Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Sam Panico There was a moment two minutes into this movie, when a slasher like scene turned into a Cats-like play, that my mind was blown. And there was a moment halfway through where a body was torn in two that I jumped off my couch, screaming, "Soavi, I love you!"There's no other way to say it — this movie is completely crazy. Is it because of Michael Soavi's (The Sect, Cemetery Man) direction? Or the script from George Eastman (better known Nikos Karamanlis from Antropophagus and, well, kinda sorta Nikos in Absurd, a movie so brutal that it inspired a murderous black metal band)? Why ask questions? Why not just sit back and enjoy the mayhem?The entire movie takes place in a theater, where actors and a crew are creating a musical about the Night Owl, a mass murderer. Alicia (Barbara Cupisti, The Church, Cemetery Man) sprains her ankle, so she and Betty sneak out to a mental hospital to get some help. While there, they see Irving Wallace, a former actor who went on a murder spree, which has continued in the insane asylum. He uses a syringe to kill an attendant and hides in Betty's car.Because Alicia left, the director fires her while Betty is killed with a pickaxe outside. Alicia finds the body and calls the police (one of them is Soavi, who spends an extended scene asking if he looks like James Dean), who lock them inside the theater and guard the premises. Because, you know, that's the way the police handle these things.The director is inspired — the play will now be about Irving Wallace and everyone must stay the night to rehearse, even the rehired Alicia. While rehearsing the first scene, Wallace dons the killer's owl costume and strangles, then stabs one of the other actors in front of everyone.Then, Wallace cuts the phone and starts killing one person at a time. It's at this point that this movie goes off the rails and does some rails. A power drill going through someone? Yep. Hacking someone up with an axe? Yep. A woman cut in half that sprays blood all over an entire room full of people? It's got that, too. A dude getting chainsawed until the saw runs out of gas and then getting decapitated? Oh yes.Read more at https://bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/10/16/stagefright-1987/

Mr_Ectoplasma "StageFright" (released under varying titles such as "Deliria," "Aquarius," and "Bloody Bird") follows a group of stage actors who are working on an overnight rehearsal for an impending production about a serial killer. When the costume designer is killed in the parking lot that evening, the rehearsals must go on—police are enlisted to watch the building, and the cast and director lock themselves inside. Little do they know, they've also locked in a maniac who recently escaped from a mental institution.In many ways, "StageFright" is about as run-of-the-mill as it could get. The premise is not remarkably original or interesting, and the "escaped lunatic" archetype feels familiar and lazy. The set-up which contains the characters (who are themselves varied in personality) in the theater also seems a bit odd in context. In spite of this, "StageFright" is insanely fun, playfully creepy and chock full of suspenseful scenarios and clever murder sequences that are surprisingly visceral. The villain dons an oversized owl mask from the production, which is surprisingly sinister in appearance.The kills come in rapid succession until about midway through, until the final girl is left to her own accord, which makes for some of the film's most intense and clever scenes. Chase scenes through the rafters, down darkened hallways, and beneath the stage are colorful, well-shot, and well-choreographed. Accentuating the thrills is a jarring late-eighties metal score which does date the film and sound a bit silly at times, but it comes with the territory. The production values are high, which also elevates the proceedings.Overall, "StageFright" is a wildly entertaining slasher flick that is marked by well-managed suspense, brutal murder scenes, and competent direction. Original it is not, but Soavi and the cast hit their marks here. It is a generally clever, well-paced slasher flick; of the crop of them that appeared in the late eighties, it's among the best I've seen. 8/10.

ma-cortes 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.

