The Phantom of the Opera/Awesome

The musical

• During the production of "Il Muto", where the Phantom ruins Carlotta's performance by making her croak like a frog onstage, and then drives her offstage with his creepy laugh.
• Um... Something about a chandelier at the end of Act I.
• The Phantom crashes the masquerade ball at the beginning of Act II (in a spectacularly cool Red Death costume) just minutes after the other characters were expressing relief at being done with him for good. "Have you missed me, good Messieurs?" indeed.
  • Made even more so by the fact that two of the other characters say earlier "What a pity that the Phantom can't be here."
  • "Why so silent, good Messieurs? Did you think that I had left you for good?"
• That high note Christine hits at the end of the title song.
• The Overture is one - the SET rises from its collapsed form on the stage (as well as "something about a chandelier" doing the same).
• After the Phantom presents Christine with his Scarpia Ultimatum -- "His life is now the prize that you must earn. So, do you end your days with me, or do you send him to his grave?" -- Raoul throws this back in the Phantom's face with "Why make her lie to you to save me?"
• Raoul really Needs More Love--especially for the graveyard scene, where he faces down an angry out-for-blood Phantom and calls him out on the whole "trying to force someone to love you via threats and kidnapping" thing. Oh yeah, did we mention the Phantom is hurling fireballs at him through all this? Who says the Vicomte de Chagny isn't Badass? Not to mention swimming across the underground lake in order to rescue Christine, as well as begging her not to sacrifice herself for him. In other words, he was willing to die to ensure her safety.
• After spending the balance of the show as the Damsel in Distress, Christine turns the Phantom at his Stalker with a Crush worst to a shivering wreck and prompts him to turn his Scarpia Ultimatum into a heartbreaking self-sacrifice... with a single kiss. The Power of Love (or at least compassion) at its most potent.
• The Phantom's final disappearing act.

The Silent Film

• The unmasking scene. Lon Chaney's self-applied makeup was so incredibly well done, that some audience members in 1925 were reported to have fainted upon seeing his face. Still scary today, in a Jump Scare sort of way.

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