Review:
"Stage Fright"
Release Date: May 29, 2014
Rating: R Running Time: 89 minutes Friday the 13th gets its Glee on in Stage Fright, director Jerome Sable’s exuberantly executed horror musical that pits a masked madman against the youthful inhabitants of a summer theater camp. Our unhappy campers are preparing to stage a kabuki version of the cursed musical The Haunting of the Opera when the bloodshed begins. Is it a coincidence that, a decade earlier, Minnie Driver’s stage actress was brutally murdered the night she first performed the lead role of Sofia on Broadway? Or that Driver’s daughter (a daring Allie MacDonald) is set to play Sofia in the theater camp production? Even before the body count begins to rise, Sable reveals a deep affection for both musical theater and the slasher genre. The memorable songs, performed with gusto by a cast that includes Meat Loaf, possess an off-Broadway-like adventurousness that suggests Stage Fright would work as well in a theater as it does on film. While Meat Loaf’s presence brings to mind The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sable doesn’t skimp on the horror. Named after The Haunting of the Opera’s misunderstood antagonist, the psychotic Opera Ghost knocks off his victims with gory enthusiasm. To this end, Stage Fright is not the fainthearted. While Sable also pokes fun at all types of theater geeks, his admiration for their love of the stage ensures that he never comes across as mean spirited. Unlike Opera Ghost, whose terror tactics could make him one of the slasher genre’s newest superstars. Robert Sims Aired: May 28, 2014 Web site: http://www.magnetreleasing.com/stagefright/ |
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