1989’s The Phantom of the Opera opens in what was then-modern day Manhattan.
Christine Day (Jill Schoelen) is a young opera singer who is searching for the perfect audition piece. Her friend, Meg (Molly Shannon), suggests that she use an obscure opera piece called Don Juan Triumphant. The opera was written by Erik Destler, a mysterious composer who was accused of murdering several opera singers in the 1800s. That morbid fact only makes Christine all the more convinced that she should use the piece in her audition and you know what? I would probably feel the same way. If nothing else, it would certainly appeal to my subversive side.
Even after Christine imagines seeing blood seeping off the pages of the opera, she remains committed to auditioning with it. Unfortunately, at the audition, a sandbag falls on her head. She’s knocked unconscious and, when she wakes up, she finds herself in 1885 London. She’s an understudy for a diva named La Carlotta (Sharon Lawrence). Carlotta has skill and technique but her singing lacks emotion. She hits each note perfectly but she brings no deeper meaning to her performances. Christine may lack Carlotta’s polish but she sings with emotion. For that reason, Carlotta is jealous of Christine. Meanwhile, Erik Destler (Robert Englund), who lives in the sewers of London’s opera house and who wears a mask over his disfigured face, feels that Christine is the only one who can do his work justice and he’s willing to go to any length to make sure that she’s the one who performs on stage.
At the time he made The Phantom of the Opera, Robert Englund was still regularly playing Freddy Krueger. The film’s version of Erik Destler does owe a bit to Krueger. Erik is as ruthless as Freddy, he’s good with a quip, he’s just as willing to kill, and, needless to say, he also has a face that will haunt your nightmares. That said, Erik is also a creative artist, which is something that Freddy never was. If Freddy was motivated by revenge, Erik is motivated by a desire to see his work come to life the way that he’s always imagined it. Erik murders to help Christine (regardless of whether or not Chrsitine actually wants the help) whereas Freddy killed because he enjoyed it. Englund gives a good performance as Erik, occasionally playing the role with the type of broadness that is to expected from a B-horror film but also still offering hints of the artist that Erik once was. Englund is well-matched with Jill Schoelen, who brings a likable energy to Christine.
Produced by Menahem Golan and Harry Alan Towers, The Phantom of the Opera is an entertaining B-movie, one that is obviously not meant to be taken too seriously. Director Dwight H. Little keeps the action moving at a steady pace, the sets and the costumes are to die for, the kills are unapologetically bloody, and the film even manages to put an interesting twist on the whole “it was all dream!” thing. The Phantom of the Opera is an enjoyably macabre showcase for two of the best horror performers of the 80s and 90s, Jill Schoelen and Robert Englund.
There’s a specific, almost mystical, pleasure in watching a movie that is, by almost every conventional standard, a complete mess. It’s a guilty pleasure, that sweet spot where a film is so unapologetically over-the-top, so earnestly ridiculous, that it circles back around to being utterly entertaining. And for my money, few films embody this “so bad it’s good” vibe quite like Steven Seagal’s 1990 action opus, Marked for Death. This is prime, uncut, vintage Seagal, a film that feels like it was beamed in from an alternate dimension where ponytails are a symbol of power, whispering threats is a sign of deep menace, and the streets of Chicago are apparently overrun with voodoo-practicing Jamaican drug lords. It’s silly, sure, but it’s a very specific kind of silly—grounded enough in its grim, urban revenge fantasy to feel almost earnest, which is precisely what makes it work. To put it in perspective, Marked for Death is downright restrained compared to the coked-out, reality-defying lunacy Seagal would unleash just a year later in Out for Justice. That film, with its infamous “anybody seen Richie?” barroom brawl and its general air of sweaty, unhinged mania, operates on a completely different, far more unhinged wavelength. Marked for Death still has one foot in the real world, however wobbly that stance may be, whereas Out for Justice seems to have been fueled by a warehouse full of stimulants and a complete disregard for narrative coherence.
