Stage Fright

Nothing is more important than musical theater, not even murder.

Camilla Swanson and her brother Buddy work at Center Stage, a summer camp for musical theater ingenues run by their guardian Ron McCall. This year the camp's final show will be The Haunting of the Opera, the musical their mother was the lead actress in when she was brutally murdered. Camilla wishes to be like her mother but auditions are cutthroat, literally, and there is a kabuki masked madmen with a murderous disdain for Broadway belting.

Stage Fright is a film set in a summer camp that can only be described as campy. It is ridiculous and funny, self-awaredly mocking all the musical theater stereotypes. Everyone sings Sondheim-esque tunes, even the killer, but his musical styling is about as far from the brassy Broadway musical theater genre as it can get.

With any hybrid genre film, one is typically more dominant than the other. Stage Fright is both horror and musical though forty minutes pass by where it is straight musical movie before any real carnage occurs. Luckily writer/director Jerome Sable keeps Stage Fright light and amusing.

Stage Fright makes you endure Glee-like show-tunes in order to get to the bloody massacre of these theater camp adolescents. The deaths in the film are not nearly as campy as the first half of the film, unfortunately, and I wanted them to be a bit more far-fetched and ridiculous. Stage Fright fulfills the niche market for musical theater horror.

Audiences will leave with the knowledge that it's not wrong to sing and dance when someone just died, the show must go on and nothing is more important than The Theatre.

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Today, we are five decades removed from the strong emergence of the slasher film as a staple sub-genre of horror in cinema. It's fair to assume that the pool of ideas had been running thin if one considers the abundance of remakes from classic franchises which already had more than a handful of sequels under their belts. Where does this leave us and the slasher film today, in 2014? It puts us in the theater, for a musical, in Stage Fright. Combining the behind the scenes process of what it takes to put on such a production within the narrative arc of the overarching movie which is also a musical, there are some clever dance and song numbers…that's really not what I was expecting to be complimenting this movie on before I watched it, but credit must be given where credit is due. Dancing and cleverness aside, this movie shines its brightest when it's at its darkest. A Kabuki mask-wearing hair metal-singing psycho is out to spoil the show, and in doing so he may very well be giving us a new slasher icon. The brilliance of this movie is how quickly and smoothly it brings the story between hilarity and tension, sometimes even merging the two. The musical aspects of the movie are excellently done. Each character or setting has a theme, which get intermingled and blended at appropriate times. Singing was really excellent where it needed to be, and intentionally sub-par or bad when called for as well. Best of all was the contrasting punch between the cheery musical score and the 80's power-chord heavy metal screaming that beefs up all the grisly gory shreddin' fun from our killer.

I liked that it reminded to those good old horror movies from the 90's and giving that kind of vibe. But also, the addition of the musical element wasn't bad because it made more fun. However, I still felt like they could've played more with the whole theater/play situation instead of shying away with crowd-full musicals. The deaths were good, and had some very real makeup effects, but as they prefer eased with the story, they kept getting tamer and less over the top. Overall the acting was good, and even though the story and the whole killer reveal wasn't very impressive, it still managed to involve me into the movie and just enjoy it. And finally, I liked how the ending evoked many other horror movies with the mirror scene, by giving it that sense of suspense and horror without feeling too cliché.

A snobby musical theater camp is terrorized by a blood-thirsty killer who hates musical theater.

The film has plenty of nice references early on to "Phantom of the Opera" and "Fantomas", with the "Phantom" theme throughout. Some have said the film draws from Argento's "Opera", but that is not necessarily the case. Beyond the generally theme (which is "Phantom"), there was very little "Opera".

The supporting cast is solid, with the amazing Meat Loaf and even a brief but powerful performance from Minnie Driver. Allie MacDonald as the lead is amazing, and do not be surprised if she gets big really fast after this.

The film widely received negative reviews, and the reasons are clear. The blend of humor, music and horror is not always flawless, and some of the songs are definitely better than others. Some probably enjoyed the heavy metal parts and disliked the rest (or vice versa). This is not on the same level as "Repo: The Genetic Opera", for example.

My opinion on this movie changed SO many times over the course of just KNOWING about it. When I saw the trailer I was excited to see a movie that was basically a throwback to the old school horror films I grew up with... with more singing of course, but a throwback nonetheless. When I finally got the chance to watch it, I was a little disappointed for AT LEAST the first quarter, but it just kept building and building (mind you I don't like musicals at all so I was a bit out of my comfort zone). By the middle of the movie I was definitely glued to my screen, and when the killer finally made his grand entrance I couldn't help but to laugh out loud - in the best way. Anyway, to sum this movie up into three words, I'd have to say: Eccentric, fun, and HILARIOUS. Oh, and keep an eye out for them paying homage to a few classic horror icons. There aren't much, but if you're a junkie like me, they'll probably make you all giddy and excited. And finally, my best piece of advice when viewing this movie that no one ever seems to take - DON'T TAKE THIS MOVIE SERIOUSLY. If you do, you're gonna have a bad time...