to fucking do. And it is is like the term beautiful disaster, is that like a a fitting. I can't think of another film that does exactly that.

[1:07:03] Jesse McAnally: Um I don't know. Like, I feel such whiplash because the set design is beautiful too. The costumes. I think this is some of Christine's best looks outfit-wise in any Phantom of the Opera adaptation.

[1:07:17] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, and then just but at the same time, you have the the telly tubby vacuum. You have the you have the the rat babies that are in a rat trap that are appearing to be able to do that. You have Christine in vines with blood running down her legs from her crotch. I don't I don't I don't know what I'm supposed to think.

[1:07:36] Jesse McAnally: Like it and and like you could say like, oh well, it's just over your head. It's just you guys just don't get it. But I don't think anyone's gonna say that. I don't think it's that sincerely I don't think anyone's gonna come with that. It's not gonna be like a net where it's like y'all just don't understand. I just yeah, it doesn't feel like it there's something we're missing. It just feels like I get it, and it sucks.

[1:08:01] Andrew DeWolf: You know what would be better?

[1:08:03] Jesse McAnally: What's that?

[1:08:04] Andrew DeWolf: If they had 80s pop belt. Like, literally the plot of this with the songs from Andrew Lloyd Webb's.

[1:08:11] Jesse McAnally: Honestly, it would kind of work.

[1:08:13] Andrew DeWolf: It would. You wouldn't have to change too much. The set design and everything still fits. Like, it's still. Um, the only thing that is would be weird is the phantom not having the mask or whatever, but just give him the rat face.

[1:08:26] Jesse McAnally: Obviously, like as we'll see from our final outing in fantastic the un the the deformity doesn't matter all that much. It really just doesn't matter all that much.

[1:08:36] Andrew DeWolf: But what is your overall thoughts on your cheese rating?

[1:08:39] Jesse McAnally: I feel like you gave overall thoughts, really.

[1:08:41] Andrew DeWolf: That that's my overall thoughts. I guess uh a different question. Do I recommend this? Uh if you are morbidly curious, you should you should watch this. If you if you like really weird movies that make really bad choices, check it out. Otherwise, absolutely fucking not.

[1:09:01] Jesse McAnally: Uh as far as the cheese rating, I'm gonna give it um I'm gonna I'm gonna give it the the classic Parmesan, just because this is a very Italian no. You know what? I am going to give this and you might have done this already, but I am giving this gluten-free cheese pizza from Charles Entertainment Cheeses.

[1:09:22] Andrew DeWolf: One why Chuck E. Cheese for this?

[1:09:25] Jesse McAnally: One monstrous rat. That you know what? That does make sense. I'm choosing gluten free because you think it's gonna be the thing you ordered, but there's something missing.

[1:09:36] Andrew DeWolf: Thank you guys for making it to the end of this episode. You know what? If you made it to the end of this episode, you deserve a little treat. Go do something for yourself. You've earned it. Go to the pet store, get some rats. I hear they're a good time.

[1:09:49] Jesse McAnally: Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Don't do that, actually. Don't I do not recommend doing that.

[1:09:55] Andrew DeWolf: Please follow us on iTunes. Modify Stitcher at Musicals of Cheese or on Twitter at Cheesy Musicals, Patreon Musicals Cheese, Instagram Musicals of Cheese, YouTube paid musicals of cheese. Our patron only podcast is Patreon with cheese, go check that out.

[1:10:06] Jesse McAnally: Um email us at musical theater lives at gmail.com to tell us how we just don't understand Italian horror. Or maybe, maybe how it's not that weird to film your daughter naked. Um, our keeper of the cheese is Juliet Antonio.

[1:10:20] Andrew DeWolf: And now, for you, Juliet Antonio, I'm giving you a little ASMR read from this movie. There's female smell. Flows through me like the melody of the oceans. And that was Charles Entertainment Cheese saying that line as ASMR.

[1:10:39] Jesse McAnally: Did you get the Chuck E. Cheese vibe to it?

[1:10:41] Andrew DeWolf: I got a vibe.

[1:10:44] Jesse McAnally: This show is edited by Andrew DeWolf, so you can point your fingers at him for whatever stayed into the edit. Alright, thank you to the Broadway Podcast Network for having us on the platform and for not kicking us off for talking about the 900 things wrong with this movie.

[1:11:00] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, Andrew, is there anything else you have left to say?

[1:11:03] Jesse McAnally: Uh there's nothing more that can be said.

[1:11:07] Andrew DeWolf: The Phantom Hall.

[1:11:18] Jesse McAnally: There's not really any songs in this, but they do sing that song a lot in it.