Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989)

Directed by Richard Friedman [Other horror films: Stephen King’s Golden Tales (1985, segment ‘The Old Soft Shoe’), Scared Stiff (1987), Doom Asylum (1987), DarkWolf (2003), Born (2007)]

Despite the somewhat silly title, I can say that Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge is a decent movie. It’s probably not great, but I’ve seen it twice now, and I do find it a rather fun film with a lot going for it.

The story here is about what you’d expect, being a modern-day (at least modern-day to the late 1980’s) adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. There’s little here that’s likely to amaze anyone, but the mystery is decent, some characters and their motivations hidden well, and come the finale, we’re mostly satisfied with how everything has gone down.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why the mall in this movie may look familiar, it’s apparently also where Chopping Mall was filmed, so there’s another element of fun.

As far as performances go, the only one I didn’t really care for was Gregory Scott Cummins (Watchers III, Click: The Calendar Girl Killer, Hack-O-Lantern), and that’s more due to the nature of his character than to the actual performance.

Otherwise, the cast is pretty strong throughout the board.

Kari Whitman was never really in much, or at least much I’ve seen, but she made for a solid lead, not to mention sympathetic. Her friends, played by Kimber Sissons, Pauly Shore, and Rob Estes (Uninvited), were all decent – in fact, while Shore’s character was sort of the odd, goofy guy, he knew how to get serious. Derek Rydall (Popcorn, Night Visitor) was tragic, and knew how to do a spinning kick with the best of them.

Jonathan Goldsmith (Blood Voyage) was good as a scummy individual, Morgan Fairchild (American Horror House, The Initiation of Sarah) also good as a scummy individual, being the mayor of the town. Actually Fairchild and Goldsmith worked well together, and related, I was happy with where the movie took their characters. Other familiar faces include Ken Foree (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, From Beyond, Dawn of the Dead) and Tom Fridley (Summer Camp Nightmare, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI), along with a small cameo of Brinke Stevens (Blood Reaper, The Ritual, Spirits).

The kills here were never really gory – this isn’t Intruder, or anything so enjoyable. However, most of the kills were at least decent, from a decapitation and a snake in a toilet to someone being thrown out a window and impaled, not to mention someone meeting the business end of a flamethrower. There’s a lot of decent kills here, and it keeps you entertained.

Also quite nice is the fact that this movie moves at a great pace. It’s an hour and a half, but it doesn’t really feel it, and though I will say there was a small sense of dragging around the hour and ten minute mark, the finale was actually pretty solid and satisfactory.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge is a pretty enjoyable movie, albeit not really that special. If you’re into slashers, I can’t think of a good reason not to give this one a shot. It has a good classic feel, along with a power ballad titled ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Stan Bush that keeps popping up. Again, it may not be special, but I think it does a lot of what it was trying to do.

7.5/10