Review of Opera (1987) by R.john X — 02 Nov 2009

Opera is deadly. Boring mostly. But also houses some of the most disturbing and violent stories ever told. All set to classy music. I thought there was going to be some nice intermingling of art and violence as extreme states of creation - perverse counterweights to the passion of inflicting false narrative upon the audience. Maybe if the Stendhal Syndrome was set up against this backdrop it would have been an effective statement. But Opera has no such pretensions. NONE!

Instead, the message seems to be it sucks to be the daughter of a serial sadist killer or something. This one is brilliant in its comic book action. The murderer sets up each kill by creating an audience - namely tying up the final girl, Betty - in an elaborate and complicated way and then in a silly twist a la Clockwork Orange, threatens her eyelashes with a tiny little eye mask of needles. Stunning. If by stunning I mean stupid and brilliant.

This movie should also be remembered for the notable reveal of the killer by none other than a Congress of Ravens. Seriously. Its fantastic. And maybe also for having one of the dumbest victims in the history of giallos. Its for real just how amazingly idiotic she is - falling right into the twisty plotting hands of the killer. If she were just a smidgen smarter, the whole movie would have been over before the second kill.

I highly recommend this one, freeks.