Eumenides_0 I don't like slasher movies. I don't see any appeal in the formula. A psychopath goes around killing teenagers, sometimes for several days, before someone puts two and two together and realises that the murders are committed by the same killer. And they usually happen in public places like colleges, which only demonstrates the police's worthlessness. And once enough people have died to fill a feature-length movie, a sole survivor, usually a young woman, defeats the killer. And then he comes back in the sequel.I don't like slasher movies, but as a film viewer I try not to go out of my way to watch movies I'll hate. Life is too short, the movies are too many, so I only watch movies I think (hope) I'll enjoy. Stage Fright had been on my radar for a while as a rare exception that I'd probably enjoy watching, and indeed I did. In fact it's a pretty awesome horror movie, a pure cinematic experience. But before I extol its virtues, a few words about the director, Michele Soavi.Michele Soavi, Italian filmmaker, got involved in horror early in his career; before becoming a director, he worked as an assistant for several famous horror directors: Lamberto Bava, Joe D'Amato and the great Dario Argento, who made Soavi his protégé. He hasn't had a prolific career and his fame rests largely on the 1994 cult movie Cemetery Man. Stage Fright was his directorial debut and it was a pretty good start.On a stormy night, a group of awful thespians, badly in need of money, rehearse a play called The Nite Owl inside a creepy theatre. Alicia, the main actress (Barbara Cupisti), hurting from a sprained ankle, sneaks out against the orders of the dictatorial Peter, the stage director (David Brandon), and goes to a mental clinic to see if they can give her something to ease the pain. There a lunatic escapes, hides in her car and follows her into the theatre. In a situation worthy of classic suspense movies, the actors unknowingly lock themselves in with the killer and then lose the key. From here on the movie follows the formula to its predictable conclusion. But Soavi, with ingenuity and unusual camera angles, turns it into a unique experience.Where to start with my love for this movie? Let's start with the play within the movie. It's about a killer in an owlhead mask killing women. It's sensationalist (victims seducing their own killer), gory and sexy, like slasher movies. But the actual movie isn't. Soavi surprisingly keeps the nudity to a minimum, moving the characters away from irresponsible horny teenagers who are punished for being teenagers to working-class people with bills to pay. By making an artistic setting integral to the plot also seems like Soavi is saying that the genre can be more ambitious without losing its identity. His mentor, Argento, had already shown a propensity for protagonists involved with the arts – musicians, novelists, etc.Next the killer is memorable. He has zero personality, he's not charismatic, he doesn't talk. But once you see him you won't forget him. He's a mixture of the creatures we see in our bizarre nightmares and mythology; dressed in an owlhead mask, we quickly forget we're watching a man and not some evil spirit beyond human reason.Although the dialogue is poor, the movie has its share of twisted, original scenes. In one of my favourites, the actors are rehearsing a scene where the owlhead killer murders one of his victims. The runaway lunatic enters the stage, dressed in the mask. Peter, thinking he's the actor, urges him to kill the victim, which he easily does, and no one realises what has just happened until a few moments later. Here the movie pokes some fun at horror fans' morbidity. I forgot to say gallows humor is part of the movie's charm too.The camera work and sound take this movie up another notch. Soavi is no Argento, but you can clearly see the latter's influence in his use of colors and the attention given to the sets and lighting (perhaps at the expanse of the actors) The movie takes most of its place inside a theatre and Soavi fills it with strange objects and films it from several angles to accentuate its strangeness. The music, mostly diegetic, is cleverly used here, sometimes by the killer to taunt his victims, and in one of the tensest scenes noise to distract him while Alicia tries to get the theatre door's key.Although it's pretty low-key, I'm prepared to say that Stage Fright uses the art of cinema better than many so-called serious movies. It may not have complex characters, emotionally-engaging stories or powerful messages, but there are many movies out there that are little more than animated novels, that prefer to do things that novels and plays can do too instead of using the uniqueness of cinema to their advantage. Stage Fright may not have a lot of food for thought but it's unmistakably a movie in love with its medium; the effect it has on the viewer comes from a clever manipulation and mixture of sound, image and movement. Many moments of awe and terror exist in this movie that couldn't be reproduced by any other medium. I can't pay a movie a finer compliment.