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A Movie A Day: STAGEFRIGHT (1987) Right between the eyes, Ally. Just like I said. I got him. Right between the eyes
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the newest October special horror run of A Movie A Day!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf, recorded on the home DVR or streamed via Instant Netflix and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my usual A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day. At the end of each standard AMAD I’m going to include a recommendation of a genre film that is either one of my personal favorites or too good of a double feature with the AMAD title to pass up a mention.]
Directed by Michele Soavi, this Italanian schlocker was high on my anticipation list. Soavi directed the impressive CEMETERY MAN in the mid-‘90s and was a protégé of all the Italian genre masters, from Joe D’Amato to Lamberto Bava to Dario Argento. He’s worked with them all and I was very curious to see what his first outing was going to be.
STAGEFRIGHT isn’t a very good movie, unfortunately, but even so I still kinda liked it. It’s very cheap, but still back in the time when being a very cheap could still actually look like a movie and not a crappy film student short.
The story is simple and ludicrous. A group of wannabe actors have gathered to do a play about a murdering rapist that wears an owl head. It’s an overblown, arty-farty pretentious production filled with leotarded interpretive dance numbers and a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like playing sultry saxophone for some reason.
David Brandon plays the director of the play, a pompous dickhead of a man. Barbara Cupisti (who appeared in Fucli’s THE NEW YORK RIPPER and Argento’s OPERA) is our leading lady, a starving actress that can do nothing but put up with the abuse of the horrible director and try to survive the stage show. Even when she twists her ankle she still has to stay for rehearsals. The director won’t let her leave.
She sneaks out anyway, one of the make-up girls taking her to get the ankle looked at… Now, where do you think these two would go? If you had a twisted ankle you’d maybe consider the local foot specialist? No. Okay, how about the ER? Nope. Veterinarian? Nope. How about going up to the insane asylum. There’s gotta be doctors there, right? That’s it!
While at the nuthouse Cupisti catches the eye of a violent inmate named Irving Wallace, a famous murderer. Coincidentally he’s an actor who went crazy and killed his co-stars. Newly inspired, he breaks out and follows Cupisti back to the stage and sneaks in before the director locks the doors.
Naturally, the killer dons the Owl head of the killer in the production and that becomes his trademark look.
Yeah, the killings are brutal and fairly inventive and the movie does have a lot to say the desperation of some people to profit off of tragedy (the director changes the play when the make-up girl is killed outside, bringing the attention of the media), but just because the movie has some interesting things to say doesn’t mean it says them well.
STAGEFRIGHT is a very uneven film plagued by some sloppy editing and pacing not to mention a horrible, horrible dub job. But what can I say? The kills are inventive enough that I didn’t hate it. I like Owl-headed killers, sue me.
I also liked seeing John Morghen (alias Giovanni Lombardo Radice) who appeared in some of my favorite Italian horror movies of this era, like Fulci’s THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. He was the guy who got the drill to the head in that movie.
In STAGEFRIGHT he plays a flamboyantly gay actor who was originally in the Owl mask before Irving Wallace showed up and started actually killing people while wearing the Owl head.
Final Thoughts: It’s a fine movie for gore enthusiasts, but it’s a bit too rough and cheap to be a classic of the genre. Michele Soavi learned from the best in the world and went on to make some really good flicks, but here he was still learning the ropes and it apparent in the film.
The immediate title that jumped to mind as the double feature or recommendation movie is Vincent Price’s THEATER OF BLOOD where he plays an actor who kills critics, but I honestly haven’t seen that movie since childhood and don’t remember much of it.
So, I decided to go with a favorite of mine that is more cult than horror, but it does have a masked man haunting a theater. My recommendation title today also marks the second Brian De Palma movie I’ve suggested this October…
I recently placed a bid on a lot of movie posters on eBay that had the great one-sheet for this movie in it, but some communist bastard outbid me. That’s okay, though. I have the DVD and that’s all that matters.
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE is a close cousin to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Those two movies have a very similar vibe and energy and are just so freakishly entertaining it’s not even funny.
I guess you can describe PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE as a rock and roll update to the classic Phantom of the Opera story, but you can’t classify it as a remake or adaptation really. There is no category for PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE. Cult, rock and roll, punk, comedy, tragedy, horror, musical, drama, romance, thriller… it’s all of these things.
Phantom of the Paradise is a category unto itself.
