It’s October So I Watched A [Bunch Of] Horror Movie[s] I’d Never Seen Before: ‘Stage Fright,’ ‘The Blood on Satan’s Claw,’ ‘Def by Temptation,’ and ‘Dark Water’

I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, but not as many as I’d like. As usual, I’m spending part of October filling in some of the gaps. 

Stage Fright (1987)
With October rapidly drawing to a close, I decided to do a quadruple-feature grab bag edition of this column before putting it away for another year, a speed run that started with this Italian film directed by Michele Soavi. Soavi’s probably now best known for his 1994 film Cemetery Man, which has picked up a well-deserved cult following despite being unavailable for years (or maybe because of it). Soavi had worked as an actor, a career that included a part in Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper, and served as assistant director to both Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava (and  role would serve as AD to Terry Gilliam) before turning to directing. Those are some pretty good bona fides for an Italian horror director, so it makes sense that Stage Fright, his narrative feature debut, is a pretty good Italian horror film.

Not that it’s trying to be Italian. Ostensibly set in New York—issues of Newsweek are piled up in the dressing room and the supporting characters include a couple of hard-bitten big-city New Yawk cops—Stage Fright is set during the final stages of rehearsal for what one character describes as an “intellectual musical.” At this point, I could attempt to describe all the crazy details we glimpse of the work being staged but I honestly don’t want to ruin it. OK, just one: It features a woman dressed like Marilyn Monroe playing a sensuous sax solo from a second-floor balcony. Even if you don’t watch Stage Fright, which you should, check out the film’s opening four minutes. You won’t be disappointed.

Slasher films owe a debt to Italian giallo movies, so it makes sense that this attempt to do an American-style (or at least American-set) slasher film would have a lot of giallo DNA, with its glamorous setting, sometimes hard-to-parse logic, and atmosphere of ambient sexual menace. The decision to have the killer disguise himself by donning a giant owl costume, however, is a nutty choice that belongs entirely to this film. Soavi makes the most of a limited location and the cast gives every moment their all, whether engaging in backstage romances, jockeying for better parts, or dying in a variety of nasty ways. It’s like a blood-soaked version of A Chorus Line.