The Pitch: I
think more people should be afraid of owls.
I guess I'm a fan of Italian horror. This is based on a sample of two movies*. Suspiria quickly became one of my favorite horror movies. Stage Fright is far below Suspiria in my rankings, but I still enjoyed a lot about it. It also has some striking visuals. The killer with the owl mask is silly when I think about it, but while I was watching the movie, it's quite intimidating. I enjoy some of the needless flourishes. Like, I don't know what the point was of the killer setting up everyone he killed on stage, but it sure looked cool.
*OK. Probably more than two. The Suspiria remake probably counts. I'm sure there are several others I've seen that I didn't even realize were Italian.
The premise is labored. It has to somehow get the psychopath into the theater and able to lock everyone in with no ability to contact help. There's no way to set all that up comfortably. Yet, once it gets there, it's thoroughly enjoyable. I appreciated how quickly the killer picked everyone off. By the time it was just the one woman left, I realized there was a lot of movie left. And the nature of the scares changes at that point. It changed from a slasher to more of a chase or escape story.
Stage Fright is imperfect, but it has a couple good gimmicks, has a consistent tone, and keeps the tension up. What more do you need?
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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