Glee and Friday The 13th collide in Jerome Sable's tongue-in-cheek slasher musical, which strains for Rocky Horror greatness, but ends up horrifying for all the wrong reasons.
Despite sharing a name with five other films (among them Hitchcock's and Michael Soavi's superior efforts), Stage Fright has nothing to do with any of them, instead focussing on a summer camp for stage kids.
Overseen by Meat Loaf's fame-hungry Roger McCall, the campers are preparing to put on a new production of The Haunting Of The Opera (nod, wink), which just so happens to be the show that dishwasher Camilla's (Allie MacDonald) mother died performing.
Before you can say "history, let's start repeating", people turn up dead...
If you're going to make a horror musical, you better make sure your songs are sharp as Jason's machete. To be fair, Stage Fright does try, with camp anthem 'We're Here' at least getting in some fun digs at camper stereotypes ("I'm gay... I'm gay... But not in that way...").
Meat Loaf's rock background actually hampers his attempts to wrangle showtunes, though, and by the time the masked killer starts howling like a forgotten member of Slipknot, you'll have your fingers permanently in your ears.
If it's unintentional frights you're after, this has them in spades. The humour's lazy (hey, aren't lisps funny?), the scares non-existent, the twist telegraphed 20 minutes in.
The one saving grace is MacDonald, who does her best with underwritten material as this picture's Final Girl. Fingers crossed she finds a better stage for her talents soon.
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