Horror or Romance ?
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| Gerard Butler from the 2004 Phantom of the opera |
Such a classic horror story or is it? I mean it is classic but is it a horror story or is just a love triangle between a young girl and two men?
Now before I start of with the goody details the image's I will be using for this review are based on the 2004 movie directed by Joel Schumacher and none of the images belong to me. The review I will be giving is based on the original story written by Gaston Leroux. And plus Gerard was so good looking in this movie.😍
This man(the author) swore on his deathbed that The Phantom was real. Now that is some spooky stuff.
"According to legend,
Leroux swore on his deathbed that everything that happened in Phantom was real."
The book starts from the writers point of view like as an investigator writing on his journal. And it makes sense since the author was a journalist's.
The book takes place in Paris, France in 1881. The majority of the story takes place is in the Opera house . Some of the characters have flashbacks which take place somewhere else.
Speaking of characters here's the list of them.
Main Characters ;
- Christine
- Raoul
- Madam Giry
- The Persian
- Richard
- Monchairman
- The Phantom/Angel of Music/ and Erik
So as legend says there was a young soprano singer living an opera house who got kidnapped in the middle of the show. Her name was Christine. This young girl's age is 20 even though through out the book her personality is of a 15 year old. Christine is very soft spoken and kind she is as Raoul says " as pure as that of a 15 year old". Christine had been a very talented singer from a very young age and is because her father was a famous violinist in Sweden. So famous that a couple decided to bring Christine and her father to France and that's where her and Raoul meet. They were both little kids Raoul was 10 and Christine 8. Raoul fell in love with her because of her voice and heard singing. You can say they were childhood sweethearts. They spent the summer together until her father died. She then lived with Mama Valerius who is like her foster mother who is also a widow. Because Mama Valerius Knew Christine had a gifted voice she decided to sign her up in the Opera House. That's where Christine meets Erik or as she calls him the angel of music. She calls him angel of music because before her father dided he had promised her that when he died and went to heaven he would send her the angel of music. But after he died Christen lost pleasure in singing until Erik appears.
She encounters this mysterious voice in her dressing room ( yeah creepy since he can see her but she cant see him). Erik notices how a gifted voice she has and so starts teaching her in how to perfect her voice and make her this great soprano singer. We can guess that Erik wants to suceed through Christine and be recognized since he can't because of his disfiguerment. Erik in the book has sunken yellow eyes like a cat as described in the book , he has a hole for a nose and very thin skin and he is as skinny as a skeleton who also smells like death. " He is extraordinary thin and his dress - coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils. You just see two black holes, as in a dead mans skull. His, skin which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth talking about that you cant see it side - face; and the absence of that nose is a horrible thing to look at. All the hair he has is three or four long locks on his forhead and behind his ears."- Joseph Buquet . This character died early on for being nosy and getting in eriks business.
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| 2004 Phantom of the opera image |
They think is a joke from the past managers because everyone in the opera keep saying there is a ghost who haunts them and just wants to scare them of. So Richard an Monchairman choose to ignore the threats that Erik writes to them: " If you wish to live in peace, you must not begin by taking away my private box." And thes type of letters were delivered by MM. Giry who was his secratary but has never actually seen him.
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| The managers /2004 movie Phantom of the opera |
Roaul later on through the book finds out about "the phantom" who at the end is just a man and gets very jelauose because the voice has Christine captivated her. He warns her about this but Christine tells her to not speak of him because he is always listenig and watching her I guess we can see where Christian Greys techniques come from but thats a story for another day.
So on one night while Christine was peforming Erik kidnapped her and took her to his home which is under the opera house. Erik knows Opera house like the back of his hand. For he was part of the architects of the Opera. We come to know this through the Persian who is Erik's friend and also nemesis him and Raoul go rescue Christine. He also tells him how he is a ventriquilist and hyptonizes people.
He use to work for a Sultan back in India before moving to Paris. He was the sultans favor and used Erik as a hitman by using the Punji Lasso which is Erik's favorite weapon. We know how dangerous because we earlier in the book we read he killed a lot of people when he dropped the chandelier in a performance.
I know how evil this all this but I don’t just perceive that he’s bad. When I read this book I concluded how emotionally broken Erik was. He suffered a lot because of the way society treated him and especially his mother their is a line Gerard Butler gives in the 2004 movie :
” This face a mother’s fear and loathing a mask my first unfeeling piece of clothing .”
We see that he has no sense of compassion and kindness because he wasn’t shown any. I don’t excuse the characters behavior of course. But I do feel for him and ask myself what it would have been if maybe someone would have shown him some kindness?
Anyway.
When Raoul and the Persian went down the dungeons to save Christine they get trapped in one Eriks cellars where in there he creates an illusion to make them believe they are in an African dessert and makes them burn up.
Erik then tells Christine if he wants save them she has to choose between Raoul or him. But if she chooses Raoul he will blow up the opera house.Erik tells her he can be happy with him if he allows him to show her.”You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I want was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb and you could do anything with me that you pleased!” Christine chooses to be with Erik and to be his wife. So Erik frees the two men.
But then Erik realized that that Christine showed him kindness by sacrificing herself for another’s freedom. So he then decides to let her and those two go. He only makes her promise him to come back to bury him with the ring he gifted her and wishes her to be happy with Raoul. Christine says goodbye and thanks him by kissing him on his forehead.
So that’s the end of the story folks...
True or not it’s a fantastic story! I really enjoyed and highly recommend it.
I rate this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Love y’all
Jimena your friendly not too close neighbor.