After haunting the Paris Opera House for over a century, the Phantom has moved to make his claim on USC’s Stark Family Theatre. USC Visions and Voices and the School of Cinematic Arts hosted a 100th anniversary screening of the silent horror classic “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) Sunday night.

Following the screening Antonia Carlotta-Laemmle, film historian and great-grandniece of Universal Studios founder and film producer Carl Laemmle, and Ron Chaney, actor and great-grandson of the Phantom’s actor in the film, Lon Chaney, spoke about the film’s prevailing impact as well as stories from its production.

In the tradition of silent film screenings in the past, the screening was presented with live musical accompaniment by organist and music historian Sean O’Connell.

The event was conceived, organized and hosted by Hugo Turner, a sophomore majoring in journalism. Growing up as a classic horror fanatic, when he realized that it was the 100th anniversary of the film, he said he knew he had to do something. Getting in contact with Visions and Voices head Daria Yudacufski and Alessandro Ago, director of programming and special projects at SCA, the trio worked tirelessly to bring this event together.

The film was of particular interest to Turner as it was one of the first films in the long legacy of Universal Monsters. From the 1910s up to the 1950s, Universal produced many historically significant monster movies inspired by contemporary horror novels of the time.

“[Guillermo] del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ (2025) is fantastic, and he’s gone on the record saying that [Boris] Karloff’s iteration was like his messiah figure as a child,” Turner said during the panel discussion, in a larger conversation surrounding modern interpretations of these classic monsters.

Though Universal did not renew the copyright on “Phantom,” leading it to fall into the public domain in 1953, Universal continues to use the iconography of the Phantom in a significant amount of its branding, even utilizing him in its new Epic Universe theme park in Florida.

“That’s how long lasting and long standing the legacy of the character and the performance and the monster are,” Turner said of the film’s legacy. “That was the only real film to commemorate this year. It’s had a history that really has stood the test of time.”

Carlotta-Laemmle described the digital film provided by distributor Kino Lorber as “one of the best prints of ‘Phantom’ that [she has] ever seen.”

One attendee, USC alum Kindall Kolins, said the film was enthralling, particularly in the elaborateness and scale of the visuals.

“I could just sit there and not even want to pay attention to a movie, but seeing the art involved in something 100 years ago just absolutely blew my mind,” Kolins said.

The music was well-received by the crowd, with O’Connell receiving praise from attendees as well as the panelists in the discussion afterward. According to Turner, O’Connell extensively rewatched the film, coming up with unique ideas and motifs for individual moments while still staying true to the themes of the film.

“It took me a moment to get adjusted to it. … It was intense at first,” Kolins said, “It’s really fascinating to see how that different sense of artistry is so amazing to get immersed in.”

Chaney comes from a long line of horror actors, with his great-grandfather playing the Phantom in “Phantom” and his grandfather, Lon Chaney Jr., having played the title character in “The Wolf Man” (1941).

Chaney said Lon Chaney’s origins as the child of Deaf parents helped inform many of his misunderstood characters, even incorporating sign language into his role as Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923).

“[Lon Chaney] didn’t speak till he was four years old, so his first language was signs,” Chaney said regarding his great-grandfather. “He lived in a Deaf community, so everything he did had some kind of sign. And every movement you see on screen … he just knew how to mesmerize people with his movements, because he knew … every movement had a meaning.”

Carlotta-Laemmle’s knowledge and care for the topics shone through, adding insight and flowing effortlessly alongside Chaney’s, with the two together providing memorable insight throughout the evening, such as the issues with director Rupert Julian, the poor treatment of Christine Daaé’s actress, Mary Philbin, and how Lon Chaney was the designer for the makeup he used throughout the film.

“The makeup was really left completely to Lon to create, because the producers really had no idea how to accomplish this,” Chaney said, “That’s when he really went to work to be the Phantom.”

The event was a massive celebration of not only “Phantom of the Opera,” but of classic horror cinema in general, bringing monsters and classic frights to audiences both new and old.