Deliria (1987) watch online HD

I recently acquired Italian horror director Michele Soavis Cemetery Man which was released recently for the first time on DVD. I had seen it before, but somehow now it became one of my favorite horror films. It has a style, beauty and grace that many horror films seem to miss nowadays. So naturally I set my eyes on seeing all of Michele Soavis horror films. I had already seen two of them The Church and Cemetery Man, and The Sect isn't out on DVD so I decided to see his only other movie on DVD which is Stagefright. This was Michele Soavis directorial debut, so I didn't really know what to expect. A flawed film made by an at the time rookie? A promising film with glimpses of greatness here and there?

The story is about this group of actors that are putting up a play. They have very little time to practice some of the dance moves and songs so they are all under a lot of pressure. A psycho killer finds his way to the theater and locks everybody inside with absolutely no way out. Then he begins to systematically kill all the actors on the play in some really gruesome ways.

Well its no secret that Soavi was Argentos pupil and I think that out of all of Soavis horror films that I have seen Stagefright is the one in which this is most evident. There's the killers point of view, some strange and interesting camera angles and even an animal themed killer. But thats not a bad thing in my book because eventually Soavi found his own voice and style as evidenced by his last horror film Cemetery Man. Still, Stagefright has a great style and look. What I love the most about Soavis films is that they deal with all these horrible killings, yet the film has a class and a finesse about it that kind of elevates the sleaziness of the slasher genre to a high that it rarely reaches.

Don't get me wrong here, this movie may be artsy and classy, but its still very very much a slasher film. There's some truly brutal deaths here! After the movie sets up its premise the ball gets rolling really fast! Thats one of the things I liked the most about this movie it had a fast pace and wasn't boring in the least! Once the killer puts on that cool as hell Owls Head mask on his noggin things get really gory and interesting. From people being cut in half with chainsaws (great scene man!) to some cool decapitations this movie had me cheering for more! So slasher fans and fiends, you wont be disappointed!

Another excellent thing about this movie was that it wasn't an incoherent mess. I've seen a lot of Lucio Fulci films, a lot of Dario Argento films and a few other Italian directors and they all suffer from the same illness. They cant seem to bring together a story and tell it in a coherent understandable fashion. Not so with Soavis Stagefright. I was surprised at how smoothly the story flowed and I was surprised that I was actually understanding it without any extreme effort. In a sense I would say that Soavi took everything that Argento and Fulci did wrong and did it right. He learned from their mistakes and therefore he is a better filmmaker for it. He is the next step in the evolutionary ladder as far as Italian Horror goes. This might also be why Soavi is heralded as the savior of Italian Horror by many a horror connoisseurs.

So in conclusion, Stagefright is a solidly well directed slasher. One that showed promise for what is one of horrordoms best directors,even though his body of work is comprised of only four movies. I hope Soavi wakes up from that dream soon and delivers us with something as good or better then what he has already done. Soavi you the man! Rating: 5 out of 5

Spoilers I'm not a big fan of the slasher sub-genre; there's too many samey films clogging up the genre and seeing a man with a knife hacking topless babes to bits can be a bit tiresome after a while, believe it or not. This one, however, is a cut above (no pun intended) the majority of other slashers.

Stagefright features an abundance of overly gory and creative death scenes. This, of course, is no bad thing. No bad thing at all. The film's first death scene sees the wardrobe assistant take a pick axe in the face, and that death scene alone beats any of the rather dull methods of death featured in other 80's slashers such as Friday the 13th and The Burning single handed; and it gets better than that...one actress is stabbed to death in front of her director and the rest of the cast; power drills, chainsaws, axes and fire also feature in the movie's vast weapon repertoire. On the subject of the chainsaw; it surely has to be the most under-utilised weapon in horror film history. The tool just cries out to be used to maul and saw up victims, and yet it hasn't had a great deal of screen time over the years considering it's potential. This movie, however, has a lovely chainsaw section which sees limbs get lopped, bodies carved up and an incredible death scene in which the victim has the lower half of her body removed while being rescued from falling down a trapdoor.

This film's main downfall according to some people will be it's characters, script and acting. The characters are paper thin, the script, at times, is badly written (although not throughout) and the acting is wooden to say the least. However, as one doesn't go into an 80's slasher movie expecting Oscar winning performances, Oscar winning scriptwriting and great characters; one can forgive these things. What this movie does have lots of though, is style and atmosphere. It's easy to see the influence that master director Dario Argento has had on his understudy Michele Soavi. Soavi, who would later go on to direct his masterpiece, "Dellamorte Dellamore", piles on the style in this movie. The style is very reminiscent of the sublime, 'Opera', actually, which also came out in the great year that was 1987. One scene in particular, involving the main character hiding out in the shower while one of her co-stars is killed in the next booth is very Opera-esque indeed. The creepy atmosphere in the movie comes mostly as a result of the claustrophobic setting, which is made more claustrophobic when you consider the fact that the characters are locked in with the madman. The creepy atmosphere comes into play again towards the end of the movie when the 'slasher trademark' victim has her final duel with the killer; Soavi is able to build up tension through a series of scenes, including one very suspenseful sequence in particular which the key to building is wrenched out of the stage floorboards in front of the killer. The suspense in the build up the killer's downfall is not wasted, as, unlike so many other films, Soavi is able to build the movie up to a satisfying and exciting conclusion.

Stagefright is an underrated gem, and more than deserves the praise that lesser entries in the slasher sub genre, such as Friday the 13th receive. A creepy exhibition of atmosphere and creative gore; Stagefright comes with the highest recommendation from me.

STAGEFRIGHT aka AQUARIUS is a very stylish chiller from Michele Soavi, whose critical reputation rests on this film and the later CEMETERY MAN.

Certainly the film is derivative, and fans of this subgenre will surely comment that they have seen it all before; however, Soavi, like his mentor Dario Argento, is astute when he chooses the likes of ENNIO MORRICONE; GOBLIN, and now SIMON BOSWELL to score his films.

Boswell's compositions together with the opening and end titles written by Stefano Mainetti propel the film along, and provide an aural edge to the onscreen visuals. And if their contributions were not enough, the inspired, and uncredited use of Dmitri Shostakovich's 8th symphony, 3rd movement ("allegro non troppo"), reflects the imaginative touches that distinguish this film from many others.

The play/film within a film works quite well, especially as the cinema is acknowledged to be the art of illusion; indeed this conceit looks ahead to the two DEMONS films, set in a cinema, where the audience are overwhelmed with illusion become reality.

