Halloween is just as much about fun as it is fright, and director Brian De Palma’s 1974 rock-and-roll musical THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE is a real scream. It’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA set to a beat and De Palma’s visual mastery, with Dorian Gray and Faust thrown in for extra color. PHANTOM is a worthy cult film, actually a much better movie, more outrageous, than THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. De Palma’s special ingredient? Paul Williams — that’s right, the guy who wrote the songs “The Rainbow Connection” for Kermit the Frog and “Rainy Days and Mondays” for the Carpenters — as the Faust character, an evil record producer. Williams also wrote all the songs for the movie, including the killer glam rock tune “Life at Last”. And a bit of trivia: The set dresser for the movie was Sissy Spacek. Two years later she’d be the lead star of De Palma’s CARRIE.
The Most Beautiful Fraud 