Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Michele Soavi
Starring: Barbara Cupisti, David Brandon, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Mary
Sellers, Robert Gligorov
The last great year for Italian horror, 1987 gave us Dario Argento's
Opera, Lamberto Bava's Delirium and Lucio Fulci's
Aenigma. It also saw Argento protégé Michele Soavi make his directorial
debut in confident fashion with backstage slasher
Stage Fright.
While the aforementioned Italian filmmakers were stuck somewhat in the
'70s, rehashing Giallo tropes, albeit to great effect in Argento's case,
Soavi's debut is very much a product of its time, influenced as much by
American horror as that of his own nation. With its garish make-up and
fashions and Simon Boswell's John Carpenter meets Candy Dulfer
synth n' sax score, Stage Fright positively screams
1987.
The film centres on a b-grade theatre troupe rehearsing what one of
them laughably describes as an "intellectual musical." The production is
essentially an '80s slasher movie for the stage, and it's overseen by
put-upon pretentious director Peter (David Brandon). With just
three days to opening night, things aren't going so well as Peter is
saddled with a talentless bunch of hacks and a tight-fisted
producer.
When the show's leading lady Alicia (Barbara Cupisti), sprains
her ankle, she sneaks off to the nearest hospital with wardrobe girl
Betty (Ulrike Schwerk). Said hospital also happens to be housing
convicted serial killer Irving Wallace (Clain Parker), who
somehow breaks free from his cell (conveniently occurring offscreen) and
secretly takes a ride back to the rehearsal stage with Alicia and Betty.
When Wallace butchers the latter, rather than calling it a day and
shutting down rehearsals, Peter decides to exploit the publicity and
insists his actors stay the night for intense rehearsals. What he
doesn't realise is that Wallace is in the building with them.
What follows is a tight, well-crafted exercise in spam-in-a-can horror
filmmaking. Soavi proves he picked up a thing or two in his time working
as an assistant director for Argento as he stages suspense sequences in
stylish and effective fashion. The highlight comes towards the end with
the tensest sequence involving a key since Hitchcock's
Notorious.
Despite being one of the sillier villains of '80s horror, Wallace clad
in a giant owl mask manages to provide plenty of menace. The masked
Wallace is played by Italian horror staple Luigi Montefiori aka
George Eastman, who also penned Stage Fright's script, and he's a suitably hulking presence. What's creepy about
the owl mask is that you can't see Wallace's eyes, so you're never sure
if he's looking in the direction of his potential victims, or in one key
moment, whether he's awake or asleep. In the climax, Soavi uses the
mask's floating feathers in a manner that suggests the action is playing
out in a rather sinister snow globe.
Coming in at 90 minutes, Stage Fright doesn't waste a
second of screen time. Everything is set up within the first 15 minutes,
including crucially the geography of its confined setting, and then the
bloodshed begins. Soavi is happy to play some of the death scenes for
laughs, with limbs and heads hilariously lopped off and a great shock
involving a body torn in half that would be much imitated in successive
horror movies.
Watching Stage Fright in 2021, what's surprising is how
many of its characters are coded as queer. Add this to a black character
playing a pivotal role and were Stage Fright released
today it might be hailed as a progressive step forward for genre cinema
in some circles, though I doubt any of this would have occurred to Soavi
at the time.
