Watch Opera For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Ask yourself: you are the star opera singer for a production of Macbeth in the West End. On opening night, a stagehand is murdered. The production continues. After the first performance, you find your bedroom invaded by a masked madman, certainly the same killer who offed the stagehand, and he ties you up, tapes your mouth closed, and attaches needles to your eyelids so you cannot close them without causing permanent blindness. "This is so you can't look away," the killer explains, before he stabs your boyfriend through the jaw, the knife going right through into his mouth, visible from the outside.You flee the scene, go to a payphone and make the most perfunctory of anonymous calls to the police about a "murder", but don't mention anything at all about the killer's elaborate treatment of you.The show goes on.Maybe the next night, or the night after that, you are with a costume designer, and basically the same thing happens. This time you are imprisoned in a glass case and the eye-needle thing has been done again. You watch the murder, get freed, and run away, not even bothering to phone the police this time. In fact, when you encounter an officer in the lobby of a hotel, you seem annoyed at his intrusion in asking you if you are alright, and of course you can't be bothered explaining any of the extraordinary nightmare you have just witnessed, and experienced, for the second time in so many days.I've heard of movies with Idiot Plots. You know, the ones where the movie would be over in a second if everyone in it wasn't an idiot. I've often heard people say that the heroines of slasher movies are always idiots. The behaviour of the heroine of "Terror at the Opera" can't even be put down to idiocy. It is so unbelievable, and so irritating, that you want to stop watching before it goes into even more imbecilic dimensions. This is more a slasher than a giallo. There is some vague nonsense about the heroine's past with the killer that isn't explored in any meaningful way. It might, possibly explain her total blase attitude to being tied up, having needles attached to her eyelids and being made to watch people brutally murdered. But then again, it might also... not. Kind of hard to explain why someone wouldn't be too bothered by it, but I digress.Of course the nonsense from her past which is barely hinted at comes up again at the end, though still making no more sense, and I was just so tired of the movie by that point. I just wanted it to end, which thankfully, it did.Argento is famously candid about the enjoyment he gets from filming beautiful women dying horribly. It would be hypocritical of any horror fan to condemn him for this. I have to say, though, that "Opera" was the first one of his movies that made me wonder if all he got into the business of filmmaking for was to shoot women getting killed. There's just not much else holding this one together.

When the diva of a daring production of Verdi's Macbeth directed by Marco (Ian Charleson) has an accident, the young opera singer Betty (Cristina Marsillach) successfully replaces her. Soon a psychopath obsessed by Betty kills her boyfriend, the production assistant Stefano (William McNamara); her costumer designer Giulia (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni); and her agent Mira (Daria Nicolodi). Inspector Alan Santini (Urbano Barberini), who is her fan, gives protection to Betty, but the murderer always gets close to her. Who might be the killer? "Opera" is a giallo version of The Phantom of the Opera by Dario Argento. The story has many flaws, but technically the film is wonderful. The camera work is fantastic, exploring unusual angles and movements. The cinematography is outstanding using beautiful bright colors. The music score is magnificent. And the special effects with lots of gore are top- notch, with usual murders. The cast has good performances and the film never disappoints. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Terror na Ópera" ("Terror in the Opera")

You know that cliché of "cameraman as killer" POV shots? Unfortunately, one of the first shots in this movie is one of these, and it was a huge turn off for me at that point. Remember all those slasher films in the 60s and 70s where the killer was always seen through a POV shot killing a woman? That's what made those kinds of movies misogynistic (albeit entertaining to watch when on some sort of drug). Amongst other things, like some minor continuity errors, wooden acting, and that annoying hard rock music that comes on every time there's a killing, the thing that bothers me most about Opera is this indirect allusion to the misogynistic views of the slasher films of yore. I take issue with this because, even though there are males killed, their killings are accompanied by a shot or a few of the killer himself, whereas the woman killings are only seen through the killer's eyes, as if the audience were the killer themselves.On the other hand, Opera is a unique movie of it's own. The thought of not being able to blink, risking losing your eyelids if you do, is a legitimately terrifying topic, and Argento pulls this idea off with such precision you'd think he's an actual sadist. Or perhaps he is? Whatever the circumstance of his mental state, It's suspenseful, it's gory and it's just generally f'ed up, and that's what's great about it.Also, I'm definitely convinced that the gunshot through the door eye hole was the main inspiration for one of the traps in Saw 2.

