Stage Fright / Michele Soavi / Shudder / Brief

 I hadn't watched Soavi's Stage Fright (1987) in quite some time, and my initial plans were to have a fun Italian horror triple feature this Saturday night. But Demons (1985) was a part of that, and I decided after Stage Fright, I wanted to hold off on that until next weekend and devote a Saturday to Demons and Demons 2 (1986). But Stage Fright, despite being very simple in its plotting--as opposed to Soavi's The Church and Dellamorte Dellamore--is as good as most of the slashers of its time. The genre by 1987 was starting to wane, let's face it. I think a lot of us still tries to dynamite the rock and pilfer through the rubble for whatever diamonds might still exist within the 80s slasher genre, hoping a few here or there that we hadn't seen yet might remain. I can't blame slasher fans for the efforts. The 80s as a whole I think is probably the same...we dynamite the rock, desperate for whatever gems might still be hidden within that dark cavern of genre. At any rate, we continue. I guess we always will. But back to Stage Fright: a nutty former actor held in a prison at a mental asylum escapes [natch] by hitching a ride with a stage hand and her buddy, an actress (the lead of the film played by Barbara Cupisti, who would return for Soavi's The Church and Argento's Opera) with a bum ankle. The film will be notable to Italian exploitation fans for the casting of Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a jokester wearing the infamous bird head for the stage production...he's very playful and enthusiastic. But Radice is sadly one of the first to go. Brandon--as the asshole stage production director who is desperate for a hit play that he would exploit the murder of a his stage hand by using her killer's name for his story--gets it really good and I applaud how Soavi has him depart. And that use of a chainsaw really hacks up some human flesh. One scene has Brandon pointing his flashlight into a hole in the floor as the killer buries the chainsaw into a victim's stomach as he screams out in pain...it's grisly. The chainsaw to a shoulder also leaves a hideous mess on an actress. Funnily enough, Soavi and another guy play cops on the lookout in their police car while all the carnage goes on inside the building. Getting the key to unlock the building is what never quite works for the cast until Cupisti gets wise...as the final survivor often does in the slasher genre. The black cat on the loose cracked me up...I heard Crazy Ralph's voice in my head: THEY ARE ALL DOOMED. ***½ / *****

The theater setting I personally feel is what really benefits this film. Because the plot itself just isn't extraordinary, Stage Fright needs something unique to set it apart. I like Stage Fright because of its setting and how a theater production is so intertwined with everything in the film.

This has always been a fun Saturday evening slasher. I generally like to watch it early afternoons on Saturday, though. I am glad Shudder exists for streaming horror fans.