Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

What if you asked the guy who wrote The Rainbow Connection to compose and record a rock musical combining the stories of Frankenstein, Faust, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Phantom of the Opera? And then asked him to star as a sleazy record label executive who gets artists to sell their souls to Satan? And that’s just the Paul Williams of it all in this unhinged farce with a soundtrack that slaps. This isn’t a holiday movie per se but it effervesces with a manic spirit perfect for lighting up the longest night of the year.

Director Brian De Palma is best known for over the top violence in deadly serious films such as Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Scarface (1983), and Phantom of the Paradise has a body count, too, but here the murder and mayhem is done for laughs in a satire of the pop music industry at the time of its most ludicrous excesses. You’ll go home humming.

Note that this is a TUESDAY night screening. Hosted by robZ