Stage Fright (2014)

If you don't think that musical numbers can enhance a comedy slasher movie then you should run off right now to watch, and enjoy, The Legend Of Beaver Dam. It's a short film written and directed by Jerome Sable, with help in the music/lyrics department from Eli Batalion.

Stage Fright allows the two to stretch out the weird juxtaposition of bombastic tunes and copious amounts of bloodshed. It provides some amusement, but ultimately just ends up proving that the short film form was the best way to package this material.

After a great performance in The Haunting Of The Opera, a starlet named Kylie Swanson (Minnie Driver) is violently murdered by a masked killer. Fast forward many years later and we are introduced to a bunch of characters looking forward to some time in that most traditional of slasher movie settings, the summer camp. This particular camp is overseen by Roger McCall (Meat Loaf), the ex-boyfriend of Kylie. There are also two camp workers (Camilla, played by Allie McDonald, and Buddy, played by Douglas Smith) who happen to be the children of Kylie. The summer camp is focused on musical theatre, and I think you can guess what their big production is going to be for this year. And a masked killer strikes again as Camilla decides to try her luck and audition for the main role.

Thanks to a strong opening sequence, followed by a musical number that features some highly amusing lyrics, Stage Fright looks like it could be bloody good fun. As long as you know what you're in for then you can sit back and expect to enjoy yourself. Unfortunately, it starts to slide downhill quickly, trudging through a fairly redious middle section and then on to an unexciting and uninspired climax. Any supposed shocks in the third act are entirely predictable, although I do suspect that Sable made them that way on purpose, an extra joke about the standard slasher movie template. Elsewhere, the non-musical moments are tiresome, none of the characters stand out (not even any of the leads), and the song lyrics (once more crafted with help from Batalion) quickly become quite bland and unfunny.

Meat Loaf isn't too bad in his role, but he's one of the few highlights. He brings a bit more personality to any role he plays, of course, and this helps him to overcome the weakness of the script. McDonald and Smith don't fare so well, although they both have at least one scene each in which they show the potential to be better. And Brandon Uranoqitz, Ephraim Ellis, Kent Nolan and Melanie Leishman all blur in to one big mass of potential summer camp corpses.

Some of the kills are fun and I'm still not completely against the idea of a slasher movie that mixes such differing musical styles for comedic results. I just hope that the next time this is attempted, IF it is attempted again, the end result is a big improvement.

4/10

http://www.amazon.com/Stage-Fright-Blu-ray-Minnie-Driver/dp/B00JVFRH7E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420398308&sr=8-2&keywords=stage+fright

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Bonus Review: Ouija (2014)

Thank goodness for movies like Ouija, because sometimes I want to rattle off a review with little thought and/or effort. This kind of film, that seems to have taken no thought or effort to make, encourages me to do that. Putting too much energy into this review would be ridiculous, considering the laziness shown onscreen.

After a prologue that sets up the rules of playing with a Ouija board, the film moves forward to the here and now. Debbie (Shelley Hennig) is looking quite nervy. It seems to be due to the Ouija board that she throws in the fire. It's not long until the board reappears, leading to a death that upsets the rest of the cast, all of them completely interchangeable rent-a-teens. Everyone decides to do the sensible thing, of course. Yes, they all use the Ouija board to contact the spirit of their recently-deceased friend, but they end up instead allowing an evil force to have some chatty time with them. And then more deaths start to occur.

Stiles White and Juliet Snowden did a good job recently with their script for The Possession. It was slick horror for the masses, but it was nicely put together. Unfortunately, they also wrote the screenplay for Boogeyman, which this is more in line with. Boogeyman is, in fact, the slightly better film. The weak screenplay is hampered further by the unimaginative direction from White, trying out the big chair for the first time. Jump scares are predictable and unearned, shots of anyone around the Ouija board are as dull as ditchwater, and the one decent scene in the whole film feels as if it's ripping off Final Destination.

Although I'm pretty dismissive of the entire cast - Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Santos, and a few others - I'm not blaming them for the dull mess that unfolds during the 80+ minutes. They are, after all, just doing their job. Okay, they don't do very well, but they don't exactly have the best material to work with. And when Lin Shaye appears, the whole thing starts to feel like one big joke at the expense of audiences who have bought enough tickets over the years to show that horror films can often provide a decent return on very little investment. Not that Shaye does anything wrong. She just happens to have appeared in some of the better horror movies in the past couple of years, and is now placed slap bang in the middle of one of the worst.

The only thing that Ouija is good for is allowing itself to be held up as an example of all the worst traits of mainstream horror movies from America. No intelligence in the script whatsoever, no originality, no charm or charisma found in any of the leads, and no reason to care about what happens to any of the characters. All you end up with are some jumps and half-decent CGI.

Perhaps it was a deliberate move to make this film so dull. Perhaps the original tagline was - "Ouija - you'll be board to death". Sadly, I doubt the film-makers would even be that imaginative.

3/10

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Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (2013)

Most of the main players return for this sequel to Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief, an adventure that sees Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) and friends embark on a quest to get the golden fleece. The fleece is essential because the tree that guards Camp Half-Blood, by providing the protective barrier, is dying and needs to be rejuvenated before the camp residents are left open to attack from those who wish them harm. The group will have to work together to overcome the many obstacles that will be placed in their path, which might inadvertently teach them a thing or two about each other.

I enjoyed this movie, but I enjoyed it despite the many flaws. I enjoyed it because I liked spending time with the characters established in the first instalment (many of them return, although Anthony Head takes over the role that was played by Pierce Brosnan), I liked a number of the new characters introduced, and I loved a lot of the design work and visual effects.

Unfortunately, director Thor Freudenthal and writer Marc Guggenheim seem to think that the first movie wasn't quite goofy enough. They pile on humour during a number of comedic sequences that just aren't all that funny. Admittedly, this may be a problem that affects the source novel (by Rick Riordan), but I try to judge a movie simply as a movie. Which is easy in this case, as I've not actually read any of the Percy Jackson books, though I may give them a try one day. Not all of the humour falls flat. There's one sequence that allows Nathan Fillion to do what he does best, and that had me at least smiling throughout.

The cast all do a good enough job, with Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson and Alexandra Daddario easily slipping back into their main roles, Douglas Smith proving to be a surprisingly kind and sweet cyclops, and Leven Rambin does fine as a tough girl who makes the main character lose confidence in himself. Jake Abel manages to get plenty of screentime, and also manages to put in a better performance than he did in the first movie. It's perhaps telling that there aren't really any bigger names filling out the supporting roles, but Head, Fillion and Stanley Tucci have fun with their small roles, while the likes of Robert Knepper, Missi Pyle, Ron Perlman and Craig Robinson are also in the mix, even if they're either less recognisable or only lending their voices to the endeavour.

Despite being underwhelmed by Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters, I enjoyed a number of the big set-pieces and I'd like to see a third movie in this series. Hell, I'd like to see a fourth. But I don't know if that will happen now. The first film wasn't exactly the box office juggernaut that I'm sure the studio wanted, and this sequel performed, as far as I can tell, at about the same level. Movie studios don't always forgive one disappointment, let alone two. It's viewers like me that do that.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Percy-Jackson-Lightning-Thief-Monsters/dp/B00EE5BWTU/ref=sr_1_5?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1391527616&sr=1-5&keywords=percy+jackson