The Phantom falls in love with the young opera singer Christine Daaé while she sings alone on stage one night.

During her performance as Juliet, the Phantom brings down the chandelier, killing and injuring numerous audience members.

She hits his face with a rock and calls to Raoul for help but instantly regrets her actions, and her feelings for the Phantom return.

Though mortally wounded, the Phantom's main concern becomes Christine's safety, as he fears that the police will kill her now they know she is with him.

He hears Christine calling him "my love" and cries out her name before being stabbed in the back, then falling into the lake and dying.

Variety called it "a gothic kitschfest that leaves no excess unexplored", writing "none of your sanitized Andrew Lloyd Webber treatment here, but plenty of bodice-ripping, lush romanticism, gore and gross antics with rats, all of which should tickle the director's stalwart devotees.

But the script's clumsy plotting, its often unintentionally hilarious dialogue and some howlingly bad acting make the already widely sold pic likely to function best as a campy video entry for irreverent genre fans.

After the unfulfilled promises of Trauma and The Stendhal Syndrome, The Phantom of the Opera seemingly signaled the demise of a great auteur.

[3] The score was composed by Ennio Morricone and featured the "Air des clochettes" from the opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes and the overture from Charles Gounod's Faust.