Review by Dustin Hall
Magnet Releasing has a history of finding unique films that are different than anything else you’d find in the market. Stage Fright is much the same in that regard; a blend of horror, comedy, and music that we haven’t seen since Repo: The Genetic Opera. Stage Fright, however, ditches the sci-fi trappings and sticks to the familiar horror stomping grounds of the summer camp slasher.
Moving on from his much-loved (also musical) horror short The Legend of Beaver Dam, director Jerome Sable has taken up the role of auteur, also writing and creating all of the music for Stage Fright. His distinct comedy and music styles come across on the stage, and now simply wait for audiences of similar taste to discover them. The tone falls heavily into camp, irreverence, and a love of the absurd, all with just a dash of blood.
The story revolves around young Camilla (Allie MacDonald), who, after the murder of her opera singing mother (Minnie Driver) moves with her father (Meat Loaf, the one and only), to help run a summer camp for theater hopefuls. However, when Dad decides to put on a performance of the very musical that claimed Mom’s life, The Haunting of the Opera (is Phantom really not public domain at this point?), Camilla decides to try out for the lead, and finds that the same specter that killed her mom may be hunting her next. What ensues is, eventually, a string of unsolved murders as the cast are picked off one by one, mixed with a Glee-like number of lighthearted, choreographed song and dance numbers on behalf of the musical student body.
Stage Fright is a decent little horror-oddity, and gauging the screening reactions out there, it will find an audience, but it might not be the film that many people are looking for. The opening shows a lot of promise, reminiscent of Argento’s Opera. It uses the Opera as a backdrop for the initial grisly murder, juxtaposing the slashing and screaming with the lighthearted singing of young Camilla as she plays on stage. From this sequence, one could see how a director could honestly make a very interesting, dramatic, horror rock opera that sings and croons its way through each bloody murder, all the while delving into a Black Swan-style mental collapse, as Camilla struggles with reliving the murder of her mother in her own adult life, her onstage performance mirroring the past, and all tangling together into a crescendo of blood and madness and lost identity.
However, Stage Fright is not that movie, as almost immediately after the flash to modern day, the campers arrive and start singing “I’m gay, I’m gay, but not in that way.” (He’s gay for theater, in this case, not penis. Just so we’re clear.) From this point, most of the second act of the film is dedicated to a comedy about amateur theater, with only a few hints of threat from the masked killer. It’s only at the end, before the play and the third act really begin that, at last, the metal shredding, falsetto singing, masked slasher finally makes his move.
Stage Fright is mostly comedy, but also somewhat horror, mostly musical but sometimes not, and with an abundance of characters that are not really utilized in anyway, and often get killed off screen. The relationships go nowhere, Camilla’s character arc doesn’t really exist… but maybe it’s not supposed to. The film is an extension of what we saw in Legend of Beaver Dam. It’s light, irreverent, poking fun at both theater and horror, playing off of their tropes for laughs without really saying much about either.
Kudos to Sable for pulling off a competent first feature film.
Stage Fright is available on VOD, and will release in limited theaters May 9th.