Numerous friends have tried to get me to appreciate opera over the years; all these many attempts have failed. Call me a philistine if you like, but for me, opera has always meant a fat lady in a Viking helmet yodeling at full blast, or a bearded guy or offputting prima donna shrilling away in a language that I don't understand. Thus, it was with a feeling of decided trepidation that I approached Italian director Dario Argento's 1987 offering, "Opera." On the one hand, for this aspiring Argento completist, the film was a must-see; on the other hand, the film not only takes place in an opera house, but features, on its soundtrack, extensive samplings of Verdi's opera "Macbeth," performed by Maria Callas and other noted sopranos. Yikes! Well, as it turns out, I needn't have worried. Not only didn't I mind the opera music in this film, but I actually (and I cannot believe I'm typing this) LOVED the piece of music that plays over the picture's closing credits! How do you say "a freaking miracle" in Italian? Anyway, perhaps I only needed some incredible images, ghastly carnage and amazing camera work to help the music go down a tad easier. Happily, "Opera" dishes out all three, in spades!In the film, soprano understudy Betty (played by Spanish actress Cristina Marsillach) gets her big break when the theater's main attraction gets struck down by a car. Unfortunately, the curse of "Macbeth" holds true, and Betty's triumphant debut soon segues into a nightmare that Ruby Keeler could never have imagined! Hours after this debut, a hooded madman breaks into her boyfriend's apartment, ties Betty up, gags her, and tapes needles under her eyes, forcing her to watch the multiple stabbings that he/she inflicts on the hapless dude; the first of many similar incidents for poor Betty. In the history of the giallo film, rarely has so vicious and depraved a whacko been introduced to a flabbergasted audience. Offhand, I can only think of the psycho in Paolo Cavara's 1972 film "Black Belly of the Tarantula" (who not only kills his many victims, but injects each with a paralyzing poison before doing so) who compares to this opera nut, whose slayings are not only brutal, but must also be witnessed by another victim. As for these killings, the gorehounds out there should be well content with the various impaled head, knifing and scissoring sequences that the film provides, not to mention a horrendous tracheotomy AND the justifiably celebrated slo-mo shot of a bullet coursing through a peephole before crashing toward its intended victim, Betty's manager (played by Daria Nicolodi, in her fifth of six films for the director). "Opera," besides boasting this celebrated shot, is, overall, perhaps the finest exemplar that I have seen yet of Argento's skill with the camera. Indeed, his camera is rarely at rest, constantly probing, climbing, gliding, exploring, pivoting. Just witness that 360-degree pan around the opera house; the bottom-of-the-sink POV shot; the POV shot from behind the needles taped to Betty's face; the shots of the killer's beating heart; the sweeping trip through the AC ducts; and, most especially, the POV shot from a raven's eye, as it circles around and swoops in the opera house. This last sequence may even top Hitchcock's great avian POV shot above the flaming gas station in 1963's "The Birds," and that's saying something! (Let's not get into the patent ridiculousness of a raven remembering the murderer of a fellow raven and attacking that person in public!) "Opera" is a genuine feast for the eyes, as it turns out, and yes, the ears, as well. It is a deliriously entertaining spectacle, beautiful to look at even when horrendous acts are transpiring on screen. I only wish that I could have seen this one in a theater back when. Between Argento's camera magic and DOP Ronnie Taylor's superb work, the film must have looked truly awesome in the cinemas. Oh...as far as the identity of that killer is concerned, my advice would be to not even try to guess. Like Argento's 1975 classic "Deep Red," "Opera" features a final act coda that should really take you unawares. And as to poor Betty, I CAN spoil things for you a little by revealing that she IS alright physically by the picture's end; her mental condition, I'm afraid, is anybody's guess!The "Opera" DVD that I just viewed, from Westlake, looks just fine, by the way, but only sports a skimpy photo gallery as an extra. From what I hear, the DVDs from Anchor Bay and Blue Underground are far preferable. All in all, though, I'm quite pleased that I decided to spend this night at the opera. Maybe I won't be so timid when I finally catch up with Argento's 1999 take on "The Phantom of the Opera"; when it comes to warbling sopranos, perhaps there is hope for me yet....