Saturday, September 6, 2014

Stage Fright (2014)

Ten years after their mother was murdered in the theater after an opening night triumph,  Camilla and her brother Buddy are working in the kitchen of a musical theater Summer camp.  The camp is run by Roger, who was their mothers boyfriend as well as the producer of her play, The Haunting of the Opera, which played on Broadway.

Roger is behind on his mortgage. So he's hoping a revival of the play will draw positive reviews and catapult his career back onto the Broadway stage.  Buddy is sick of working in the camp kitchen, while Camilla wants the lead in the play since it makes her feel closer to her mother.

Since it's a Summer camp where parents pay for their kids to go, the roles go to the campers. But Camilla manages to get a try out and captivate the director.  When Roger walks in and sees her on stage, he demands she stop.  But somehow she manages to convince him to let the director decide who will play the lead.  The director uses his casting power as a lure to get what he wants from Camilla and her competition, a camper who wants to win the lead at all costs.

This revival of the play will have a twist.  The director wants to it done in Kabuki style.  The villain in the play is called Opera Ghost which is such a Scooby Doo villain name.   The revival also has an unexpected effect when a kabuki faced heavy metal killer starts taking out the cast and crew on the play. Oh my!

While there are some musicals I like, for the most part, I'm not a musical fan.  I'm not going to seek them out and I may not have chosen this if I'd known people would spontaneously burst into song at inappropriate moments.  But it is a slasher at a summer camp, so it's got that going for it.  Meat Loaf plays Roger and actually sings in the movie. He also drools this weird colored stuff that is just disgusting. Why, movie, why?  Overall, I was kind of meh about it, but at least they tried something different.

Opera Ghost

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