This movie was a flop everywhere except Winnipeg. Now, the city is throwing a party for its 50th.

When Winnipegger Gloria Dignazio saw Phantom of the Paradise on a first date as a pre-teen in the 1970s, she came away from the movie theatre with profound love �— just not for the boy in the seat next to her.

“All I remembered was that as soon as [Phantom] started, I went into another dimension,” says Dignazio, a self-professed superfan.

Comedy-horror rock opera Phantom of the Paradise was a daring and flamboyant remix of classic tales like The Phantom of the Opera and Goethe’s Faust. Director Brian De Palma, who would go on to make hits like Carrie and Scarface, blended the glam rock sensibilities fashionable at the time with criticism of the music industry. 

When it hit theatres around the world in late 1974, Phantom failed to electrify general audiences while competing against blockbusters like Young Frankenstein and The Godfather Part II. The film was deemed a financial failure by distributor 20th Century Fox.

That didn’t bother the film fans of Winnipeg, however, where Phantom of the Paradise played for 18 weeks straight at the now-defunct Garrick Theatre. The film screened at the city’s cinemas for 62 weeks total between 1974 and 1976, whereas it ran for a single week in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. 

“We thought the movie was popular with everyone. To hear later that it bombed was like, ‘What? How is this possible?'” Dignazio says. “There’s no other movie better than Phantom of the Paradise.“

In the half-century since its release, a cult-like fanbase has grown, anchored in two disparate locations: Paris and Winnipeg.

In celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary this year, the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg will host a Halloween weekend of Phantom fun. It kicks off with a screening of Malcolm Ingram’s documentary Phantom of Winnipeg on Nov. 1, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Kevin Smith, who’s a longtime fan of the De Palma film.

The celebrations come 19 years after the first organized congregation of die-hard Phantom fans, known as Phantompalooza in 2005. Created and hosted by Dignazio in Winnipeg, the event attracted over 1,200 fans along with stars of the film, William Finley and Gerrit Graham. 

“Bill Finley said to me, ‘Gloria, you’ve got to do it again next year, but you’ve got to bring the whole cast.'” Dignazio recalls. “I heard angels. ‘Anything for you, Bill.'” 

And so they did the following year, after a chance encounter with Phantom star and composer Paul Williams at a screening in Santa Monica put the Phantompalooza organizers in contact with the rest of the cast.

Dignazio notes that for a youngster with a crush on Williams’ suave, satanic character, it was beyond a dream come true. “I didn’t care how old he was,” she says. “Same eyes, same voice.” 

Doc director Ingram chronicled Winnipeg’s peculiar fandom for Phantom in his 2019 documentary, Phantom of Winnipeg.

“What drew me to this wasn’t my attraction to Phantom of the Paradise; it was my attraction to the concept of fandom itself,” he says.  

Ingram recalls the film playing frequently on cable in Toronto, where he grew up.

“Brian De Palma became one of my favourite directors,” he says. “[Phantom] is crafted by some real geniuses. For such talent to be involved in something that was a failure at the time, that’s very complicated. It’s an interesting beast … That movie has had a real impact on people.” 

On Nov. 2, two screenings of the original film will give fans their Phantom fix nearly 50 years to the day after its release.

“We have fans coming in from all over the world for it: Iceland, Australia, everywhere,” Dignazio says. “There are pockets [of fans] all over the world.”

Dignazio co-organized the screenings with Dean Hunter and Craig Wallace, who are members of the Winnipeg-based Phantom of the Paradise tribute band Swanage.

Wallace, the group’s guitarist, was inspired to pick up a six-string after seeing the film. “The opening chord to Somebody Super Like You touched something in me. I wanted to play guitar. I saw it 18 times in the first week,” he says. 

Wallace recalls meeting his wife at one of the group’s early performances, before she was familiar with the film. “Phantom brought us together and now she’s a massive fan.”

Initially assembled for a one-off performance to celebrate Phantom‘s 40th in 2014, Swanage remains active due to sheer demand.

“I remember my sister brought this record home, and it looked like something out of a horror magazine: this disfigured man on there with a mask, a knife in his hand and a guitar right in the centre of it,” says Hunter, founder and vocalist of Swanage. “My brain exploded, and I became a fan for life. When Swanage plays, we want to duplicate how you hear it on the record.” 

The niche popularity of the film has long been speculated on by admirers and detractors alike. The French fans of Phantom likely drew fond parallels between the film and the classic novel The Phantom of the Opera by countryman Gaston Leroux. The film also inspired French musicians Sébastien Tellier and Daft Punk along the way in both sound and imagery. A handful of high-profile Hollywood figures, such as Edgar Wright and Guillermo Del Toro, have likewise professed love for the idiosyncratic movie. 

But why Winnipeg of all cities fell in love with the film is less easily explained.

“There’s no definitive thing,” Ingram says “I learned that the why isn’t as important as the fact that it actually happened. It’s a wonderful phenomenon that exists in Winnipeg — a secret ring that everybody wears.” 

He adds that “Canadians are an eccentric people. We are distinctly different.”

You can get your ashes made into a vinyl album. When I die, I want them to be made into the Phantom soundtrack.– Gloria Dignazio

For Dignazio: “It’s because we rock and we’re cool, but I think there’s a sort of spiritual connection.” 

To say fans of the film are diehards isn’t only a figurative statement. Taking inspiration from a friend and fellow fan who passed away while watching the film, Dignazio plans to sell her soul for rock ‘n’ roll much like Phantom‘s titular character — but in her own way.

“You can get your ashes made into a vinyl album,” she says. “When I die, I want them to be made into the Phantom soundtrack. That’s how much I love the movie.” 

A scene in the film has the character Eddie tell Finley’s Winslow Leach, “A song is a song — you either dig it or you don’t.” If that’s the case, Winnipeggers have been digging the Phantom‘s tune right from the opening note.

“It opened our eyes to a lot of music,” Hunter says.

Phantom of the Paradise 50th anniversary festivities run Nov. 1 and 2. at the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg.