darthnickels:

I think its so interesting how, in almost every adaption of Phantom I can thin of the ~Lair~ is always dark and mysterious. I’m especially thinking of the 2004 movie, with the Sex Grotto decor, but the ALW musical is that way too, with all the floating candles. Charles Dance/Y-K has the magical ~world~ complete with a giant forest for some reason (MASSIVE DOWNGRADE from the less literal torture forest) etc etc 

Because like– what Christine finds so bizarre and off-putting about the little house on the lake in Leroux is how normal it is. She’s traveled through her mirror, through the strange, jumbled world of the cellars, past the furnaces fed by demons (I think you are more than en peu myope girl),  been rowed across a Stygian lake by her own grim Charon, and winds up in this perfectly normal little house, complete with a matching set of ugly furniture (which is hilarious because I’m sure the Louis-Philippe room is full of gorgeous antiques, but by Christine’s “contemporary” tastes…)

But anyway, the normality– maybe even the banality– of Erik’s house is such a crucial part of the story. So many strange and terrible things happen in what might otherwise be a very sweet little house, if it wasn’t bizarrely located under an Opera house and didn’t have a torture chamber.  The contrast between this very conventional space in a ~world of dreams~ is one of many extreme contrasts in the story, especially regarding Erik– his beautiful voice coupled with his repulsive face, his cruelty compared to his real potential for kindness, etc. It also says a lot about the nature of the horror of the story– its not the realm of the fantastical, but the real world that’s full of monsters.  

But most importantly, the house on the lake  says the most about what Erik wants. He’s built literal palaces and temples to music, but what he builds for himself is a very normal, quaint house– even modeling it (at least furniture wise) on his childhood home which, though desperately unhappy, was the only one he ever knew. 

TL;DR I don’t know why directors don’t take advantage of this in their adaptions, its easy visual shorthand for the Big Ideas that power the story. Ugly furniture adaption 2k16