Very best movie i ever watch

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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/

A troupe of struggling stage actors is rehearsing for a small-town production of a play. Everything seems to be as it should until one of the cast members turns up dead. In a panic, the others try to get out, only to find they are now locked in the theater with the owl- masked killer.The gore starts off dry for the first hour or so, but gets extremely brutal as the movie goes on. Axe through a mouth, 2 stabbings, drilled stomach, body ripped in half, chainsaw hacking x2, beheading, gun shot. At first it seems like it won't deliver any gore, but makes up for it easily in the last half hour.Barbara Cupisti played the lead Alicia pretty perfectly. She didn't really speak much but the way she acted was perfect for this type of slasher. David Brandon played the jerk director pretty flawlessly as well. The acting overall was superb, but a few bad lines here and there hurt a couple of scenes.I wish Soavi would have gone all out with the direction. Every time Soavi tried to get artsy and creative the scenes were absolutely amazing. He was an understudy of Argento and it shows throughout the film. The shots were extremely creative, and they used lots of out of focus and moving shots. The atmosphere was the main attraction for me...it was great. The score was somewhat distracting when it was really upbeat, but most of the time it was extremely effective in setting up the mood. Final Thoughts: The feel and atmosphere was really genuine and pulls the viewer into the film right away. Although it starts off pretty slow and dry, Soavi kicks it up a notch and it's action packed towards the second half. I'm not a big fan of the giallo genre, but this re-affirmed that I need to check more out before I pass judgment.

I last saw this film several years ago on YouTube, and in less than stellar quality. At that time I was not a great admirer of Soavi, perhaps because I was hoping for Dario Argento Jr. and got something different. Since becoming a huge fan of Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), however, I've been planning to re-watch his other films, and now I'm finally getting around to it. This is Soavi's feature debut - before this he cut his teeth as assistant director to Argento, Lamberto Bava, and Joe D'Amato - and here we can see the influence of these various mentors. The flamboyant camera-work and imagery certainly bring Argento to mind, while the premise (an acting troupe gets locked inside a theater with a serial killer) is reminiscent of Bava's Demons (1985). The material isn't so similar to D'Amato's work, but we have him to thank for the film's existence (and for Soavi's directorial career, since he was perfectly content to remain an assistant director), since he produced it and hired Soavi.As a director Soavi hadn't quite found his own voice yet - he's very imitative of Argento here - but to his credit he conjures imagery worthy of the master. No one who has seen this film will forget the bizarre owl mask donned by the killer (an image that would not be out of place in Franju's Judex), and the scene of him sitting on stage with the posed bodies of his victims, tranquilly stroking a cat as feathers descend on them like snowflakes, is one of the most indelible in the whole of Italian horror. What already sets Soavi apart from Argento is his cheeky humor. The comic relief scenes in Argento's films generally come across as rather clumsy and awkward (e.g. the befuddled mailman from Four Flies on Grey Velvet), but Soavi is consistently clever. The opening scene, for instance, thwarts our expectations to great comic effect. Still Soavi knows how to stage an effective death scene, and he doesn't hold back on the red stuff, but even the most horrible scenes tend to have a touch of black humor. One bit I particularly liked involved one of the characters spilling stage-blood all over the dressing room; as their friend is drilled to death, his blood starts to drip onto the fake stuff. I can't help but wonder if this is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the phony-looking blood in most Italian horror films.The cast is quite strong: Barbara Cupisti is a sympathetic heroine, David Brandon is brilliant as the temperamental director (perhaps Soavi was drawing on his experiences with Argento here), and Giovanni Lombardo Radice is pretty amusing as a flamboyantly gay actor. Special praise must be singled out to the actor playing the silent masked killer (IMDb claims that it's exploitation legend George Eastman), who projects great presence simply through the use of his body language - I'd favorably compare him to Lon Chaney.The experience between my first and second viewings of this little gem is truly night and day. This is not just an astoundingly good film for a first time director, but a minor masterpiece of the genre. Dario Argento must have thought so as well; Opera bears some striking similarities to it, and Argento would subsequently enlist Soavi to direct The Church (1989) and The Sect (1991).

Stagefright is the debut film from director Michele Soavi. Before it he had been assistant director to the likes of Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava, as well as appearing as an actor in various films. He went on to contribute three other horror films over the subsequent seven years. He was effectively the premier Italian horror director in those years and his final film in this sequence, Cemetery Man, feels like the final worthwhile Italian horror film, give or take a few Argento's in the years since. For whatever reason, Soavi has never returned to the genre since, which needless to say is extremely unfortunate. Credit has to be given to exploitation director Joe D'Amato who acted as producer for Stagefright. He seems to have given Soavi free reign to make his film, so long as it met certain commercial genre specifications. The result is a stylish effort that is not so much a giallo as an Italian-style slasher.Written by notable actor Luigi Montefiori (aka George Eastman), the story is about an escaped maniac who ends up on the loose in a theatre where a horror themed musical is being rehearsed by a drama group; in true slasher style, the killer starts picking them off one by one. The events encompass one night, where the rain lashes down constantly outside. Truthfully, the story is utterly by-the-numbers and not the selling point. What makes this one good is the considerable style and freshness Soavi brings to the well-worn slasher genre. The killer wears a large owl mask and the setting is a theatre. This gives the film a somewhat over-the-top operatic aspect, which not only ties it in with Italian culture in general but also makes it a twin of sorts to Argento's giallo Opera, also released in the same year. For a debut feature, this is very assured stuff from Soavi. There's plenty of inventive camera work, nice use of colour and some very well handled tension. Of the latter, a real standout is the scene where the heroine attempts to retrieve a key from under a feather covered stage where the maniac has arranged all his victims in a grim tableaux. Its inspired moments like this one that sets Stagefright apart from standard slasher fare. But Soavi never forgets to supply the bread and butter of this genre as well; to that end there are a plethora of varied gory murders. This mix of generic material with a distinctive and stylish approach means that Stagefright remains one of the better slasher films out there.