STAGE FRIGHT

Aka: Deliria
Director: Michele soavi
1987

The good ole' days of the slasher genre were grinding to a halt by the late 80's. We had pretty much seen everything there was to see... or had we? Michele Soavi made his directorial debut with StageFright an unapologetic slasher film from start to finish, but it had the "Soavi touch" as I like to call it. StageFright was considered to be a financial failure overseas, domestically it was a hit, and the slashers were back.

StageFright is a simple story, simple yet utterly disturbing. While practicing a bizarre musical, involving rapes and murders committed by a character wearing a huge bird head a group of actors are locked in the theater with a real live maniac. Early on two of the participants sneak out to visit a doctor (at an insane asylum no less) and bring back more than a cure for a twisted ankle. StageFright gives us everything we'd expect from a balls to the wall slasher flick. There's death by pickaxe (and regular axe) stabbings, power drill, disembowlment (and dismemberment) and of course chainsaw.

StageFright is not exactly a paint by the numbers slasher film either. Soavi is a very "artsy" director and it shows. An Argento protégé Soavi retains his mentor's style (also in The Church and The Sect) until Dellamorte Dellamore well into the late 90's when his own style truly shines through. There isn't a whole lot of freshness in the story, but don't let that dissuade you. Slasher fans can have their cake and eat it too.