The acting is more than sufficient as the characters are written as types, and set up as victims, just as the heroine has a personality that sets her apart. Her final scenes with the killer are very effective indeed; her fearfulness make her vulnerable, her vulnerability draws us to her, and in drawing us to her, we submit to the relentless onslaught the killer pursues.

This is a film where the viewer/audience surely knows the outcome, but the satisfaction comes from the execution - literally - of the route that the filmmaker takes.

I now have this film on a budget UK DVD which reveals little - I am playing it back on a 16:9 TV, and am very pleased with the quality of the sound (mono) and the visuals, plus some of the unusual, though rare basic extras.

DELIRIA

(USA/UK: StageFright: Aquarius)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Stereo

A group of actors become trapped in a theatre with a rampaging maniac who has just escaped from the nearby psychiatric clinic...

DELIRIA not only marked the directorial debut of Euro-cult favorite Michele Soavi (billed here as 'Michael' Soavi), it also marked a reunion of several prominent figures from the heyday of Italian exploitation. Produced by renowned sleaze merchant Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi - "Buio Omega", "Emanuelle in America") and written by splatter stalwart George Eastman (Luigi Montefiore - RABID DOGS, ABSURD), and co-starring John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice - CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD), this deceptively modest shocker attempts to subvert many of the clichés associated with 'traditional' slasher movies, and does it with style and grace. Viewers weaned on a diet of bland Hollywood 'horrors' may not succumb immediately to the film's wayward plot developments (including the central device of an off-off-Broadway stage musical which celebrates the very same serial killer who winds up massacring most of the cast!), but once the basic premise has been established, the narrative assumes a near-demonic life of its own.

Beginning with a frankly horrific sequence in which the masked killer is mistaken for an actor during rehearsals and encouraged to 'kill' a female co-star (only to commit the bloody deed for real!), Soavi's direction is razor-sharp and visually appealing. The murders are outlandish and gruesome, though also tragic in places (watch out for a shower sequence which operates both as a suspense set-piece and as a vivid demonstration of human cruelty), and Eastman's clever screenplay strips the characters down to their emotional core, revealing a gamut of fears and prejudices which leave many of them vulnerable to the killer's predations. The climactic sequence - in which a frightened young actress must retrieve an all-important key from its hiding place within inches of the killer's feet - is ghastly, beautiful and terrifying, all at the same time. Outside of these major set-pieces, Soavi's relative inexperience is betrayed by a couple of ragged camera movements and some odd editing choices, while the performances are compromised by flat post-sync dubbing. But overall, the movie is a triumph, one which plays Soavi's mentor Dario Argento at his own game and succeeds beyond all expectations.

(English version)

Firstly, "Stagefright: Aquarius" is not a giallo film. Gialli were not just Italian slashers, they were murder mysteries that owed more to Agatha Christie than Wes Craven. There is literally no mystery in this movie. The identity of the killer is never revealed and isn't even treated as a question. The movie also uses that old slasher stand-by of the inescapable location. A group of people are trapped with a masked killer and have to survive long enough to find a way out. We're not surprised when inexplicably, police park outside the place and don't even try to get in.

That aside, "Stagefright: Aquarius" is certainly a superior slasher. It's made with style, and even boasts a scene of actual suspense, which is more than I can say for all other slashers. It plays by the rules, as with a killer who you keep thinking might be dead but of course really isn't, but is just a lot better made than the typical US slasher movie.

Michele Soavi's feature film debut as a director was this film, Stage Fright (aka Aquarius and Deliria) from 1987. The film was produced by veteran producer, cinematographer and director Aristide Massaccessi aka Joe D'Amato, who is responsible for many hard core porn films, action adventures and horror exploitationers from Anthropophagous the Beast to Buio Omega. Stage Fright is written by Luigi Montefiori aka George Eastman, the man who played the cannibalistic monster in D'Amato's Anthopophagous and Anthropophagous 2: Absurd, so Soavi's debut has many great names in its credits. The actors are also great and include Barbara Cupisti in lead role as Alicia, John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) and the director himself in little role as a police officer. D'Amato gave Soavi pretty much freedom to do this film and he did the right thing by trusting this young talent: the result is fantastic piece of slasher cinema.

A group of stage play actors and crew members are practicing their newest number, a horror musical which seems and sounds by the way pretty interesting. It rains hard and one of the actresses hurts her leg, so she and her friend have to visit the hospital nearby. Everything goes fine, despite the fact that in the same hospital, there is a dangerous psychopath killer in mental health therapy and the same guy committed horrible murder some years ago. When he hears some young females are in the hospital, old memories start come his mind and willing to kill seems to be born again. When the girls return to the set, they soon find themselves trapped inside the huge building and someone killing them one by one. This is the structure of this film, and even though it sounds very usual, the film is very noteworthy and made by talented people.

There are great visuals in this film, and it is easy to see Soavi had been working with Argento before his own directorial career. There are twisted camera drives and angles and many little, but more than effective details, which are also among the elements that make Argento's masterpieces so great. There are many worth mentioning scenes and details in Soavi's film, and one is definitely the use of dummies especially at the very end of the film. They are so incredibly ominous at the end scene that it seems like which of the dummies is just dummy and which the killer! Totally stunning imagery and Soavi reminds me of another great horror director, Scott Spiegel, whose films are also full of little but effective details and crazy camera angles/drives. Spiegel is perhaps more positively crazy director than Soavi, who is pretty calm director, but they definitely share this unique style and innovation in their film making.

There are many scenes that will scare the viewer especially if the film is viewed in peace and alone in the dark, as recommended. The mask the killer wears is very scary and also many memorable scenes include that mask. The tension lasts throughout the film and Soavi really does great job by using visuals and also music in creating atmosphere and tension so rarely found in nowaday horror efforts. The murders themselves are very gruesome, but also very stylish and not too gratuitous, and that is another thing Soavi has learned without a doubt from Argento. The murders in Stage Fright are gory at times, and they may offend some viewers, but still I think they only serve the film as a whole, since the scenes are horrific without showing too much. I had seen the film previously on murky and bad quality VHS which didn't reveal as near as many little details than the version I saw now. Soavi shows very little at times, but it is much more than if he had shown "more"!

The only negative thing in this extraordinary film I found is the ending, since I don't know what it's all about. I mean the character who stays repeating line "Right between the eyes.." What is the point in this since it is so stupid and gratuitous, especially when the characters are mostly pretty believable and personal in this film. I would like to ask Montefiori, why he included such stupid ending in his screenplay, since it tones a little bit down the whole film and I really was left wondering what's the point in this repeating.

The stupid end is easy to forgive since there are so many positive things about this film. I really appreciate Soavi's work on this film, and also on his other films, like La Setta (Sect), La Chiesa (The Church) which are his films I've also seen. Hopefully this talent manages to continue his personal line and do more films, despite the fact that as a horror/fantasy director, Italy is not as great place to live and work as possible. Stage Fright deserves 9/10 from me.