William Finley plays the nerdy Winslow Leach, who happens to also be one of the greatest songwriters to ever live. His work catches the eye of a Phil Spector-ish record producer named Swan, played by the great Paul Williams who also wrote and performed most of the music in the movie.
Swan runs Death Records and surprisingly isn’t a very nice guy, ultimately stealing Winslow’s music and causing a horrific accident with an LP press that disfigures the man and ruins his voice.
Winslow’s muse appears in the form the gorgeous pixie Jessica Harper who went on to star in SUSPIRIA. Lord she was so hot, especially here as the baritoned Phoenix. I even love her seizure dance she does.
The cast is incredible, Williams’ music is fantastic (his The Hell Of It is one of my favorite things Williams has ever done) and De Palma was on fire. The split screen car-bomb realtime shot is just amazing filmmaking.
If you haven’t seen this movie and you enjoy fun then this is an instant watch.
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Thursday, October 22th: DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)
Friday, October 23th: THE SERPENT’S EGG (1978)
Saturday, October 24th: THE SWARM (1978)
Sunday, October 25th: THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960)
Monday, October 26th: COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970)
Tuesday, October 27th: THE SADIST (1963)
Wednesday, October 28th: CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980)
Still chugging away. Will have DEAD OF NIGHT watched and reviewed before I sleep!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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AMAD Halloween Spectacular 2009:
October 1st: Nothing But The Night (& The Wicker Man)
October 2nd: Beware! Children At Play (& The Devil Times Five)
October 3rd: Cameron’s Closet (& Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)
October 4th: Afraid of the Dark (& The Lady In White)
October 5th: The Pit (& The Gate)
October 6th: Brain Damage (& Basket Case)
October 7th: Brain Dead (& Braindead, aka Dead Alive)
October 8th: Visiting Hours (& Dressed To Kill)
October 9th: Macabre (& The Beyond)
October 10th: Private Parts (& Eating Raoul)
October 11th: Road Games (& Duel)
October 12th: Dead End Drive-In (& Repo Man)
October 13th: Psychic Killer (& Alone In The Dark)
October 14th: The Body Snatcher (& Son of Frankenstein)
October 15th: The Leopard Man (& The Ghost and The Darkness)
October 16th: Wolfen (& Cujo)
October 17th: Madhouse (& Happy Birthday To Me)
October 18th: The House With The Laughing Windows (& Deep Red)
October 19th: The Spiral Staircase (& Eyes of a Stranger)
October 20th: Demon Seed (& Inside)
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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OMG, that is THE SHIT!
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Looks awesome.
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...who made "Cemetary Man." Plus, owl-headed killer? Yeah, I'm renting that, for sure.
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Another Richard Kiel Klassic?
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The trailer looks seriously ridiculous. Brian DePalma, late 70's early 80's was the best. I might gamble on this.
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IMDB'd Arch Hall and he was the dork from Eegah. Ended up being a pilot for "Flying Tiger Airlines" for a couple of decades. Now lives in Florida.
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Phantom of the Paradise is one my favorite movie musical of all time. Paul Williams did an incredible job with the songs and DePalma did a great job with the direction. It is way silly at times, but it is so much fun. The split screen sequence is out of control. So much fun.
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But still have gotten around to it. Despite the somewhat negative review, I will still see it.
And Phantom of the Paradise is a flawed gem. -
That cover is hilarity personified.
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Was fucking intense and well portrayed!
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they actually killed that guy with a drill.
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Baritones are dudes.
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...is the definition of pure awesomeness. I'm in love with that movie.
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My favorite holiday horror film!
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"The Hell of It".....That song's been on my mp3 player for quite a while, it's fantastic. Reminds me of Buffalo Springfield's "Something in the Air".
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definitely in my must see list
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I love that movie.
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BEEF was my favorite part of Phantom of the Paradise. I didn't think the movie was very good on the whole, but I loved the character of Beef.
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little rat dogs getting what they deserve!
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Just to make sure it's clear, that drill scene is from Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead, which is one of my favorite "What the fuck am I watching?!?" type flicks. A woman literally pukes up her guts in that movie. It's brilliant.But that same actor from the drill scene is in Stagefright. He was in a lot of stuff from that era... including the notoriously hard to stomach Cannibal Ferox.
