Stage Fright

Director Jerome Sable’s horror musical tries hard to be something special but is ultimately a disjointed and often irritating affair. Co-starring Minnie Driver and Meat Loaf, it chronicles a production at a musical theater camp where a white-masked killer (similar to the one in the Scream movies) is slicing and dicing the cast and crew. The film features a few musical numbers beyond the ones in the production, most notably a song everybody sings when they arrive at camp. It’s in this initial song that the film shows promise, but it can’t seem to find a proper tone afterward. Many of the other songs are jarring and irritating, and the gory carnage feels out of place. Allie MacDonald and Douglas Smith play a brother and sister who lose their mother to a similar killer during the film’s prologue. They wind up at the camp as well, and their characters have pretty predictable arcs. While I admire the ambition in this attempt to create something a little different, I can’t say I enjoyed watching, or listening, to it. Although it is always cool to hear Meat Loaf sing in a movie.