Four films might be too little to judge, but I think Michele Soavi is the best Italian horror director since Mario Bava. Regarding several aspects, his visions and attitude surpass those of praised directors like Lamberto Bava, Umberto Lenzi and even Dario Argento. Stagefright has got a simple plot (much simpler that those in Soavi's later movies) but that makes it all the more accessible and enjoyable. The plot involves an escaped lunatic who stumbles into a theater where a group is rehearsing an artistic play. The mentally weak man, unable to separate reality from his own demented imagination, considers himself to be at home and violently begins to annihilate cast and crew. Even though the premise is perfect for sinking low in gore slashing, Soavi prefers to focus on creating tense situations and making you feel one with the characters and – as a result of this – petrified as well. The stylishly filmed sets and efficient scenery makes it feel like you're watching a more sophisticated version of Bava's "Demons". This is exactly what makes him such a brilliant director! Give him little and he still manages to deliver a fully equipped horror film. Call me nuts, but I think there are directors who actually have the talent to make violence look like art…and Soavi definitely is one of them. Stagefright has a terrific musical score and a few familiar faces in the cast. Most memorable appearance unquestionably is made by Giovanni Lombardo Radice. This Italian cult actor appears in multiple gore highlights and practically always comes to a horrible end… Stagefright comes with the highest possible recommendation. In case you dug this film, you're ready for Soavi's "the Sect" and "Dellamorte Dellamore".

Michele Soavi's debute film was this wonderful Italian horror film that's simply one of the best slasher films ever made!

Cast and crew of a stage production find themselves locked inside their theater with an escaped homicidal maniac!

Stylish and colorful direction highlight this excellent giallo film. Soavi makes the most of his clever cinematic techniques with inventive camera work and nice set pieces. Soavi has obviously taken a page from director Dario Argento in his artsy directorial style. He turns the dank catacombs of the theater into a dark, shadowy playground for our killer, who wears a truly spooky owl's head. Soavi sets up an atmosphere of great tension, setting the occurrences during a thunderstorm, using great re-occurring imagery and making even the huge theater a claustrophobic trap for our cast. There's some great moments of smart suspense as well, like the sequence with Alicia under the stage.

Being a giallo film, there's a lot of bloody scenery to be had. There's plenty of vicious, memorable murder sequences that will please any gore-hound to no end!

The cast is pretty good, even if they are dubbed something fierce. Barbara Cupisti is fetching as the films leading lady. The film boasts a weird and beautiful rock score that has a awesome contrast with the films visuals.

All in all, Stage Fright aka Deliria is a top-notch film that's a true must-see for horror fans everywhere!

*** 1/2 out of ****

A psychotic former actor named Irving Wallace (Clain Parker) escapes from a mental hospital and hides away in an actress's car. After being driven to a theatre where a group of actors are rehearsing a play he quickly dispatches the actress, and then proceeds to lock himself in the theatre for a gruesome night of blood shed.

Italian director Michele Soavi directed this artistic and gory slasher movie. Bypassing the usual clichés of 80's slashers, ‘StageFright' is a welcome change from the likes of ‘Friday the 13th'. Though the plot does on occasion stretch the lines of credibility there is a persistent feeling of realism created by the way that Soavi is able to manipulate the characters and his exceptionally intelligent use of the soundtrack. Soavi makes the soundtrack an integral part of the movie by having parts of it actually in the world in which his characters reside. This means that the killer is able to manipulate (to a point) when music is played in order to instil terror in the viewer, as well as his victims. Many movies have used a similar effect but few have been able to use it as proficiently and inventively as ‘StageFright'. The soundtrack itself is very fitting to the way the film is paced. Soavi astutely blends a fast-paced and exciting first hour with a more methodical, suspense-driven finale. The integration of the pace changes is virtually seamless and really adds to the effect Soavi attempts to create.

David Brandon and Barbara Cupisti head up the cast and portray their characters very well. Brandon's portrayal of the merciless, but soon remorseful, Peter is of a very convincing standard and certainly compliments the constant ominous atmosphere of the movie itself. Although the cast may not be the most talented of performers, none of them really failed in putting in a respectable portrayal of their different characters. One highlight was the casting of perennial victim Giovanni Lombardo Radice (credited as John Morghen) in the role of the rather camp Brett. Radice adds a small, but welcome, element of humour to the movie with his multiple quips and snide remarks towards other cast members of the play. The humour, however, rarely takes priority over the main story and once the killing begins, the humour is all but gone. The murders themselves are brutal and effective. A wide range of weapons are used to kill off the cast in extremely bloody ways, from a knife all the way to the beloved chainsaw. In my opinion it was a shame that the killer wore such a ridiculous looking costume but this did not really have any negative impact on a somewhat harrowing movie.

There were some sporadic moments of badly written dialogue and the occasional inconceivable situation but none of that really harms ‘StageFright'. The movie is a very artistic and imaginative slasher that is executed better than the majority of slashers from the same era. The death scenes are generally inventive and particularly bloody. The special effects are also, generally, of a very high quality and succeed in adding more realism to an already fairly realistic movie. Unfortunately, there are few scenes that could be deemed as scary but ‘StageFright' excels at being an atmospheric horror movie. Stylish and artistically directed, good performances and for the most part well written. I recommend this movie! My rating for ‘StageFright' – 7.5/10.

The flick deals with a theatre of death in which a maniacal serial killer attempts to cover his trail by joining the cast (David Brandon , Barbara Cupisti , Mary Sellers , among others) of a play about mass murder . There happens several bloody murders and gruesome executions . A troupe of struggling cast members is rehearsing for a small-town production of a play. Everything seems to be as it should until one of the stage actors appears dead. In a panic, the others attempt to get out, only to find they are now locked in the theater with the murderous. As the other players soon have more to worry about than remembering their lines .

Michele Soavi's first great success is compellingly directed with startling visual content . This frightening movie is plenty of thrills, chills, high body-count and glimmer color in lurid pastel with phenomenal results . This is a classic slasher where the intrigue, tension, suspense appear threatening and lurking in every room, corridors and stage interior and exterior . Interesting screenplay was written by 'Lew Cooper', one of numerous pseudonyms that writer/actor George Eastman uses , in actuality Eastman's real name is Luigi Montefiore . The thrilling of the story is to find out which one of them committed the murder, and who will get out alive.