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Campy as hell black humour. Great music. Kind of a mashup of Faust, Phantom of the Opera, and Picture of Dorian Gray. One hell of a lot of fun and more haunting, especially musically, than one would ever imagine from a synopsis. Definitely a companion piece feel with Rocky Horror. If you like RHP, I'll give you ten to one that POTP will jingle yer spurs in big way. Best use of split screen ever IMO.
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*SPOILER* Yup. "Beef" rocks hard and dies cool. Leaves a fucked-up looking corpse...
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pressed the wrong button there. Twice. Anyway, I watched Cemetery man maybe a year or so ago. I was really looking forward to it as it has a very good reputation etc, but I found it to be a confused mess of a film. There were a few really great scenes in it, the angel of death being one one them, but I was shocked at how crap the film was considering how so many rave about it. I think that Stage Fright is a much much better film.
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Lord of Illusions. I just watched that the other day as part of my own Horror movie marathon and damn is it some fucked up shit. It's also interesting to see Kevin J. O'Connor and Famke Janssen in a movie together since they were also in Deep Rising (which is a fuckin' classic, I don't care what any of you say). Phantom of the Paradise is another one of those movies that's been sitting in my Amazon wishlist for awhile. Perhaps it's time I made that purchase.
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and it made me look at snow globes with suspicion. Snow Globes and music boxes creep me out...
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It's clearly a Christmas themed Horror movie Quint. Christmas! In October? That's almost as absurd as pistachio flavored ice cream...
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gauge out.
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do any script rewrites on either film, or touch up some of the special fx? Thats what I'd like to know
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It was a home made film that never saw the light of day.
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One thing I found a bit different about this film is that even though the director of the stage production comes across as someone you'd obviously dislike from the moment you see him; once the mayhem starts and they realise they're locked in with a killer - the director leads from the front and actually tries to take the fight to the killer (after the reasonable suggestion to barricade themselves in fails). It's just bad luck that none of his plans work.
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There's just something inherently ... stinky ... about that movie. It's like the smell of puke that's dried in a shag carpet. It lingers. It's just smelly. The scene of the evil producer grinning toothily into the camera handing 70s pills to the Phantom saying "... _breakfast_!" is so sleazy and creepy. The band "Meat" is so ... sweat-smelling, and nasty. There's so much ugliness. The ridiculous imagery just reeks of nastiness. You can smell the funk and odor as the evil "Meat" gets electrocuted in a silly scene by a neon sign, with a goofy Benny Hill-looking moment when the film repeats and skips frames as he goes "UuaaauuUUUUUUU! UAUUUUUUUUU! UUAUUUUUUUU!" as he's electrocuted. It's just smelly all around. A very smelly movie. Ew.
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I *hate* live-action musicals, but Phanton Of The Paradise is one of the few I can stomach (along with Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd).
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Great line. :)
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And the character is "BEEF" not 'meat'.
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My thoughts on POTP....firstly, how is one inconspicuous while dressed like a character from "Battle of the Planets"? Anyway, DePalma is supposedly redoing it (The last I heard of it was Spring '08) and I'm hoping it'll have some influence from the original story. And of course, since we found out Phil Spector really had that nasty habit of killing people, my guess is Swann will be based on Simon Cowell. And my vote for Winslow in the redo is one Noel Fielding, who, ironically like ALW Phantom Michael Crawford, is more known as a TV comedian in Britain (Vince on "The Mighty Boosh")- http://tinyurl.com/c3cetw
Of course, that's only the beginning of what I'd like to see in this redo, as well as a more Visual Kei/Gothic and Lolita approach to Phantom and Phoenix... -
By the way Quint, awesome pick for the second film!
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Yep, flawed gem. Yep, stinky as all heck. Yep, silly. Yep, awesome beyond reason occasionally. Yep, it creates its own genre. Yep, crazy direction. Yep, the music is amazing. Yep, the music is all over the place. Yep, it just about has to be seen to be believed. Yep, now that I think of it, it's a fine companion piece to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Uh... no, I don't really recall Swan having anything specifically to do with Winslow's disfigurement. (Plenty of other horrible things, yep, but not that--Winslow tripped and fell into a record-pressing machine while trying to sabotage it.) But other than that, yep yep yeppity yep. {g}
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Winslow has a lot of 'issues'...yet manages not to have a pair of testes that Erik has. Which DePalma should write in some cajones for Winslow in this redo.
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