Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A horror comedy slasher musical might not sound that great for many but I found it to be rather entertaining.For the record it's not non-stop singing although there is a lot of it so if you're allergic to musical numbers then perhaps this is not for you.It's pretty cool though that the killer sings heavy metal songs while slashing people up, and yes it gets real bloody at times which looks real neat and make it more fun.The acting is fine, nothing amazing but they do what their characters asks of them to do... Minnie Driver who has top-billing here is only in it or about 13 minutes so if you want to see it just for the sake of her, well don't expect too much of her... Meat Loaf is in it more, which is fine cause he is a pretty good actor other than that the cast is fairly unknown, Douglas Smith some might recognise from 'Big Love' and he's good too.A little drawn out here and there and some songs are better than others but overall amusing movie that I would watch again.

I'm definitely not as skeptical and negative towards the combination "horror + musical" as most people are, or at least I like to think I'm not. In my humble opinion there exist a couple of terrific horror musicals - such as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "The Wicker Man", "Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street", Dario Argento's "Opera" and "Repo! The Genetic Opera" – but the main question remains, of course, whether a modestly produced slasher like "Stage Fright" from an unknown and debuting director like Jerome Sable can be as good and memorable as any of the aforementioned titles (which are either genuine cult classics or directed by popular film makers). The answer somewhat bounces back and forth between yes and no. "Stage Fright" definitely contains a handful of imaginative ideas and mighty great sequences, but it also suffers from a couple of dreadfully dull parts and it occasionally goes too far over-the-top. The opening sequences of the film are inarguably fantastic and set the tone for what might become a truly barbaric and bloody slasher highlight. After another stellar performance in the acclaimed piece "Haunting of the Opera", musical starlet Kylie Swanson (the one and only Minnie Driver) is savagely stabbed to death by someone wearing the villain's mask, in the presence of her two young children Camilla and Buddy. Ten years later, Kylie's husband and producer Roger (Meat Loaf, oh yes) is running a summer camp for aspiring teenage musical singers – without much financial success, though – and her offspring works in the kitchen of this same camp. The new batch of singers arrives and the obnoxious art director decides that they will perform "Haunting of the Opera" at the end of summer camp. Camilla sees her chance to follow into the footsteps of her mother and auditions for the female lead role, much against the will of other girl campers and her own brother Buddy. Jealousy, treason, rivalry and sabotage ensue, but that's not all. The vicious killer pops up again as well, and expresses his/her hatred towards musicals by butchering people left and right. Okay, so the opening massacre is awesome. What else? Most the songs are actually very good and mix hysterical lyrics with nice rhythms and lovely singing voices. My personal favorite is the camp entrance song "Where we Belong", featuring lyrics like "I've got beaten up a dozen times for singing songs and sometimes rhymes. Those school bullies sound awful bad. What school buddies, that was just my dad!". The cast is terrific as well, with particularly the beautiful and sexy Allie MacDonald leaving a great impression, and the script contains numerous successful tongue-in-cheek references towards traditional slasher clichés (suspicious hillbilly janitor, anyone?) and summer camp classics. Negative elements include a few too many tedious sequences, notably during the musical premiere, and a too absurd maniacal killer character with Kabuki mask and a passion for metal music. The identity of the killer is so damn obvious, by the way, that I presume it's also part of the overall parody. Warmly recommended in case you like the slasher genre and all of its nowadays homage films, and also recommended of course if "you're gay but not in that way".

Imagine if you took Disney's High School Musical series, threw in some stoned-looking teenagers, gay bashing comments, cursing and bad singing, along with a cliché story about an unoriginal slasher movie killer. Well, if that's your thing, then here you go! The acting was terrible, especially from the girl (main protagonist). She is a ditz, a bimbo and she dresses like a twelve-year-old, not to mention she looks like she's on something. For some unknown reason the singer Meat Loaf was in the cast, no idea why he's there. Perhaps the script writers were very drunk, or had gotten into the Windex in the custodian's closet of the film studio, I don't know. I think it's supposed to be a black comedy movie but I just didn't find the humor in it.The singing (yes it's a slasher musical), was weird and awful. Take several cats and chuck them in a dishwasher and you'll get a similar melody. The plot is weird and the movie seems aimed at kids ages 12 to 18 rather than the usual 18+ audiences of horror. Every character was shallow, there's even a girl who offers sex to a nerdy guy so he'll rig the voting for the lead actress in the theater camp's play.All in all this was pretty bad, no nicer way of putting it. I don't even want to know what the producers were thinking coming up with something like this.

If you love slasher movies and hate musicals.. then this film is not for you. But if you LOVE slashers and don't mind some musicals with horror aspects such as 'Sweeney Todd' or 'Rocky Horror' you will love this. The killer is done in a way if the writers mixed Ghostface with Freddy Krueger's humor and puns, then made the killer wear a mask with a similar design to Billy from Saw. The movie contains great actors such as Good will hunting's Minnie Driver and musician Meat Loaf, with songs in the style of an old 'Annie' theater feel and then makes the movie step up to the horror game when the killer has his music moments; singing in the style of an Ozzy Osbourne song.