The movie belongs to Italian Giallo genre , Mario Bava (¨Planet of vampires¨, ¨House of exorcism¨) along with Riccardo Freda (¨Secret of Dr. Hitchcock¨ , ¨Il Vampiri¨) are the fundamental creators . These Giallo movies are characterized by usual zooms and utilization of images-shock with magenta shades of ochre and overblown use of color in shining red blood , translucently pale turquoises and deep orange-red . Later on , there appears Dario Argento (¨Deep red¨, ¨Suspiria¨,¨Inferno¨), another essential filmmaker of classic Latino terror films and finally Michele Soavi . Soavi was given a chance as an assistant director by director Aristide Massaccesi (aka: Joe D'Amato). In their first film, Soavi acted in an uncredited part, and was the assistant director. Over four more films with Massaccesi, Soavi served as a bit part actor, screenwriter and personal assistant . As Soavi, wanting to get on his own, turned to his previous mentor Aristide Massaccesi to show off his work where the filmmaker offered Soavi a chance to direct his first movie, and finally made this ¨Aquarius¨ or ¨Stagefright¨(1987) , produced by the prolific Joe D'Amato , a typical low-grade terror , even his his second big film project called La Chiesa (1988) had a budget three to four times the budget of ¨Stagefright¨ , with Argento as the producer . Although ¨Aquarius¨ was a box-office flop in Italy, it was a success abroad . Despite the low budget , equivalent to under $1 million U.S. dollars, and low-production values, the picture turns out to be a passable slasher , including some exciting surprises . This genuinely mysterious story is well photographed by Tafuri, though being necessary a right remastering . Furthermore , includes a poor editing involving the soundtrack by means of synthesizer , however resulting to be sometimes atmospheric and frightening musical score composed by Simon Boswell, among others .

The motion picture was well directed by Michael Soavi , remembered to this day as one of the many masters of Italian Horror cinema as a director, screenwriter, actor, and assistant director. Soavi first met writer/director Dario Argento in 1979 where the director took Soavi under his wing after learning of their same tastes with film making. Argento made Soavi the second assistant director for the movie Tenebre (1982) with Lamberto Bava as the first assistant director. Pleased with his work, Bava hired Soavi as his assistant director for the mystery-thriller A Blade in the Dark (1983) with Soavi in a supporting role. Afterwards, Argento brought back Soavi to work as his assistant director in Phenomena (1985) with Soavi acting in a small role. Argento rewarded Soavi by giving him his first assignment as director of a music video "The Valley" featuring music by Bill Wyman for the movie Phenomena, plus as director for a documentary on Argento's films. Soavi worked again for Lamberto Bava as assistant director in Demoni (1985) in which Soavi also appeared. Soavi began to look elsewhere for work where he was hired as an assistant director and cameraman for British actor/director Terry Gilliam with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). With new skills, Soavi returned to Argento as a supervisor for special effects in Ópera (1987) where Argento offered him to direct another film, a horror flick titled La Chiesa (1988) and filmed on location in Budapest . The international success of The Church inspired Soavi to direct another film, The Sect (1990). Soavi worked on a number of screenplays, and directed the horror-comedy Cemetery Man (1994) which was a huge hit in the USA. Afterwards, Soavi took a break from working to spend time with his wife and family. Recently, he returned to filmmaking with two made-for-Italian-TV dramas . Aquarius rating : Good, this is an imaginative and acceptable picture in which the camera stalks in sinister style throughout a story with magnificent visual skills.

It may be an orthodox slasher film by a first time director and influenced obviously by Dario Argento but it is a gripping film from beginning to end. A psychopathic killer escapes a mental hospital and ends up in a theatre where a dance troupe are rehearsing their upcoming production. What follows is a heady brew of suspense and gore. It is very well shot and the music, which mainly is the strange music used in the production, adds immeasurably to the atmosphere. The killer wears a creepy owl mask and doesn't utter a word which makes him even more disturbing. It is a simple story but there are some tense scenes and the late scene with the finding of the key is immaculately staged, mixing terror with visual beauty to great effectiveness.

It's difficult to assess the acting in a dubbed version but the cast were scared and hysterical and brave in the right proportion. Michele Soavi directs with an assured hand and Renato Tafuri provides splendid cinematography. One used to have great affection for owls but after watching this film I've begun to have doubts....

I last saw this film several years ago on YouTube, and in less than stellar quality. At that time I was not a great admirer of Soavi, perhaps because I was hoping for Dario Argento Jr. and got something different. Since becoming a huge fan of Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), however, I've been planning to re-watch his other films, and now I'm finally getting around to it. This is Soavi's feature debut - before this he cut his teeth as assistant director to Argento, Lamberto Bava, and Joe D'Amato - and here we can see the influence of these various mentors. The flamboyant camera-work and imagery certainly bring Argento to mind, while the premise (an acting troupe gets locked inside a theater with a serial killer) is reminiscent of Bava's Demons (1985). The material isn't so similar to D'Amato's work, but we have him to thank for the film's existence (and for Soavi's directorial career, since he was perfectly content to remain an assistant director), since he produced it and hired Soavi.

As a director Soavi hadn't quite found his own voice yet - he's very imitative of Argento here - but to his credit he conjures imagery worthy of the master. No one who has seen this film will forget the bizarre owl mask donned by the killer (an image that would not be out of place in Franju's Judex), and the scene of him sitting on stage with the posed bodies of his victims, tranquilly stroking a cat as feathers descend on them like snowflakes, is one of the most indelible in the whole of Italian horror. What already sets Soavi apart from Argento is his cheeky humor. The comic relief scenes in Argento's films generally come across as rather clumsy and awkward (e.g. the befuddled mailman from Four Flies on Grey Velvet), but Soavi is consistently clever. The opening scene, for instance, thwarts our expectations to great comic effect. Still Soavi knows how to stage an effective death scene, and he doesn't hold back on the red stuff, but even the most horrible scenes tend to have a touch of black humor. One bit I particularly liked involved one of the characters spilling stage-blood all over the dressing room; as their friend is drilled to death, his blood starts to drip onto the fake stuff. I can't help but wonder if this is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the phony-looking blood in most Italian horror films.

The cast is quite strong: Barbara Cupisti is a sympathetic heroine, David Brandon is brilliant as the temperamental director (perhaps Soavi was drawing on his experiences with Argento here), and Giovanni Lombardo Radice is pretty amusing as a flamboyantly gay actor. Special praise must be singled out to the actor playing the silent masked killer (IMDb claims that it's exploitation legend George Eastman), who projects great presence simply through the use of his body language - I'd favorably compare him to Lon Chaney.

The experience between my first and second viewings of this little gem is truly night and day. This is not just an astoundingly good film for a first time director, but a minor masterpiece of the genre. Dario Argento must have thought so as well; Opera bears some striking similarities to it, and Argento would subsequently enlist Soavi to direct The Church (1989) and The Sect (1991).

