The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925). This adaptation of a 1910 Gaston Leroux novel is set at the Paris Opera House, which is presented as a place of grandeur and bustle. It is also home to a mysterious, menacing figure whose existence is revealed to the new owners only after they signed the final paperwork to take over the building. That figure, known as the Phantom (Lon Chaney), is lured out of the relative safety of the shadows when he grows enamored with Christine (Mary Philbin), an ingenue singer. This famed pass at by now well-worn story boasts really marvelous filmmaking throughout. Credited to director Rupert Julian (but probably touched by many authorial hands, including Chaney’s), The Phantom of the Opera is sweeping and elegant. The storytelling is crisp and cogent, and the look and feel of the whole piece is darkly enchanting. Chaney gives a tremendous silent-movie performance in the lead role, moving deftly between big gestures and small, intricate expressions of the character’s dismay. As was the case with my viewing of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror last year, I saw the film with live musical and foley sound effects accompaniment by the Denver-based group Quarkestra. Once again, they provided a tremendous, inventive performance that enhanced an already great film.

Mads (David Moreau, 2024). Staging this entire horror film as a 85-minute oner is an impresive conceit. Still, there were times when I longed for an edit. Written and directed by David Moreau, Mads traces one eventful evening when a strange ailment spreads, mostly among a group of partygoers. As each one falls prey to the unnamed illness, they develop symptoms that will be familiar to anyone who’s spent time with zombie movies. Moreau definitely knows how to shape tense scenes and unsettling images. The early sequence in which a young man named Romain (Milton Riche) encounters a bandaged, frantic woman (Sasha Rudakowa), setting the plot into motion, is a well-executed exercise in barely contained panic. There are also some impressive, committed performances, especially from Laurie Pavy, playing a girlfriend of the playboy Romain. The strong elements aren’t enough to compensate for the plentiful stretches when the real-time rendering of the story is a gimmicky slog. The film adds up to interesting curiosity more than compelling feature.

Together (Michael Shanks, 2025). Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) are a longterm couple in flux. Their time as a youthful, carefree couple in the city comes to a close when Millie gets a job teaching in a rural community, necessitating a move that Tim has misgivings about. They are growing apart. A chance encounter with mystically tainted cave water changes that situation dramatically. The debut feature from writer-director Michael Shanks spins its metaphor for relationship codependency into a grisly bit of body horror. Together is assembled in sturdy enough fashion, but its themes fall flat. Beyond the core concept, Shanks doesn’t bring enough fresh ideas to the film, and Franco and Brie, game as they are for the more harrowing scenes, don’t manage to deepen their characters enough to make the twisty terror feel like it has real emotional impact. The film is just a lot of bloody noise.