Part of Shocktober and Music City Mondays
A demented, operatic fairy tale for anyone who ever got played by the music industry. When an evil record tycoon (Paul Williams) steals a pop cantata to launch a music palace, its disfigured composer (William Finley) exacts revenge. Bringing together elements of Faust, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, this musical fantasy is a wild and crazy ride. With songs by star Paul Williams, and also starring Gerritt Graham as Beef.
“The film is a one-of-a-kind entertainment, with a kinetic, breakneck wit.” —Pauline Kael, New Yorker
“A smorgasbord of camp, Grand Guignol, and bird imagery that thumbed its metal beak at commercial considerations just a few years before the director’s unexpected transformation into a successful Hollywood filmmaker.” —Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The A.V. Club
“Hitchcock is here, of course, in the funniest PSYCHO parody ever filmed, but most of the allusions in this baroque fantasy are paraded with an eye for gothic classicism: FAUST, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, FRANKENSTEIN and THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, among others, provide the canvas onto which De Palma splashes his overwhelming filmic mojo.” —Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine