Nightmares at the Neville: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The Phantom of the Opera (dir. Rupert Julian, USA, 1925, 107 min.)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925) is a silent American horror film based on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel. Directed by Rupert Julian, it stars Lon Chaney as the disfigured Phantom who terrorizes the Paris Opera House in a desperate bid to elevate the woman he loves to stardom. The film is especially remembered for Chaney’s shocking self-applied makeup, which the studio kept hidden from the public until its debut.

More About Zack Kruse

Zack Kruse is the author of the Eisner-nominated Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity (University of Mississippi Press, 2021), recognized as one of the best books on comics in 2021 by The Comics Journal. He is a scholar of comics, film, and American literature, publishing broadly in each of these areas. As a comics creator, his strip, Mystery Solved!, appeared in Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. He was the founder and sole operator of the Appleseed Comics and Art Convention in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he is the former marketing director for the largest comics retailer in the U.S. His voice can be heard on numerous comics and academic podcasts, as well as his weekly music program, The Mutant Graveyard.  He is currently working on multiple film, comics, and academic projects. He never sleeps. He says he will never die.