Phantom Menace

I don't think I've seen the Hammer version of Phantom of the Opera in more than twenty years. And you know what? It's pretty bad! It really fails to capture the drama of the 1943 version, the story of obsession. The phantom comes off as being some whiny, clingy loser instead of the remnants of a physically and psychologically destroyed man driven by revenge and desire and all that good stuff....

The production values of the 1962 Hammer remake are pretty good, and Edward de Souza is wonderful as Christine's love interest, mind you, but this is not the best Phantom and not the best Hammer picture.

Also in my DVD collection is Night Creatures, another 1962 Hammer film...no idea why it's in a set of horror films. Maybe because Peter Cushing is in it. It could have been a horror, but is washed out by the humour in it, mostly in the form of wry observations from Cushing's character. The two just don't seem to fit together in this case.

I hate to admit that I've never seen the entire Lon Chaney Phantom, so that's up next in the rotation, as I have a copy, and then I think it's time to track down the 1943 film and see if it's as good as I remember!