Stage Fright

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.

Not a fan of musicals at all but this is great! I love the makeup so much, the kills, masks, beautiful women, and the cast is excellent! I saw this once a few years ago and now loving it more. I must admit the original Stage Fright is better purely cause it doesn't have singing and it's a 80's cult masterpiece. It's really cool that Minnie Driver and Meat Loaf are in this; Douglas Smith, and Allie Macdonald is so damn pretty. Very good horror for what it is.

Looking for a movie my wife would never want to see I came across this one on Amazon rime streaming movies. I really knew nothing about it but it seemed that it had a good chance of being entertaining. And it was!!

First there is Minnie Driver but she lasts only through the first couple of scenes as she is starring in a stage play that is a parody of "Phantom", complete with a bad guy wearing a mask. Her twins, a boy and a girl, are about 10 at that time.

Fast forward to 10 years later, the twins are working at a summer musical theater camp as the cooks. But when they decide to do a revival of their mother's fatal musical the daughter just has to try out for the lead, she has to honor her late mother.

It was good to see Meatloaf Aday as the camp director, he even has a couple of musical numbers. Man he was talented. But the biggest problem I had, even though this is a spoof movie, the young actress is not a particularly good singer. Pleasant, maybe, but nowhere near what would be required to do a Broadway role, which was the character's stated goal.

I enjoyed the movie, it has lots of gore and blood, in the spirit of a parody, but as something completely different I enjoyed it.

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.

I can appreciate what they're trying to do here, namely, something a little different. One of the reasons I give M. Night Shyamalan more grace than most film fans is because of his willingness to take risks doing something unique. However, like several of Shyamalan's own films, this movie ends up just being a little silly, lacking heart.