Stage Fright (2014)
Sing Your Heart Out!
I’m easing you into Octo-boo-r nice and easy with a slasher musical. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me - a slasher musical. It’s both parts slasher and musical. You want typical Disney live action if it contained about 80% more blood spray? Better get your rain poncho out of the closet then, you might get splashed! This entry also plays into the ever present fright of memory loss - who ever had “another movie he thought he did but found no trace of doing” on their bingo card better mark that one down, you’d probably be dead if it was a drinking game! Clear those pipes and stick the vibrato, tonight you try and sing your heart out before you get Stage Fright.
Let’s start it out with a proper warning - if you get offended easily, this might not be for you. It’s going to pick fun at a lot of things - somewhat like a Mel Brooks movie - but it doesn’t always handle them the best. Doesn’t offend me as you probably guessed, because I havea unique dis-attachment from a world that taught me most things are slathered in a coat of “you don’t get to like it” and just take it at face value and carry on with my life, and I get not everyone is equipped for that. That being said, Some of it really doesn’t come of as that mean spirited - particularly the pointing out how much music geeks/nerds get dumped on, or even the gay character - but bear in mind I can’t speak to how offensive the gay representation is given that I’m not in that boat and haven’t had the frame of reference to really see it as outside a character just owning what it is and fitting relative stereotypes (although arguable no more than any stereotype at play in this movie - of which there is a lot). Some of it plays into jokes, some of it plays into story beats, and of all the movies I’ve viewed in the recent times this one - as baffling as it is - might have the most meat a person could rip into when it comes to social construct conversations about things like toxic sexuality, being gay/creepy/outsiders, mental health, amongst a slight spattering of what it means to be oneself.
With that out of the way, don’t let me imply this movie is to be overthought - it’s two thirds a musical, complete with stupid young-adult driven tensions and horniness and one third hard “turn that brain off” slasher movie. This ratio might be a complaint from people looking for that fright part of the movie to show up more often - things do go on, and it does build things up to get you in a spot to like and dislike certain characters, but after the opening kill you’ll be waiting for the most part till the final act for any killer actions to occur. Story wise it’s no more impressive than a basic musical - kid’s mom is murdered, she ends up wanting to follow in her career footsteps as a musical lead, and the perfect opportunity arises when the camp she works at decides to put on a musical that happens to be the one her mom last did before being murdered. Insert classic YA drama and goofiness, plenty of red hearings, and eventually a murder plot that may or may not surprise you - it’s not overly complex, but has enough fibers being woven that a full shirt it does make.
That being said, the musical in the musical is a play on Phantom of the Opera, which I admit I have a particular fondness for. If you don’t like musicals in the first place, the multiple layers of musical sure isn’t going to impress you any in the time you wait for the horror elements to start coming out in force. Despite that, I won’t say it wasn’t a well played pacing on their part, even if I would have loved more of the slashing ratio to come earlier on. It plays out as a well thought story, balancing plenty of “could this be the killer” with various reasons from vengefullness, spite, or just generic “he’s a hillbilly” - and although I won’t say it’s impossible for you to really guess the killer in less than twenty minutes, it does an adequate enough job of making red herrings without trying too hard with it and making it stand out as such. With that being given, I’ll also point out that just because you might figure out who the killer is doesn’t mean you’ll guess the why of the killer, so it even plays it’s mystery relatively well - which again could be a bit of a bummer considering I can forse a good number of people being turned off by at least on aspect of the movie and never sitting through it because of that.
It’s a trap!
The actors all do a pretty good job. I mean, the lead is probably the biggest wet blanket of the entire crew, but I don’t entirely think it’s off base from what’s desired from her character. Some of the highlights here are actually the side characters - such as the stage managing character, but development isn’t as thorough on most characters outside a group of five or so - which arguably is more than anticipated. Most likely it’s a side effect of being more musical comedy then it is a horror slasher. Everyone seems to handle their choreography well, and to be perfectly frank even when it’s not done in perfect sync it feels accurate because it’s a bunch of kids doing things.
The music is probably the biggest thing on display here - given that it’s a musical. Admittedly, it follows classic musical suite, having a hand full of songs that get repeated, but a decent repertoire throughout the movie so it doesn’t become too repetitive. Quality of this is pretty on par of what you’d expect of a decently done movie - and could be said to be better than some modern choices that decide “we’ll just apply a heavy autotune to it because that’s cool!” Some are stronger than others, yes, and some of the songs are stronger than others - also true, but as far as a musical front goes it feels about average to most that I watch and enjoy for the most part. Of course, this one has far more comedy numbers- one could say most are in some way comedy, such as the romance song or the opening skit, and this one has a killer who hums the metal guitar riffs as well!
Some of the comedy is backed up physically - like a pushing back and forth while literally trying to hog the spotlight - others are all in the punch line later on. Comedy is probably one of the harder spots for this movie, as it’s where the more easily offended will certainly fall off the boat - whereas others might get a chuckle or just general surface level of enjoyment out of it. The killer side of things does get somewhat violent - still not Zombie movie violent, but there’s some separated pieces and plenty of fake blood going on in here, and it’s a more believable mix than the average B movie you’d come across. The kills aren’t super numerous, so not all of them are impressive to behold like a real gore-hound might be after in a slasher, although much like the top of the line vocal slashers some of the kills do set up a good punchline like “nailed it!” The costumes are pretty well and varied as well - considering it’s a music and acting camp, I feel like that’s relatively a given though.
How to level your killer.
I enjoy this movie. Heck, it’s at least the second time I came back to it and outside of a bit more heavily weighted noticing on how creepy some of the characters are in a sleazy sense, it’s still every bit as enjoyable to me as the first time I saw it. I can’t recommend it to everyone - there’s going to be people who don’t like how some aspects are portrayed, and i can’t really fault them for it this time around. If you can get by that though, it’s a pretty interesting mix of musical and slasher with plenty of rather lame jokes that are right up my alley - so if you are generally on the same wavelength as me you’d probably have fun with this one!