countchocula
09-23-2002, 06:33 PM
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With each successive outing, Michele Soavi has conjured up increasingly layered and intricate plotlines. His tendency to baffle the viewer is most noticeable with Cemetery Man, but that flick’s “mindfuck” qualities were more intriguing than frustrating. Of course, it helps that Rupert Everett brought strong acting chops to the table, something severely lacking from Soavi’s earlier works. And while he’s never been consistent in yanking decent performances out of his cast members, it’s evident in Stagefright that from the very beginning, Soavi has had a keen eye for lush imagery. With him in the director’s chair, you can rest assured that the film your about to watch will be excessively aesthetic and visually alluring. This more than compensates for the pack of moronic, unsympathetic characters that we have to put up with in Stagefright. There’s nobody here to root for. Well, I take that back. I did become somewhat attached to Peter, the domineering asshole who spends the first ten minutes or so belittling everyone in sight, and carping about everything in sight. He rubbed me the wrong way at first since I had pigeonholed him as a one-dimensional tyrant. I wasn’t expecting him to break out of his caricature anytime soon, but I was proven wrong. Peter would eventually be given some depth. Not a lot, but considering that this is an obscure Italian slasher, even characters who are barely written seem to be fleshed out in comparison to the rest of the cast. In peril, he took charge of the group, and never lost his cool. Unfortunately for the viewer, he’s given the “Tony the Pimp” treatment. I’ll just leave it at that.
The other characters…who cares? Everyone else is unreasonably irritating. We get a dumb dyke, two dumb effeminate fellows, a dumb slut, two dumb cops, and a dumb heroine. To my chagrin, none of the female actresses are remotely attractive. This astonished me. Is this not a gratuitous slasher? Where are the voluptuous vixens? Yeah, this is a trivial, immature complaint, but with genre flicks of this nature, slain beauties are commonplace. Here, we get slain “women” who, for all I know, may or may not be women! Thankfully, almost all of the idiots in attendance are brutally murdered. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion – Irving fucking Wallace! There’s a method to his madness. No, not a motive; that’s never established. He’s an artistic psychopath, which is a fun, imaginative spin on the traditional masked lunatic. He pays close attention to detail as he’s slaughtering, and views it as an artistic outlet. I love his sense of decoration. The cadavers must be positioned in a certain way, I tell you! Another aspect of Irving that I relished was his humanized mannerisms. He didn’t walk in a stiff, rigid manner like so many other slasher villains do. He moved casually, which reminded me that there was an actual person beneath that bizarre owl mask. He hasn’t risen from a grave, and he isn’t controlled by some cult; he’s just a nutbag who has a penchant for bloodletting. By the way, the gore is phenomenal. The death sequences aren’t restricted to simplistic slashing. People are sliced in half, disemboweled, and dismembered! Hooray!
I witnessed something in Stagefright that caught me off guard. That would be actual suspense. I was only hoping for some mindless entertainment with this operatic fright flick, but the third act was surprisingly taut. I didn’t even care about the dull heroine, but somehow, the final “Tom and Jerry” chase sucked me in! Soavi shocked me by creating a tense atmosphere for the climax. However, the very ending is ridiculous. I won’t attempt to break down that logic because it may result in my cranium imploding, but let’s just say that the last scene would probably compel a corpse to roll its eyes. Still, I was quite pleased with Soavi’s directorial debut on the whole. You can see slivers of the brilliance that would later transpire on Cemetery Man. If only he would drag his talents back into the horror genre. American cinema is aching for his brand of morbid, innovative filmmaking.
My rating-3.5/5
With each successive outing, Michele Soavi has conjured up increasingly layered and intricate plotlines. His tendency to baffle the viewer is most noticeable with Cemetery Man, but that flick’s “mindfuck” qualities were more intriguing than frustrating. Of course, it helps that Rupert Everett brought strong acting chops to the table, something severely lacking from Soavi’s earlier works. And while he’s never been consistent in yanking decent performances out of his cast members, it’s evident in Stagefright that from the very beginning, Soavi has had a keen eye for lush imagery. With him in the director’s chair, you can rest assured that the film your about to watch will be excessively aesthetic and visually alluring. This more than compensates for the pack of moronic, unsympathetic characters that we have to put up with in Stagefright. There’s nobody here to root for. Well, I take that back. I did become somewhat attached to Peter, the domineering asshole who spends the first ten minutes or so belittling everyone in sight, and carping about everything in sight. He rubbed me the wrong way at first since I had pigeonholed him as a one-dimensional tyrant. I wasn’t expecting him to break out of his caricature anytime soon, but I was proven wrong. Peter would eventually be given some depth. Not a lot, but considering that this is an obscure Italian slasher, even characters who are barely written seem to be fleshed out in comparison to the rest of the cast. In peril, he took charge of the group, and never lost his cool. Unfortunately for the viewer, he’s given the “Tony the Pimp” treatment. I’ll just leave it at that.
The other characters…who cares? Everyone else is unreasonably irritating. We get a dumb dyke, two dumb effeminate fellows, a dumb slut, two dumb cops, and a dumb heroine. To my chagrin, none of the female actresses are remotely attractive. This astonished me. Is this not a gratuitous slasher? Where are the voluptuous vixens? Yeah, this is a trivial, immature complaint, but with genre flicks of this nature, slain beauties are commonplace. Here, we get slain “women” who, for all I know, may or may not be women! Thankfully, almost all of the idiots in attendance are brutally murdered. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion – Irving fucking Wallace! There’s a method to his madness. No, not a motive; that’s never established. He’s an artistic psychopath, which is a fun, imaginative spin on the traditional masked lunatic. He pays close attention to detail as he’s slaughtering, and views it as an artistic outlet. I love his sense of decoration. The cadavers must be positioned in a certain way, I tell you! Another aspect of Irving that I relished was his humanized mannerisms. He didn’t walk in a stiff, rigid manner like so many other slasher villains do. He moved casually, which reminded me that there was an actual person beneath that bizarre owl mask. He hasn’t risen from a grave, and he isn’t controlled by some cult; he’s just a nutbag who has a penchant for bloodletting. By the way, the gore is phenomenal. The death sequences aren’t restricted to simplistic slashing. People are sliced in half, disemboweled, and dismembered! Hooray!
I witnessed something in Stagefright that caught me off guard. That would be actual suspense. I was only hoping for some mindless entertainment with this operatic fright flick, but the third act was surprisingly taut. I didn’t even care about the dull heroine, but somehow, the final “Tom and Jerry” chase sucked me in! Soavi shocked me by creating a tense atmosphere for the climax. However, the very ending is ridiculous. I won’t attempt to break down that logic because it may result in my cranium imploding, but let’s just say that the last scene would probably compel a corpse to roll its eyes. Still, I was quite pleased with Soavi’s directorial debut on the whole. You can see slivers of the brilliance that would later transpire on Cemetery Man. If only he would drag his talents back into the horror genre. American cinema is aching for his brand of morbid, innovative filmmaking.
My rating-3.5/5