Stage Fright Aquarius is a truly remarkable artistic giallo film from Michael Soavi. The storyline, following a group working on a stage play, made a great spooky setting. This film almost seemed like an upper-scale U.S. slasher flick. I also loved some of the camera movement techniques that created weird disorienting scenes with the addition of the unsettling music score. Scenes involving the killer owl were great, just the right amount of carnage that wasn't over the top. How can I forget the girls in the movie, they are super attractive as well, all wearing skimpy outfits for their stage performance. One aspect of the film I found pretty lousy though was Pete's character. He received bad dialog and was written questionable motives. All and all, I watched the movie in one sitting and was absolutely glued to the television screen. Stage Fright Aquarius (8/10) is tense throughout and has an amazing ending that is definitely a nice cherry on top.

We have all seen Stagefright before; it's a predictable typical slasher with an unconvincing killer and young pretty people being axed off though this hasn't been done by Michele Soavi. The most noteworthy elements of the film are the camera-work, cinematography, score and it's violent, brutal deaths which are ranked by horror fanatics as some of the most vicious kills in the slasher sub-genre. It isn't a movie to be taken seriously and a massive 1980's cheese-fest which is what makes it so fantastic.

First off, what Stagefright fails at is classic slasher rules; drugs, sex and language which is all absent from this movie. However I don't think the Guide to Making a Slasher Handbook was Soavi's inspiration as this is, after all, a directional debut. This isn't another Friday the 13th and it isn't another Sleepaway Camp – this is a Michele Soavi movie loaded with outrageous, loopy visuals, bizarre dialogue, bad acting and savage murders. When Soavi came out to the film industry as "Argento's protégé" he really meet expectations and Stagefright along with later films such as The Church and Cemetery Man go to prove it. Yes it does not have naked bodies, the characters are not drug inducing menaces and there is a lack of foul language but so what – this is far better than a lot of other slashers that came out in the 80's because it is just so fun and we can thank Soavi's style for that.

Whilst the movie is completely silly it's still entertaining, especially for the eyes. The visuals are completely wonderful with cinematography exposing colour through the lens in a flamboyant fashion, especially when all the characters in the film are wearing such eccentric clothes. The camera-work is professionally solid and stands out, the panning is soft, the stills are (not always) very still and it's the style of camera-work one would assume would come from Argento's protégé. The score is 1980's cheese but it works a wonder and it fits well in a movie such as Stagefright, it's also a hoot to listen to as you watch a woman being torn in half from the waist down.

I will not spoil the deaths in this review. There are some really nasty eye opening kills in this movie which are illogical, nonsensical and completely derivative but that's Italian Horror for you, and as a matter of fact – that's the movies for you. If someone is into violent slashers then this is perhaps the film you've been looking for though the movie isn't overflowing with gore and eye cringing kills which can be a letdown for gore fanatics.

Stagefright is typically predictable like one would find in any slasher, but it offers something quite unique – it's artistic cinematic elements are fantastic, the music is a thrill ride to listen to, it's easy to watch, the characters are all wearing eccentric 80's fashion like you'd expect from a metropolis stage performer in that era and its environment is at least not a camp, beach, cemetery, small town, or anything you've seen one hundred times before in a film which requires the protagonist to take of their clothes. Stagefright is another run of the mill slasher, but it is Michele Soavi's run of the mill slasher and that is what makes it unique. It's cheese but it isn't like this movie is taking itself serious, so sit back and enjoy this reminder of what Italian slashers were like in the 1980's.

Stageright is possibly one of the greatest slasher/horror films virtually no one has ever seen, which is why I so strongly reccomend you do some searching for a copy. Stagefright tells a simplistic tale (one which verges on cliche, but fortunately manages to avoid the pratfalls of the formulaic slasher film) of a group of thespians whom are currently working on a theatrical production, a musical about a serial murderer. As this occurs, so does the escape of a crazed actor/murderer from the local insane asylum whom happened to brutally kill his co-star several years back in the same theater. He returns to wreak his vengeance upon the cavernous rehearsal hall's new inhabitants, donning an owl mask and weilding a variety of lethal impliments of destruction.

As you can see, there really isn't much to Stagefright in terms of plot, but this aspect does not work against Stagefright, it proves to be an asset. Due to the lack of contrived subplots and red herrings, director Michele Soavi (this film was his debut, proving just how strong of a director he is) can concentrate on the magnificent atmosphere and carnage that ensues. Speaking of carnage, Stagefright not only offers some marvelous suspense/tension , but some great gore. The score only helps to accenutate the mood of the movie and while the characters may be two-dimensional, the aformentioned aspects of Stagefright surpass them. Stagefright is recommended definitively.

Grade: A

In Michele Soavi's classy 80s slasher Stagefright, a troupe of struggling actors are trapped overnight in a theatre; one by one they are bumped off by an escaped mental patient sporting an owl mask and wielding a nifty selection of sharp implements and power tools.

Soavi gives us a brilliantly tense movie that makes maximum use of its locale, using lighting, theatre sets and shadowy areas to great effect. There are plenty of creepy moments, some genuine scares and loads of nice bloody FX for the gore-hounds. Fans of Italian horror might notice some similarities in style between this movie and some of Dario Argento's giallo films; this should come as no surprise, since Soavi worked as an assistant to Argento, and obviously learnt a thing or two about shooting a great murder scene. He even uses synth maestro Simon Boswell, who worked on Argento's Phenomena, to create the atmospheric score.

There are one or two moments which stop this film from being perfect (in particular, an unnecessary prologue with a 'shock' ending), but Stagefight still manages to impress with its splattery death scenes and stylish direction.

STAGE FRIGHT is another original take on a common theme by Italian director, Michel Soavi. Typically working with common genres, Soavi infuses his own stylish take on horror films which is a welcome change over many of the dull, derivative "knock-offs" that are usually done. Soavi did the same thing with DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE (another great film...) where he took the zombie genre and stood it on it's head, taking common themes and elements and transforming them into something new and refreshing. Although STAGE FRIGHT isn't a "unique" film in terms of the slasher genre, Soavi makes it more fun and interesting with his own unique twists...

The story is about an escaped mental patient who terrorizes a dance troupe who are locked in their rehearsal studio. Being that this is a slasher film at least partly in the "classical" sense, the members of the troupe are knocked off one-by-one in pretty original fashion.

