There's no phantom in Italian horror maestro Dario Argento's masterwork; just a mentally deranged maniac obsessed with ingénue singer Cristina Marsillach as she rehearses Verdi's Macbeth. But this aria of savage beauty contains Argento's single most potent and self-revelatory image: Marsillach, forced to watch orchestrated murders, is unable to close her eyes due to needles taped under the lids. Argento's relentless search for the outer limits of hard-core gore takes an autopsy-turvy turn with the knife-through-the-throat shot, and his glides from the opera house roof to the auditorium are stunning. It doesn't make much sense, but it's bravura cinema at its shock-inducing best. And who exactly could Ian Charleson's tyrant director be based on?

A young opera singer is stalked by a deranged fan bent on killing the people associated with her to claim her for himself.