It's a nightmare at the opera house! Yes, Robert Englund, alias Freddy Kruger, takes his turn as the masked master of murder and music, and the results make the Hammer horror rendition of 1962 look a model of restraint. This isn't a modernised version, simply the old chestnut with a silly modern framing story which makes no sort of sense, in which the heroine discovers Freddy's - sorry, Erik's - old manuscripts and history and gasps 'Gee, isn't that weird - composer by day and serial killer by night! ' The script, in fact, is a bigger villain than the Phantom, although the settings are opulently, painstakingly stylish. Englund is actually all right as the Phantom, when he's allowed to do more than skin his victims alive and peel layers of bloody guck off his face. But Schoelen seems all wrong as a flat-chested opera singer with little sense of dramatic timing. The last two reels do contain some bravura moments and the enterprise, though disappointingly trite and silly, is by no means a bore.

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