One of the main strengths in STAGE FRIGHT are Soavi's obviously intelligent and competent direction. The film has pretty high production value, and the uncut DVD is transferred beautifully. My main gripe is in the sound level settings, where a good bit of the dialog is very quiet, and then when music plays it's exponentially louder than the dialog tracks. Not a big deal, but I had to constantly adjust the volume to hear the dialog during the dialog scenes, and then turn it down so that I didn't blow my ears out during scenes that had music. Speaking of the music, the score is typical early 80's Italian, with weird rock/synth instrumentals that sound like a weird, watered-down Billy Idol song. Not my favorite choice as far as scores go, but not a big deal either, and pretty typical of Italian horror films of that era. The plot in STAGE FRIGHT also had some decent twists, and the gore, although not extremely heavy, is far better than your average U.S.theatrical release. Overall, one of the better of the slasher films, highly recommended for fans of the genre - 8.5/10

As an horror fan knows, movies that truly creep you out and make you tense are far too few in existence. This film stands as one of the greatest slasher films made.

Soavi doesn't use the cheap tricks(except the black cat jump out in the beginning, but I swear that was put in as a joke) to gain scares, he uses atmosphere and a more human killer. The sets used in this film made me giddy when scenes would start. When our heroine awakens at the end and walks out to look upon an entirely black and blue set, knowing the killer is hidden somewhere in the theatre, I just cringed with happiness and fear. Soavi doesn't waste our time in this one either, he doesn't worry about creating a mystery of the killers identity, we learn very early on much like we did in "Halloween" and then we start the killings. What I find so great about the film, is that he doesn't try the fear involving jump outs, he creates tension. That is the reason I love this film so much, and why "Halloween" also stands as one of my top slasher flicks. He creates situations that you can imagine yourself being in, and that is where the constant fear comes from. Things like the guy left behind in the freshly pitch black theatre collecting his money as the rest of the group runs off without him. Along with that we have the girl who locks herself in a dressing closet to avoid the killer in the costume room. My favorite scene though would have to be after the heroine wakes up, she finds her way to the back and walks down a black and dimly lit very LONG hallway with doors on either side and the camera pans with her, following each step, this entire scene had my stomach jumping with delight. The killer is also human in this which is a relief. He is not all knowing, with each person he kills it is entirely believable that anyone could have found them there. Whether it be from the noise they made, or the fact that he was watching them all along, you won't see anyone disappear and hide only to have the killer somehow be directly behind them. I am a sucker for atmosphere movies and more realistic situations, if you like either, check this out :)

But you must give negative credit where it is due also, so here is some of that. It seems as if with each point we reached that needed to tell a plot point in order to advance the story, the plot points just don't make sense. In the beginning when the two girls decide that a minor sprained ankle is worth sneaking out to a mental institute to get it looked at just seemed like a very rushed and a kind of "who cares, it works" idea. The director telling the girl to hide the keys was also very stupid to me, why didn't he just hide them himself? Is not like he would have been tempted to leave. And the last I can think of right now, when our heroine is knocked out(an important point) it is done so in an exceptionally lame, and in a manner that makes no sense at all. There are a few more scenes that just make you say "What? why??", but I guess it does work, because it is minor in comparison to the rest of the film.

A group of actors is locked inside a theater after one of their crew members is killed. Unknown to them, the killer is inside the building and the first one to die has the only key outside hidden. This could be their last night alive.

Michele Soavi has made one of the greatest horror films of all time with "Dellamorte Dellamore", and this one -- his first feature -- is not far behind. The acting is superb, the directing keen, and while the slasher genre is riddled with plenty of bland entries, particularly by the time this came out, Soavi keeps it fresh and new here. I have the utmost respect for his work, and the slasher genre in general... could this be the ultimate slasher? Italian horror critic Jim Harper calls this film "a well-constructed and visually impressive film that stands out as one of the highlights of Italian horror in the late 1980s." I could not agree more. Horror, and Italian horror specifically, has more misses than hits... and by the end of the 1980s was a dying subgenre. Soavi kept the fire alive, at least for a few more years than it would have survived on its own (Argento, as great as he his, cannot bear the entire burden of Italian cinema alone). The "visually impressive" part is quite true, as Soavi uses colors to his advantage throughout this one... a technique he likely picked up from Argento.

Fans will recognize actor John Morghen, whom Harper calls "waspish", the darling of the Italian horror world. Sadly, unlike past performances, Morghen dies off relatively early in the film and is not given the on-screen death he deserves. (Interestingly, I read an interview with Morghen where he has trashed the horror film and its fans... one wonders why he has made so many and why he shows up at conventions throughout America.) I have to give credence to Simon Boswell's rocking 1980s score. Some reviewers look back now, and knock Boswell for his inclusion of heavy metal into this and other films (such as "Phenomena" or the "Demons" films). Let's be clear, this is not Boswell's doing. The directors at the time did this. I don't really know why. But unlike the others, I don't mind it... it really gives a pumping rhythm to what could otherwise be a slower-feeling film.

Fans of horror, slashers, Italian films, Soavi, etc. all need to put this on their list. And if it doesn't already exist, there needs to be a demand for a special edition disc. To my knowledge, there really isn't such a thing yet, and that's a shame. Soavi is often forgotten behind his predecessors, but he is much greater than generally perceived.

A stage production comes under siege of a serial killing actor(notorious for shopping up 16 different victims to pieces with an axe)named Irving Wallace who has escaped the holding cell of a psychiatric hospital. After a stagehand is killed with a pickax, the director quietly decides to continue his stage production out of desperation for his sagging career and a good payday. He informs actress Corinne(Loredana Parrella)to lock the exit/entrance door and hide the key. Of course, she's the next female victim to be killed, viciously stabbed by Wallace, who hides under the hawk head of actor Brett(Giovanni Lombardo Radice, really playing his prototypical homosexual prankster to the hilt in scene-stealing fashion). So the crew who decided to stay on and continue the play are trapped in the building! If that isn't inspired, I don't know what is. The rest of the film has the crew trying to stay close together and alive as Wallace roams the building with various weapons he confiscated from a workshop(including a drill which penetrates the stomach of one victim, a chainsaw which cuts one fellow's arm clean off and cuts two more poor helpless souls in half, and stabs another quite viciously with a blade). The female protagonist is Alicia(Barbara Cupisti), an actress fired from the leading role when she escaped from the building for a while to get her bruised ankle looked at(coincidently by a doctor at the psychiatric hospital;Wallace hid in the backseat of Alicia and her stagehand friend's car). They do remember a skeleton key being placed in an office desk drawer which might be their only means out of the building. Soon, the killer will have it and Alicia will have to use her brains to get out of the building or else.

Director Soavi himself plays one of the cops stationed outside the building in the car supposedly to guard them from further harm..he has a novel with the photo of James Dean printed on it wondering to his partner if he resembles the Hollywood legend.

