Directed by Michele Soavi
Written by Lew Cooper and Sheila Goldberg
Starring David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, Mary Sellers, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Jo Ann Smith, Robert Gligorov and Piero Vida
Italy, 1987
It wouldn’t be the all night horror movie marathon without a trip to Italy. This year we got STAGE FRIGHT, the tale of a demented and murderous actor who escapes the hospital and picks off the cast and crew of an artsy musical, trapping them in the theater where they’re rehearsing one dark and stormy night.
This movie seems to have something it wants to say about the sometimes abusive nature of show business. The guy with the money behind the play is a lecherous pervert who preys on the actresses and the director of the play is a sadistic dictator who doesn’t care about his cast and crew’s well-being. But none of that stuff ever really factors into the “important” part of the movie – the systematic murder of everyone.
The other problem with the movie is that the entire thing hinges on a contrivance where there’s only one door (for some reason) people could use to escape the theater, and that one door is (inexplicably) locked from the outside? I kept wondering why the future murder victims didn’t just walk out through the lobby. Maybe I missed something.
But what about the positives? Well, the movie is colorful and well shot and the owl mask the killer ends up using to hide his identity is memorable. So it has that going for it, which is nice.
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