Stage Fright (1987) Slasher turned Silent Liminal Chiller once the lights go out (Review)

For a young horror director to the protege of a more seasoned hand, few could have better fortune than Michele Soavi, who sat under the learning tree of Dario Argento. Not only that, he had his directorial debut produced by another substantial Italian genre legend, Joe D’Amato. Soavi exploded out of the blocks in an era where Italian cinema was subject to a considerable fall from grace. A debut that was one of the final highlights of the fallen giant that was Italian Horror – and with connections like those, this should surely come as no surprise. That debut film, Stage Fright (a.k.a. Aquarius, A.K.A. Deliria), is out now on Blu-ray from Shameless Films.

Soavi’s Stage Fright is known for one thing above all others – the killer. See, this is a slasher in which the killer is sporting a massive Owl mask. Before we get to that point, we need to set up the plot – sure, that isn’t the most important aspect of any given slasher. Yet, without a good foundation, a slasher is reduced to kills and kills alone, and maybe that is why I have such a problem with this focal subgenre for 80s horror. Maybe being so focused on this trait is why the slasher phase became repetitive.

The film opens in the most gloriously campy way possible with a musical rehearsal for a play revolving around murder and rape – the play’s director (Peter (David Brandon)) thinks this is the work of a fearless artist, only, in reality, it is much campier than that. Unfortunately, one of the cast members, Alicia (Barbara Cupisti), has twisted her leg. Leaving on the say-so of a friend from the costume department, the pair hotfoot it to a nearby doctor’s surgery, oblivious to the fact that it is a psychiatrist practice imprisoning a psychotic former actor. A particularly handsy doctor eventually sees Alicia and sends the pair on their way back to the theatre, only they have a stowaway – that’s right, the guy who was previously behind bars, the guy that was behind bars while they investigate whether or not he previously killed 12 people. After a grizzly murder in the car park, the director decides that they’ll push forward the first show by a week to cash in on the press caused by the bloody murder. Being such sound judgment and character, Peter decides to have one of his cast members take the key, lock the door and then hide said key. Little do they know, the murderer is in the building and as luck would have it, the first person murdered is the one who hid the key. Stage Fright has a relentless tension rarely found during the slashers halcyon years.

I don’t get on with slashers, there is an audience out there who love them, and as far as the spectacle that that fandom has come to expect, Stage Fright doesn’t disappoint. The first murder in the car park sees the unlucky victim hit in the face with a pickaxe, as well as strangulations, stabbings with knives, decapitations with axes and a few people get torn in half by a chainsaw. I have to say, despite having an owl mask hindering his line of sight, the killer is frighteningly efficient. Not only does he make short work of everyone, but he also manages to turn one of those deaths into a trap to lull his captives into a short-lived sense of victory. Not sure why he does this, but the fact that he sits on the stage in full costume surrounded by his handiwork, listening to opera, suggests he is enjoying himself.

“The Summer before Last” I tried to turn around my distaste of slashers around, I managed to watch around 12 movies before the mind-numbing repetition did me in. Coming to this slasher with that context, it’s always an interesting test to find anything else to enjoy beyond the gore. For every identikit slasher, there is another with something deeper; Halloween has its brooding score and cinematography, Black Christmas has its atmosphere and House on Sorority Row has its experimental dream sequences. Adding its name to that company, Stage Fright has the quiet.

The direct genre tricks and gore are there for fans to enjoy. Once we are down to the murderer and the final girl, this gothic building ram-packed with theatre paraphernalia, the entire tone of Stage Fright evolves. That dressing room full of masks? No thanks. That long corridor? A one-way highway to doom. One particular shot in the theatre circles the room in one unbroken 360-degree movement expresses this isolation. Is that a creepy mannequin, or is the murderer biding his time? Likewise, in the many liminal spaces spread throughout this theatre, DoP Renato Tafuri makes wonderful use out of the location’s copious assets. There may be a mood of hopelessness clinging to the air, just one with an impressive sense of style that rarely fails to offer something that isn’t visually compelling. Soavi’s relationship with Argento paid for itself in his directorial debut, you can see the Giallo godfather’s influence all over this 1987 movie. However, once the opera or campy 1980s music stops alongside that missing key – the quiet becomes deafening. This is especially true when Soavi has directed much of the back-half with suffocating tension in mind.

I have talked about my distaste of slashers more than I would have liked to, but for a film to cut through my biases – you know you are onto a winner.

POP SCREEN IS ON ALL GOOD PODCAST APPS

THANK YOU FOR READING ROB’S REVIEW OF STAGE FRIGHT (1987)