Not exactly original, but a pulse-pounding gore-thriller nonetheless. Soavi was establishing himself here staying close to the genre of his predecessors. He'd later make his own path with Dellamorte Dellamore. Stagefright is very stylish with a rather silly ending that just won't quit.

I remember buying this movie 3 years ago for £5 along with the brilliant "A Blade In The Dark" along with the lackluster "The Drom That Dripped Blood (UK titled Pranks)" and the incredibly dull "Drive In Massacre" and I have to say I was very pleased with this one, I thought this movie was fun and cheesy.

Firstly the plot a group of actors rehearsing for a what seems a bad horror like musical end up being trapped in a theatre with an escaped mental patient who was also once an actor whose hell bent on murder as they all do in these types of movies along with his weird and cheesy owl mask teaching these actors the true meaning of the word Stagefright.

Although this movie is far from original well what Slasher is, but Stagefright never disappoints. Although fairly routine, a bunch of useless brainless people trapped in an enclosed area which strangely enough doesn't have any fire exits being picked off by the ruthless killer with an owl mask one by one until finally having the final showdown with the final girl. In my opinion the movie is spot on like the directing, the lighting and the music score.

Some of the scenes in this movie I thought were great was the part when the killer sits on the stage surrounding himself with all his victims and when the final girl finds the key which is a few inches away from his feet and she has to go underneath the stage to get it, which I thought was really nerve racking. On a sour note, the film does sport a dumb "cops parked outside" filler subplot that didn't bring anything to the story except atrocious lines and failed humour.

But on a whole this movie does have some faults like the acting is pretty laughable and some of they're actions in certain parts were stupid.

Barbara Cupisti (Alicia) wasn't that great of an actress and the scene when she's supposed to have a sprained ankle but still manages to run away from the killer and climb up ladders, but I still rooted for her in the end and she was the best looking babe out of the bunch. David Brandon (Peter) well I thought he was a bit over the top.

The best thing about this movie were defiately the deaths, the first death pickaxe in the mouth was definitely memorable, a man getting drilled through the door is just one of the highlights such as the head chopping bit, a girl getting cut in two along with some bloody stabbings.

All in all this movie does have faults but if you're into Slashers that don't take themselves to seriously then try this out, it's not overlong which is a good thing, the suspense is high as is the body count. 7/10

I won't budge on my opinion of this film! It is the single best slasher film of the 80's. No other film that I can think of created such a menacing, downright spooky atmosphere for me. The plot revolves around a group of actors who are rehearsing for a musical that is about a serial killer. However, the actors are unaware that a real serial killer has escaped from a near by mental hospital and has made his way to the theater by hiding in the car of one of the actresses. The wardrobe woman is brutally murdered, causing the sleazy director to take full advantage of the publicity by locking the actors in the theatre and pushing the opening of the musical to just 2 days away! His greed turns out to be a deadly mistake when the killer locks himself in with the cast and begins picking them off on by one in very gruesome ways. First off, the custom that the killer wears, a giant owl (it will make sense if you see the movie) is freaky as hell! The visions of the giant owl carrying an axe down the dark corridors of the old theatre are about as scary as anything you will see in any film. But what is most effective about this film and what sets it high above any of the American counterparts that it was inspired by is the direction. Michael Soavi manages to create a dark, moody, and clausterphobic atmosphere that is indeed more scary and gruesome then the murders themselves. The director really focuses on style and atmosphere, rather than making the murders the focal point of the film, like so many slasher movies from the 80's did. The final showdown between the heroine and the killer and her search for the key to the outside creates an unprecedented tension for a slasher film. For coming so late in the 80's, this film succeeds at what other slasher released before it (Friday the 13th, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, Slumber Party Massacre) so desperately tried to be. A 9.5 out of 10. Near perfection for a slasher film.

From the get-go "StageFright" is playing with expectations. Like many giallos, we open with a working girl plying her trade on the mean streets. Out of the shadows, hands emerge, pulling her back. Simon Boswell's frantic electro-jazz score begins playing. The killer, dressed in an absurd owl mask, leaps from the alleyway, rolling on the ground. Everyone begins to dance, in exaggerated fashion. The camera pulls back, revealing the city as a set, the setting as a stage. This is akin to what Mario Bava did in "Black Sabbath," revealing the artifice of the film format. If we read the rest of the opening in this light, "StageFright" shows the Italian film industry in miniature. The director is an artist, determined to push taboos. The financiers cares not at all for the director's vision, only if his investment is returned. The actresses are pushed through the meat grinder, degraded. The entire production is rushed, its première only a week away. Considering director Michele Soavi worked for years in the Italian film industry as an assistant director, he can no doubt attest personally to the stuff that goes down on a low budget set.

Despite its deeply European sensibilities, "StageFright" is not a true giallo. The identity of the killer is known from the beginning while the police play a small role. Instead, the film owes more to the most American of subgenres: The slasher. With so many depended on formula, many slashers are set apart by their setting. An empty theater proves a fantastic setting for bloody slashery. The premise is right in-line with the genre: A theater trope, doing late night rehearsals, are unknowingly locked in with a brutal killer. The unstoppable killer wears a silly mask and offs everyone in brutal ways, utilizing numerous weapons. The cast is large and loosely defined. An actress is pregnant with the sound technician's child, the leading man is flamboyantly gay, the director is trying to sleep with all of his actresses. It's not really important. "StageFright" even throws in an improbable spring-loaded cat.

Despite fitting in perfectly with its slasher brethren, the style of "StageFright" is undeniably Italian. Soavi's studying under Argento is hugely apparent sometimes. Soavi's camera swoops around the theater, taking a frantic first-person perspective. The camera swings from a deadly pickax, crash-zooms on raised knives, and shows red paint mingling with spilled blood. The style is A-grade. When the killer finds the work shop, shown from his perspective, blatantly recalls "Deep Red." Soavi even directly goofs on Dario, either copying or parodying the "man behind a man" reveal from "Tenebre." Boswell's score isn't exactly Goblin-esque. The mixture of hard rock and electronic tones still recalls earlier Italian genre films, frequently powering the action.

The film blatantly links horror with opera, mixing murder and dance choreography. The kill sequences continue the Italian tradition of stylized gore. An actress is stabbed repeatedly on stage, calling the audience out on their voyeurism. A man is impaled through a door with a giant, spiraling drill-bit, gore spilling on the floor. A woman is cleaved straight in two through a floorboard, a helpless body pulled out. "StageFright" doesn't mess around. Irving Wallace gets a chainsaw. We see an arm sawed off in clear view, followed by a full-on decapitation, the head rolling across the floor. For all its stylization, "StageFright" is intensely, explicitly gory.

