In 1974 Brian De Palma birthed Phantom of the Paradise, an amalgamation of horror, music, fantasy and comedy which finds its interesting aspects in its splicing of a range of genres.

The film’s particular arrangement as a musical (featuring a soundtrack written entirely by Paul Williams) breaks genre conventions; Phantom doesn’t adhere to typical musical conventions where characters break out into song in a sporadic attempt to express their feelings. Rather, as the film posits itself as a take on the music industry, each song exists within the narrative and is predominantly performed in a stage setting to an audience within the film rather than to the viewer.

Making connections to both the horror and comedy genres, De Palma’s references in the film stem from two works, the first being Psycho (1960) where he begins his homages to Hitchcock’s oeuvre. De Palma rebuilds the notorious shower murder scene as horror but repurposes its climax for the sake of comedy; instead of a knife, the ‘killer’ wields a plunger and warms his ‘victim’ of an impending doom. His second citation comes from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), in which a goth band perform a song dressed in the likeness of Cesare the Somnambulist. Here, De Palma again places a horror icon within a new context: as a prop within a musical production. Additionally in the following scene, the titular Phantom strikes down a singer in the middle of his performance and in turn characterises an intertwining and reevaluation of both the musical and the horror film.

De Palma naturally adheres to horror conventions in the film too, often slowing the film down from musical to allow for moments of suspense, but it’s the breakaway from the norms that separates Phantom from the traditional musical.