#phantom of the mall: eric's revenge

[666frames]

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)

[phantomato13]

I really enjoyed writing a review for The Phantom of the Opera (1983), so I thought I'd write another review for another Phantom movie I watched today. Today I watched Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989), directed by Richard Friedman, Eric played by Derek Rydall. My rating is 2/5, and the movie sits at 11/13 on my Phantom list.

The story was all over the place and really confusing, and honestly I don't even think I got the whole scope of what was going on. I did however really like Eric - in this one he has a gym in his lair and does martial arts lol (so cute). His origin story is that he and Melody (this story's Christine) used to be boyfriend and girlfriend but he supposedly died from their house burning on fire (which the reason was POORLY explained). The movie was also very sexual, like too many long sex scenes that had to be skipped over lmao.

Sadly, we get almost no time with him and lots of time spent on random characters with little to no resemblance to Phantom characters. They weren't even likable in the slightest. So really the only thing I enjoyed was the tiny amount of Eric we see. I would rather rewatch the 1962 adaptation over this, and that's saying something (but still better than 1943 and Love Never Dies 🤮).

Let me know what you guys think of this movie and if you've ever seen it!

[pauliesshoredom]

Been busy so I caught up on some stuff lmaoooo XD

[schlock-luster-video]

On July 18, 2022, Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge was released on the Internet in Canada.

[strangelittlelad]

Phantom of the Opera AU where all the different Phantoms (including Winslow Leach and Eric Matthews) have a sewer network and regularly visit each other

My contribution to this AU (yeets shitty black and white art at you)

Eric Matthews: Is that Freddy Krueger?

Robert Englund!Erik: Who's Freddy Krueger??

[mariocki]

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)

"Eric... I'm really sorry. Look, I may have made some mistakes, I said some bad things. I'll eat my words!"

"Eat this."

[triplethreattheater]

Triple Threat Theater Episode 76:

Phantoms

Films discussed on this episode:

The Phantom Of The Opera (1962)

Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)

Phantom Of The Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)

Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes

Hosted By: Joe Daxberger & Rian Miller

Subscribe to Triple Threat Theater on iTunes or check us out on SoundCloud.

Follow Triple Threat Theater on Twitter and Instagram.

[ogradyfilm]

Adaptation Blues - Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge

[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted to other media so frequently that many of the story’s finer details have been lost in translation; only the broadest strokes of the plot have survived long enough to penetrate the collective unconscious.

Universal’s 1943 version of the tale, for example, reimagines the eponymous specter’s physical disfigurement as a hideous burn scar, rather than a birth defect as in the original novel—a change that has lingered in subsequent reinterpretations, much like Sherlock Holmes’ “iconic” deerstalker cap. The character’s morality is likewise malleable: Hammer Horror’s 1962 film emphasizes his sympathetic qualities to such an extent that he never even commits a single murder, with his misdeeds instead attributed to a mute, hunchbacked accomplice; at the opposite end of the spectrum, Robert Englund portrayed him as a sadistic servant of Satan—an irredeemable, unrepentant serial killer clad in a grotesque mask sculpted from the rotting flesh of his victims.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge stretches the premise to its breaking point, retaining only the most superficial elements of the book that inspired it. The conflict, at least, is familiar: a deformed homicidal maniac stalks the shadowy maintenance hallways and comically oversized ventilation ducts of a recently constructed shopping mall—and he is singularly obsessed with our beautiful heroine (mild mannered waitress Melody Austin, an adequate substitute for singer Christine Daaé—though the lead vocalist in a local garage band would probably have been a more appropriate analogue). That, however, is the source material’s sole contribution to the narrative; what remains is a rather generic, by the numbers, dime a dozen slasher flick—gory, sleazy, and utterly disposable.

Which isn’t to say that the movie is totally devoid of entertainment value; like Troll 2, The Room, and Miami Connection, its unintentionally absurd tone is sure to appeal to devoted connoisseurs of trash cinema. If nothing else, it's delightfully nostalgic: Sam Goody features prominently in the background of several shots, a pre-fame Pauly Shore performs an excruciatingly awkward striptease, and the excessively abundant action scenes contain enough roundhouse kicks to rival Chuck Norris' entire body of work.

And that is Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge in a nutshell: a misguided “modernization” that was hilariously dated from the very moment of its release.

[horrororman]

#FridayVibes with Joe Bob's Vicious Vegas Valentine 💔 Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge #shudder #thelastdrivein #mutantfam #horror #JoeBobBriggs #DarcytheMailGirl

[mattybeachjeans]

Phantom of the Mall (1989)

[pauliesshoredom]

Pt3 to this series XD

[Srry for photo quality lmao]

[schlock-luster-video]

On March 29, 2022, Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge was released on Blu-ray in India.

[strangelittlelad]

God bless Phantom of the Mall. Eric and his half-mullet and twirly karate. Not-Raoul just wanting his daily scoop. That one snake. Buzz.

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

SUMMARY: A man loses his home and suffers life-threatening burns from a fire deliberately set by commercial real estate developers vying for his property. One year later, a shopping mall opens on the land, and a series of murders begins.

[cywatcheshorror]

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge

Personal rating: 2.5/5 ⭐

Release year: 1989

Watched: on personal Blu-ray

Content warnings: Fire trauma, sexism, eye horror, gore, animal attacks (snake), sexual assault, capitalist greed

Summary: For high school sweethearts Eric and Melody, love's going dream turns into a nightmare when Eric apparently dies in a fire which engulfs his family home. One year later and Melody is trying to move on with her life, taking up a job at the new Midwood Small along with her friends. But the mall, which stands on the very site of Eric's former home, has an uninvited guest—a shadowy, scarred figure who haunts its air ducts and subterranean passageways, hellbent on exacting vengeance on the mall's crooked developers. (—taken from case summary on blu-ray)

Review and thoughts below the cut:

This movie really was in love with its own pyrotechnics. Whoever did that work on this film deserved to be paid well, because they had their work cut out for them and the final product looked decent in that regard.

This is about the extent of what good I have to say for this film. The other point is that Suze and Buzz, Melody's side character friends, are honestly the most fun characters in the movie with the most heart. Everyone else? Not so much.

I'm ultimately not sure what this movie wanted to be. An homage to the Phantom of the Opera (particularly aspects of the stage musical,) yes. But the film's runtime is so packed full of other things that the elements drawn from or inspired by PotO tend to feel very surface-level, as the movie wants to be a slasher while going for a whodunit vibe. The whodunit isn't about the "Phantom" at all, we're informed even before we go into the movie of what's happening there. That entire aspect of the plot is more about understanding the capitalist corruption behind the mall's creation, and the movie does its best to make sure these plot points are cohesive to one another. Certainly they are on a logical front, but the two still tend to feel very separate at times, and it can lead to everything feeling disjointed.

This movie wasn't terrible. Certainly I've seen worse. But it felt very lackluster, which is sad to admit for a movie intended to be campy "modern" (read: 1980s) take on PotO. Perhaps I got my hopes up a little too high, but I'd heard a lot of good things about this and I'm sorry to say it wasn't for me. Time to look into rehoming my copy.

[barejunk]

day 36

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)