Phantom Thread - Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge

When I was in 8th grade, a few friends and I were at the video store looking to rent some tapes for a sleepover that night. That is when I just so happened to come across this artwork that featured a severely burned character with a photo of a brightly lit mall behind it. The title was about as straightforward as they come: Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, which meant I knew exactly what I was getting here.

But since I had just recently studied Gaston Leroux’s original Phantom of the Opera story and had fallen head over heels for Dwight H. Little’s adaptation starring the one and only Robert Englund, how could I possibly resist this take on the classic tale that utilized every teenager’s idea of utopia at that time for its backdrop? I was all in, and we rented it that night. And yeah, perhaps I was a far more forgiving viewer of Phantom of the Mall than most of my friends, but between some audacious stunts and kills for a project working at this budgetary level, a killer setting and an extremely likeable cast, I was totally hooked that night, and I’ve been a fan ever since.

For the uninitiated, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge is centered around the opening of the Midwood Mall, a major commercial endeavor that Mayor Karen Wilton (Morgan Fairchild) believes will put her city on the proverbial map. But this mall comes with a hefty price tag attached, as the developers behind the project did some pretty nefarious things in order to make the mall a reality in their small town, including burning down a house with teenager Eric Matthews (Derek Rydall) and his girlfriend Melody Austin (Kari Whitman) inside. Melody was able to escape, but the fire proved to be too much for Eric who is presumed dead.

Flash forward a year later as the Midwood Mall is making its debut, and guess who happens to be hanging out in the shopping center’s ventilation system? Why, it’s Eric, who happens to be horribly burned and as you may have guessed it, he wants to take out his revenge on everyone associated with the opening of the titular location and keep Melody safe, who also just so happens to be working there. As this new shopping mecca of Midwood begins to invite customers in, Eric begins to claim an array of victims and sets out to reunite with Melody who has been doing her best to move on with her life in the wake of his “death.”

When it comes to its status as an adaptation of Leroux’s work, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge has some of the basics you’d expect but it definitely does quite a bit to mix up the formula and change the dynamics between several characters. This time, the Phantom has a more intimate history with the story’s lead, as Eric and Melody had been madly in love prior to the fire, and so his desire to keep her safe is somewhat similar to the original Phantom’s own desire to keep the ingenue Christine in the spotlight.

The Mall Phantom’s reasoning behind everything he does is just slightly different since he used to be Melody’s boyfriend so him missing her makes sense and he also has some wrongs he needs to make right, considering everything that happened to him. But the Erik from Leroux’s novel is pretty much driven to madness by his uncontrollable love and we watch his obsession grow throughout that story, and his misdeeds are driven by his anger and desperation.

We also get a Raoul type of character in Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge through intrepid reporter Peter Baldwin played by Rob Estes, a fixture of the entertainment world throughout the ‘90s and beyond. As it turns out, I had just started watching Silk Stalkings right before renting Phantom of the Mall, so imagine my delight when Mr. Estes popped up in this (also, I very much appreciated when he joined the cast of Melrose Place, too).

And speaking of fixtures of ‘90s pop culture, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge also features Pauly Shore playing the dedicated frozen yogurt artist Buzz (this was right around the time he was just getting started as an on-air personality on MTV), and I say this without a shred of hyperbole: Shore is freaking great in this. In the latter half of Phantom of the Mall, Buzz has to team up with Melody’s best friend Susie (Kimber Sissons) to try and find her after she goes missing, and the whole vibe of the movie just changes with their back-and-forth, and I would have absolutely watched another film all about the exploits of Buzz and Susie.

And honestly, I think that’s what I have always appreciated most about Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge. My appreciation doesn’t stem from how faithful of a Phantom of the Opera adaptation this movie is. What I genuinely appreciate about this film is that it’s about how it gets so much right about the teen experience during that time period in particular, and just how crucial mall culture became to so many of us. Like, I was a nerdy teen who was hyper focused on my grades and I also happened to be a theatre geek who spent years in tons of academic clubs, but holy shit did I love to spend hours just being able to walk around a mall with my friends being goofy as all hell.

Here are just a few other things I really love about Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge:

• Ken Foree! In a mall again!
• This was shot in the same mall as Chopping Mall, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, and Commando. Love you Sherman Oaks Galleria (
• Kelly Rutherford, another future Melrose Place alum (and Ghostface victim in Scream 3) plays a sales girl in this.
• Phantom of the Mall features some really fun kills, especially the escalator lasso set-up involving Tom Fridley from Friday the 13th Part VI. I also appreciated the box compactor kill in this too, as I used to have to work those machines when I was doing retail, and they are so damn satisfying to operate.
• Excellent low-budget effects by legendary artist Matthew Mungle.
• A Swensen’s sighting (my favorite ice cream shop growing up)!
• How Eric spends a lot of the movie lurking around in the HVAC system like he’s been taking lessons from John McClane.
• Also, I dig how hard Eric trains and does martial arts when he’s alone in his lair (all the best late ‘80s horror movies feature scenes with characters’ doing martial arts training — see A Nightmare on Elm Street 4).
• Eric and Melody’s song: “Heart of Darkness” by Stan Bush. I learned that Stan also penned the song “The Touch” that was featured in the animated Transformers movie from the 1980s and for some reason “Heart of Darkness” was never officially released which is a shame because (as the kids say) it is a banger.

So yeah, I probably wouldn’t ever categorize Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge as one of the greatest Phantom adaptations, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not a helluva lot of campy B-movie fun all the same and I still find it to be an endlessly charming time.