For those who don’t remember the heyday of Seagal-mania, Marked for Death is a perfect time capsule. This was before the bloated, straight-to-DVD era; this was Seagal in his physical prime, slim, athletic, and seemingly capable of snapping every bone in a human body without breaking a sweat. He plays John Hatcher, a burnt-out DEA agent who, after a botched operation in Mexico, decides to retire and seek some peace and quiet by visiting his sister and niece in his old Chicago neighborhood. This is the first of the film’s many logical leaps, because apparently, a retired DEA agent’s idea of a stress-free vacation is moving back to the neighborhood where he grew up and where a violent turf war is raging. It’s a classic action movie setup that requires you to immediately check your brain at the door, but compared to the sheer narrative anarchy of Out for Justice, it practically feels like Shakespeare.
You see, the peace and quiet Hatcher seeks doesn’t exist. The town is being terrorized by a Jamaican drug posse led by the wonderfully named and gloriously performed villain, Screwface. Played with scenery-chewing, eye-rolling relish by Basil Wallace, Screwface is more than just a drug dealer; he’s a voodoo priest with a penchant for giving people a “t’ousand dets wurse dan yoo doo.” He’s a cartoon character in the best possible way, a man so over-the-top that his presence alone elevates the film from a standard revenge flick into something far more memorable. When he declares Hatcher and his family “marked for death,” you can’t help but lean in, not because you’re scared for the hero, but because you want to see what bizarre, hammy line he’s going to come up with next. It’s absurd, but it’s a controlled absurdity, a deliberate performance that knows exactly what movie it’s in. That’s the key difference between this and the later Seagal outings; Marked for Death plays its absurdity with a straight face, whereas Out for Justice feels like it’s sweating and twitching through every frame, as if the filmmakers themselves had just snorted a mountain of the very product their hero was supposedly fighting against.
The plot, such as it is, kicks into gear when a gang shootout at a local bar forces Hatcher into action, and the posse retaliates by shooting up his sister’s house and wounding his young niece. This is the moment where the film’s narrative pivots from “watch the hero mope” to “watch the hero mope and then absolutely obliterate everyone in his path.” The central premise, like many critics have noted, is as formulaic as they come: a former lawman with a troubled past is forced out of retirement to avenge his family using excessive force. One reviewer put it perfectly, noting the film follows the “familiar one-note, bone-crunching action vehicle for Steven Seagal.” And while that might sound like a criticism, in this context, it’s a promise of the guilty pleasures to come. But even within that formula, there’s a certain grim logic that holds it together—something you absolutely cannot say about the gloriously unhinged Out for Justice, where the plot seems to be held together with duct tape and pure, unfiltered rage.
What makes Marked for Death such a classic guilty pleasure is the sheer, unrelenting brutality of the action sequences. This is not the sanitized, quick-cut action of today. This is a film where every punch sounds like a gunshot and every bone snapped echoes with a sickening, satisfying crunch. Director Dwight D. Little, who later went on to direct TV episodes for shows like Prison Break and Bones, stages the action with a “tight handling,” making sure the camera is right there to capture Seagal’s trademark Aikido. The violence is so extreme that it becomes comical. We’re talking broken arms, broken necks, gouged eyes, a decapitation, and a finale so over-the-top that it involves Seagal using a samurai sword to fight his way through a compound. Yet even with all that mayhem, it never quite reaches the hallucinatory, sweaty-palmed frenzy of Out for Justice, where the violence feels less choreographed and more like a bar brawl that somehow escaped onto film stock.
There are moments in Marked for Death that are so ridiculous they deserve their own standing ovation. There’s the infamous department store fight, where Hatcher dismantles a small army of henchmen while surrounded by mannequins and glass displays. It’s a perfect showcase for Seagal’s skills as a fighter and a complete lack of interest in things like, say, civilian casualties or property damage. Then there’s the entire third act, where Hatcher and his buddy Max (played with stoic reliability by the great Keith David), somehow manage to smuggle an entire arsenal of weapons into Jamaica for a final assault on Screwface’s compound. The logic of this is never explained, but it doesn’t matter. We’re given a montage of them prepping their weapons, and the next thing you know, they’re on a plane. It’s this kind of brazen disregard for realism that makes the film such a hoot, but again, it’s a calculated hoot. The cocaine-fueled silliness of Out for Justice would never bother with such a montage—it would just have Seagal appear in Jamaica with a shotgun, no explanation given, because who needs logic when you have that much manic energy coursing through the projector?
