Mini-Review: Barely released theatrically until NYC's Film Forum rescued it for a critically acclaimed two-week run in 1992. While this owes an obvious debt to Hitch's _Psycho_ (as do hundreds of other films) in its plot and antirepression sentiments, the pic still scores high marks in the suspense and originality departments.

Mini-Review: In its fourth official celluloid mounting, Leroux's venerable opus serves primarily as a vehicle for Englund, who doffs his Freddy Krueger duds to don the Phantom's classier cloak. Essentially a straightforward, old-fashioned fright film reminiscent of a standard 1960s Hammer horror and encompassing the latter's typical virtues and flaws. There's also a good deal more gore than we saw in the Phantoms of yore (Englund's Erik alternately skins and decapitates his victims)

Mini-Review: While it could have used more Phantom and less Opera, Lubin's gala Technicolor rendering of Gaston Leroux's timeless terror tale boasts its share of highlights, including the chandelier scene and Claude's disastrous encounter with a crass music publisher.

Mini-Review: For this, Coscarelli recycles the most crowd-pleasing elements from his earlier films -- original cast members Baldwin, Bannister, and Thornbury, those ever popular flying silver spheres with the retractable spikes, the malevolent Tall Man (Scrimm) and his hooded mutant-dwarf minions (or "lurkers"), elaborate morgue sets, furtive glimpses into a demonic dimension, and even Bannister's trusty four-barrelled shotgun. Still, this adds up to considerably less than the sum of its parts.

Mini-Review: It's easy to see why this became an enduring one-of-a-kind cult fave and why Coscarelli and crew couldn't quite recapture the black magic in the widely separated sequels.