I really like 1974’s Phantom of the Paradise, but I haven’t seen it with an audience yet, so what do I know? The early film from Brian De Palma screens at midnight this weekend at E Street Cinema, which will give you a chance to see it in the perfect mood: a little tired, slightly intoxicated, and with a crowd of similarly juiced weirdos. It’s not quite The Rocky Horror Picture Show—the songs aren’t quite as good, and no one in it has the charisma of Tim Curry as Dr. Frank–N–Furter, but it shares a campy aesthetic and it similarly plays best at the witching hour.

De Palma, the ’70s movie brat most revered by his peers, is often criticized for relying on pastiche; he has made nearly as many homages to Alfred Hitchcock as Hitchcock did original films. With Phantom of the Paradise, De Palma brought new influences—namely The Phantom of the Opera, Faust, and The Picture of Dorian Gray—to craft a mosaic that takes on a life of its own. 

It opens on Winslow (William Finley), an idealistic singer-songwriter who captures the ear of Swan (Paul Williams), a powerful club owner and hitmaker. After Swan steals Winslow’s song, the singer suffers a terrible accident, leaves his life behind, and haunts Swan’s new club—the Paradise—from the rafters, causing mayhem and terror. He conspires to do away with the tawdry new singers Swan has hired, so that he’ll be forced to turn to Phoenix (Jessica Harper), Winslow’s love and the only one qualified to sing his songs besides him.

A film about a principled artist who must sell his soul to the devil and immediately regrets it? It’s easy to see Phantom of the Paradise as an arrow fired by one of New Hollywood’s great directors to the executives that fund his work, but it’s not a simple act of youthful rebelliousness. Winslow, perhaps a stand-in for De Palma, despises the glitz and glam of Swan’s world, but when he burns his face in a bizarre record-pressing incident, he dons makeup and a mask in order to become the phantom. It’s a fascinating comment on how show business can make a principled artist become what he despises, even as he rejects it.

Despite his pointed critique (and self-critique), there’s a softness in De Palma’s perspective that sets him apart from his more accomplished peers. While Martin Scorsese was fantasizing about being a New York tough guy in in Mean Streets, and Steven Spielberg was examining his own masculinity in Duel and Jaws, De Palma made a film about a man consumed by unrequited love, and its profound vulnerability is supported by the androgyny of its male characters. Before his accident, Winslow is just a gangly, goofy loner who wears his crush on his sleeve. Swan, as played by Williams, is small and effete, with shades of Truman Capote. Then there’s Beef (Gerrit Graham), who Swan first hires to replace Winslow. There’s a corollary to Rocky from Rocky Horror, another muscle-bound object of desire who confronts hetero-normies with their unspoken urges. He also looks a bit like Michelangelo’s David, if he were covered in glitter and given an endless supply of cocaine.

De Palma is having such fun poking at our vulnerable spots, however, that these questions and contradictions don’t really feel explored. They are raised, embodied, and then swept into the film’s audacious style. As in most of the director’s work, there are betrayals, murders, and sexual longing, but unlike the rest of his work, there are few moments of restraint here. De Palma plunges headfirst into his fantasia of music and mayhem and doesn’t really let up until the credits roll. It’s a near-psychedelic experience built not on freaky visual effects but on pure passion and unadulterated artistry. It might be mind-blowing if viewed under the right, umm, conditions, but even the straitlaced freaks among us are likely to fall under its magic spell.

Phantom of the Paradise (PG, 91 minutes) screens at 11:55 p.m. on March 29 and 30 at Landmark’s E Street Cinema. landmarktheatres.com.