[tps_title]1. Stage Fright (2014)[/tps_title]
Dir. Jerome Sable
Few filmmakers would have the courage to try and combine the horror and musical genres together. Jerome Sable stepped up to the task with his 2014 film Stage Fright (LINK 15), a pure-blooded slasher about a kabuki mask-wearing madman who terrorizes a musical theater camp. As the camp puts on a production of The Haunting of the Opera, an obvious reference to Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, members of the cast and crew begin to disappear. The last part of the film where the camp desperately tries to keep the show going on opening night as more and more of their performers turn up dead is the highlight. It’s actually a clever sequence that pokes fun at the dogged determination of stage actors towards their craft. The show must go on… even if the actors literally can’t. Though the film doesn’t entirely work (the murder scenes seem transplanted from an entirely different movie), Stage Fright should still be applauded for its audacity.
Advertisement