Unlike most slashers, who space their kills out over a ninety minute run time, Irving Wallace has eliminated most of the cast by the hour mark. Practically a very gory satire for its first hour, "StageFright" takes a definite tonal shift. The final girl is left completely alone in a theater with a viscous serial killer. The film becomes a series of jitteringly intense near-encounters. Alicia cowers in a shower stall, the killer attacking another girl in the adjacent stall. Because the design of the killer's mask, you can never be sure what he's seeing. The hallways strike you as very small, very tight. The theater becomes very quiet, Alicia aware of how much noise she is making.

One extended sequence in "StageFright" will always stick with me. The music drops out, the camera slowly revolving around the entire auditorium. The killer arranges his victim's bodies on stage, smearing each with feathers, tossing a mannequin head off. Irving Wallace sits down, patting the cat in his lap, head down. The key to unlock door, Alicia's way out of this nightmare, sits in the slots of the stage. She crawls under the stage, slowly trying to wiggle the key down into her arm, worried about drawling the cat and the killer's attention. I truthfully, without hyperbola, believe it to be one of the most intense sequences ever put to film. After its torturous conclusion, the scene climaxes with a phenomenal jump-scare, one that always gets me no matter how many times I see the film. The catwalk encounter that follows is great as well, powered by the rock score and making good use of an axe and extension cord, but can't compare to the edge-of-your-seat intensity of the previous scene. Even if the rest of "StageFright" wasn't so good, the film would always be great because of that moment.

The final scene returns to the earliest moments meta qualities. Soavi cribs from Argento again, the protagonist remembering back to an earlier scene, searching for a clue. The killer is put down, shot in the head. However, at the last second, blood oozing from the bullet wound, he looks to the camera and smiles. It's a winking acknowledgment of the cliché of the immortal slasher killer as well as pointing out, once again, the artifice of the film format. "StageFright" is a very underrated Italian horror effort, one of the eighties best, frequently overlooked. I adore this one. "Cemetery Man' is Michele Soavi's masterpiece but "StageFright" was the film that proved he was a master.

"Stagefright" is one of the best giallos and slashers around.

**SPOILERS**

Rehearsing for a new play, Alicia, (Barbara Cupisti) Betty, (Ulrike Schwerk) Danny, (Robert Gligorov) Corrine, (Loredana Perrella) Brett, (Giovanni Lamberto Radice) Laurel, (Mary Sellers) and Sybil, (Jo Ann Smith) are all displeased to learn director Peter Carter, (David Brandon) isn't happy with their performances. When she hurts herself in show, she and a friend quietly leave to get it treated, mistaking a mental hospital for the real thing. Returning back feeling better, a brutal murder keeps them in the building. Rehearsing still, they soon discover that the murder was an escaped mental patient accidentally brought back to the studio. With the cast and crew still locked inside, the slowly dwindling occupants fight back against the masked madman.

The Good News: This is one of the best Italian slashers around. The setting is one of the better features of the film. The building is incredible, with several great stalking areas, long hallways, a huge stage for the production and so much more going on that there's a really great feel coming from the location. This one offers up many great moments from the location that really work well. This also has a great air about it, one that feels perfectly comfortable being such a film. It doesn't stay away from any of those typical clichés. This one gets sown and dirty with being a traditional slasher film. There's a whole lot to enjoy from this one due to how much it plays by the slasher rules. That means that it puts in appearances for almost everything the genre has to offer, and it makes the film seem that much more important because of it. This one also becomes more entertaining when it moves into the slasher territory, since this has plenty of goodness from its slasher moments. The stalking is among the best in the genre, as every single one is tense, exciting and wholly interesting, which is exactly what a stalking sequence should be. The chase up into the rafters is beyond glorious, as there's a long battle to get there, followed by several extended stalking scenes and there's even a couple of particularly brutal kills as well. This one gets more points for several scenes it doesn't seem obvious as to what's going to happen, and that is a fantastic skill to having in a film, much less several times within the same sequence. A later scene where the killer attacks a group of victims who have locked themselves inside a small room is another standout scene. The first murder is also a highly enjoyable suspense scene, as there's so much to love about the scene, with the ridiculously suspenseful build up to the nearly-invisible cover the pouring rain provides to the false shocks and the final one delivers huge. Another rather huge one is killing the actress on the stage in front of everyone, simply because they never show the switch on-screen, and then when the play starts, the reversal is glorious. None, though, can top the suspense bestowed upon the real highlight of the film, where the killer is perched on a stage with a victim below trying to get a key stuck in the floor without them noticing it. This is just unbearably suspenseful and is just nerve-wrangling to the extreme, and contains so many great moments that it just becomes all the better. There's even more creepy moments in here that it really does set the movie on edge. Even though the mask is a little weird, it's unique enough to make it original and memorable that fits in with everything that's going on and gives the film a sense of separation from the others out there. The last really big plus is it's blood and gore. The kills here are out-and-out graphic, where one is pulled into view from below sawed in half at the waist with a chainsaw, repeatedly hacked with an ax, decapitated with an ax, drilled through the stomach with an electric drill, set on fire and stabbed in the stomach, among so much more. These here all make it that much more important.

The Bad News: This one here only has one flaw in it, and that's the ending. This here doesn't feel at all like an effective ending, coming across more as a prologue to a sequel, minus the killer losing the fight, and really should've ended it with her being carted away by the authorities. It doesn't fit in well with the rest of the movie and still would've been the perfect amount for a slasher. Still, though, this was not enough to deter the full effect of the film.

The Final Verdict: With a lot to really love about this one and only an incredibly useless flaw, this is one of the best of the genre. Highly recommended to all Italian or giallo fans, as well as those into the late 80s slasher scene, while those who aren't that into any are urged to use this as a starting point for how great the scenes are.

Rated UR/R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity

'Stage Fright' is an impressive directorial debut from Dario Argento collaborator Michele Soavi. Like most Italian horror the plot, characters and dialogue are nothing to write home about, the movie is really an excuse for some inventive and visually striking murders. Soavi shows he has learnt a lot stylistically from Argento, and I actually enjoyed this more than many of the latters post 'Tenebre' efforts. Soavi manages to give a refreshing twist on the often tired slasher genre, which is no mean feat, and something that hasn't been able to be achieved in the post-'Scream' slasher revival. While I liked 'Stage Fright', and recommend it, Soavi found his true voice later on with the superb zombie movie 'Dellamorte Dellamore', and the profoundly weird Satanic thriller 'The Sect' (co-written with his mentor Argento). 'Stage Fright' is above average but doesn't compare to the originality of those two.