Perhaps the most surprising element is that despite the malevolent tone, the film has become a beloved “cult classic” for many. As one reviewer from the time stated, “it’s easy to see how someone could end up not liking Marked for Death. Its plot is ridiculous, it was overly violent for its time period… On the other hand, this is a film that doesn’t seem to care what you think and instead gleefully exist as a throwback to old-school Grindhouse films.” There’s a sense that Seagal and the filmmakers were in on the joke, even if they were playing it completely straight. The film is excessive, ruthless, and mindlessly numbing in all the right ways, a sentiment that perfectly encapsulates its enduring appeal. It’s the cinematic equivalent of comfort food—you know it’s bad for you, but it tastes so good. And it tastes a whole lot more grounded than the chaotic, unfiltered blast of pure id that is Out for Justice, a film that feels like it was edited by a hyperactive squirrel on a sugar rush.
Marked for Death isn’t a great film by any objective measure. The acting is wooden, the dialogue is laughable, and the cultural stereotypes are, to put it mildly, a product of their time. The Miami Herald even noted that Seagal dispatches his foes with “such an obnoxious sense of higher purpose that we get the feeling he’s not in on the fun.” The film’s portrayal of Jamaican culture as a hotbed of violent, voodoo-worshipping drug dealers is certainly problematic and not something that would fly today, which adds to the movie’s bizarre, anachronistic charm. It’s a film that, while considered one of his better works from that era, is far from what you’d call high art. But it knows its lane and stays in it, which is more than you can say for the gloriously unhinged Out for Justice, a movie that seems to have forgotten what lane it was in, swerved into oncoming traffic, and somehow kept driving anyway.
In the end, Marked for Death is the ultimate “bad movie night” experience. It’s a window into a time when action heroes were larger than life, plots were just excuses for mayhem, and a villain named Screwface could be a legitimate threat. It’s a film where you can quote terrible dialogue and cheer for the excessive violence without feeling guilty, because it’s all part of the deal. As one IMDb user succinctly put it, “Marked for Death is a thoroughly entertaining overblown unnecessarily violent & foul mouthed action film, the sort of film which Seagal was perfectly suited to star in. Sure it’s predictable & unoriginal but when a films this much fun who cares?” And honestly, isn’t that the highest praise you can give a movie like this? It’s a big, dumb, brutal, and brilliant piece of schlock that proudly wears its awfulness as a badge of honor. It’s silly, absolutely, but it’s a grounded, almost respectable kind of silly—the kind that makes you appreciate just how far off the deep end Seagal would go with Out for Justice, a film so wildly, unapologetically unhinged that it makes Marked for Death look like a quiet, contemplative drama by comparison.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!
This week, there’s a new threat in town!
Episode 1.11 “Do Dreams Bleed?”
(Dir by Dwight H. Little, originally aired on January 8th, 1989)
There’s a new serial killer in Springwood!
We don’t really learn much about the Chopper, other than he attacks people with an axe. When the episode begins, high school football star John Warring (Damon Martin) is dealing with dual trauma of having not only found the Chopper’s latest victim but also being the number one suspect. His grades start to slip. (As was so often the case on this show, his parents are conveniently out-of-town.) He fears that he’s going to lose his girlfriend, Roni (Sarah Buxton). Not even John’s coach, Coach Gacey (Jeff McCarthy), is much help. That’s probably because Coach Gacey actually is the Chopper, not that anyone figures that out. Driven mad by his dreams, John finds himself being taken away to an asylum.
(Really? Coach Gacey? He should have been the number one suspect based on his name alone.)
The second half of the episode follows Ronni as she now starts to have nightmares. She wants to believe that John is innocent but her dreams indicate that she has her doubts. Eventually, John escapes from prison and is able to save Ronni from Coach Gacey. However, when the police arrive, they just assume that Coach Gacey was trying to save Ronni and that John is the Chopper. Ronni is so shaken by the entire experience that she no longer knows what’s true and what’s not.
Wow, that’s dark!
This was actually a pretty good episode. For once the two stories had coherent plots, with Ronni’s story logically building off of John’s. The dream sequences were effectively creepy, director Dwight Little kept the action moving at a good pace, and even the dark ending felt earned as opposed to forced on the narrative. I would have liked to have heard Freddy’s thoughts on Springwood having a new serial killer (instead, during the host segments, Freddy just did his usual bad jokes) but otherwise, this was a surprisingly good episode.
