Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Singer-songwriter Winslow Leach seeks revenge on the nefarious music producer Swan, who steals both Winslow's music and his favorite singer for the grand opening of Swan's new rock palace, the Paradise.
Brian De Palma's glam-rock horror-musical mashup is a genuinely singular artifact — fusing Faust, Phantom of the Opera, and Picture of Dorian Gray into a savage satire of the music industry with unmistakable visual panache. The cinematography is a showcase of De Palma's split-screen virtuosity, bold color design, and expressionist staging that elevates the material well above average. Novelty is exceptionally high: no film before or since quite occupies this tonal space of campy horror, rock opera, and sharp corporate satire with such commitment. The plot is serviceable but leans on its source archetypes more than it subverts them, and the acting — while energetic, especially Paul Williams as Swan — is deliberately stylized to the point of unevenness. The ending delivers emotionally and thematically but doesn't quite transcend its Grand Guignol conventions.