StageFright Aquarius (1987) Directed by Michele Soavi
Out of all the masks killers, in all the mask killer movies, this one is one of the more unique. The guy wears an enormous owl mask, which I refer to as Owlface, so get ready to hear that a lot, sorry. This is my second viewing of this movie; I saw it in college online. Not sure where I found that movie, but I used to get bored working IT on campus and watch movies…yeah I worked really hard there. I just recently bought this on Bluray a couple weeks ago, and I had the urge to watch it. I remember really liking this slasher, and wondering why it doesn’t get much praise or recognition. Was this as good as I remember the last time I watched it?
First off I should note that this is an Italian movie, it mixes giallo and slasher elements together and is pretty unique from the large flood of 80s slashers. The filmsetting is a theater late at night with a group of actors rehearsing some really odd play. Like some woman in a frizzy ass wig acting like a prostitute, but not slutty enough because the doucher director bitches at her about it. Anyhoo, Alicia, the lead lady, sprains her ankle but the director (Peter) wont let her leave because he’s an ass. She sneaks out with the wardrobe woman to go to the hospital. They notice that there is a dude in a cell restrained to a bed. The doc tells them that the guy is Irving Wallace, some actor that went nuts and murdered people. Ok so this is one of those movies where you know the killer in the first five minutes, but hey, Halloween was like that and Halloween is awesome. Wallace sneaks out without anyone noticing, kills an attendant with a syringe and hides in Betty the wardrobe woman’s car.
The girls arrive back at the theaters, when the director fires Alicia for leaving, tool! Betty returns to the car, sensing something is off she looks around. Suddenly a pickaxe plows into her mouth, it is pretty awesome honestly. Alicia comes outside and sees Betty’s body and freaks out. The police come and take the body away, they stick around to keep an eye on the theater. The director decides to take advantage of the murder by altering the play’s script. Instead of an unknown killer, the character is now Irving Wallace. Ok who does that? Why make light of a murder? He makes everyone stay and rehearse the new material. He basically kidnaps everyone when he has someone hide the key to the front door, illegal. He offers more money and most of them agree. They have a scene where a girl in a nighty dances around and gets attacked by the killer, whom is now the real Irving Wallace. I’ll note that the killer is now wearing the Owl face. He seriously looks like a Hooters mascot or maybe a Rice University mascot? I don’t know. The girl gets slaughtered; the director loves it and doesn’t realize she is actually getting killed. The cast is rightfully horrified. The girl was the only one that knew where the key was hidden, so awesome guys! Why the director wasn’t told of the location of the key is beyond me but that adds to the movie I suppose.
The group sticks together and searches for the key. Sybil starts to feel sick, she kind of looks like the woman from Missing Persons mixed with Linnea Quigley in Return of the Living Dead. Laurel makes her way to the dressing room, she strips down naked and has some really small kind of odd-looking boobs, I think it is suppose to be sexy but yeah, it is not. Owl face is watching her, so I guess he gets off on her scrawny bones. She goes into a dressing room and screams; the others come to her to see if she is ok. Peter accuses Brett as the killer, but he refuses to accept it. While Brett practices alone in the dressing room when OwlFace pops up and murders Brett. The cast tries to use the phone, but in true slasher fashion, Owlface cut the phone line. Ferrari gets separated from the group and Owlface closes in on him, Ferrari tries to bribe the killer, but to no avail as he is murdered with a knife. I’ve never seen a person try to bribe a slasher villain, it is kind of funny.
The rest of the group barricades themselves in a room. Peter and Danny leave Alicia, Mark, Sybil and Laurel in the room and search for the killer. Laurel notices someone is opening the door and calls Mark. Mark barricades the door with the help of Alicia and Laurel. Sybil just screams for like five minutes, making me wish she would just die already. Owlface breaks through the door window and grabs Mark. Owlface pushes a power drill through Mark and kills him. This death is pretty awesome and gory. Peter and Danny hear the screams and follow them. They decide that everyone must have a defense and they must stick together. Peter notices someone in the attic; he then puts a light up and finds the killer. He asks Danny to block his way while he follows the killer, Alice and Laurel climb up as well and they follow Peter. Alicia freaks out and grabs Laurel’s foot, she pushes her down and Alicia gets knocked out.
They finally get to the attic, Peter the director hacks up a dude in an owl costume with an axe. Of course its not Wallace, its actually Brett, whom is tied up in the rafters. Owlface pulls down Sybil, they race to pull her up and finally do, but her lower half is missing. It was nice seeing her die finally, she was annoying and this death was great. Danny goes down and follows Owlface, like an idiot, but is killed with a chainsaw. Peter and Laurel make their way to escape by breaking the door, but Owlface appears behind them, causing Peter to push Laurel into Owlface’s chainsaw and wounds her chest. Owlface attacks Peter and cuts his left arm off that was holding an axe. The chainsaw runs out of gas and Owlface grabs the axe and lops Peter’s head off, about time that douchebag director got his. Alicia comes to and realizes she’s alone now. She searches for everyone but only finds Laurel, severely wounded by the chainsaw. Alicia hides in a nearby shower room and hears Owlface walking towards them. She watches as Owlface stabs Laurel to death. This scene is kind of disturbing because she sees the whole thing happen while making eye contact with Laurel.
Alicia searches for escape, and grabs a pistol. She tries to unlock the door, and sees Owlface sitting on the stage with all the corpses placed around. She walks under the stage to get the key that is behind Owlface. She grabs the key but it falls to the floor, startling Owlface. She quickly runs out from beneath the stage and gets strangled by Owlface. The pistol of course doesn’t fire, because this is a horror movie. She then stabs him in the eye with a screwdriver and runs. Alicia runs to the door, but doesn’t have the time to open it while Owlface walks up behind her. She takes off and goes into the catwalks, she reaches a dead end and Owlfaces corners her. Alicia sprays a fire extinguisher in his face, he falls off the catwalk, grabbing a cord to save himself. Alicia cuts the cord and he falls to the ground. She makes her way to the door and Owlface gets up and attacks her, he accidentally bumps a burning bin, causing him to catch on fire and burn to death. The next morning, Alicia finds her watch that she lost during the fight. Oddly she finds 8 bodies not 9. Owlface now with a burned face appears and tries to kill her with an axe when he’s shot in the head. Alicia makes her way out of the theater, not knowing that Owlface survived the headshot.
This is kind of a gem in the 80s slasher genre. The acting is solid, the gore is great and the killer is creepy as hell with the big owl mask. The setting and story is rather unique. I like the movies that have just a random psycho that escapes and kills people, it never gets old and if there is one thing I’ve learned from slasher movies is that in the 80s, psych wards had terrible security and every town had one. Only thing I didn’t care for in the movie was the music. The music wasn’t bad; it is just played too loud and at odd times during the film. I found it rather distracting at times and had a hard time getting past it. If you are a slasher movie fan and you get tired of the boring ones like Final Exam, check out StageFright Aquarius, it is much better than probably half the slasher movies out there. I would give this movie a B+, it is fun, creepy, and gory but has some annoying parts to it like the music. Lastly, I have learned that Owlface’s whole plan was to kill a cast and be the lead actor, by just sitting on a couch surrounded by corpses, BRAVO!
