GaryKurt101

An escaped mental patient who used to be an actor breaks into a closed rehearsal for a new dance show and carves up all the performers in a variety of clever ways.

While most Italian horror films are more known for being gory murder mystery gialli, Stagefright feels more like a take on the American slasher film with no mystery whatsoever to the killer's identity and just a series of increasingly elaborate and gory set pieces until only one person is left. To it's credit, it doesn't forget the suspense and some moments are genuinely scary and haunting.

A family moves into a house that's haunted by the ghost of a deranged doctor who used to perform strange experiments on people. Or maybe he's still alive and excited about having a fresh group of victims to carve up.

In usual Fulci fashion, there are buckets of blood and a ton of excellent makeup effects shoved into a script that barely seems like it was given three seconds of thought. It has a nice, creepy music score and some good mood which might keep certain audience members captivated in between dismemberments.

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on from scene to scene in Messiah of Evil, but you can tell there's nothing else quite like it. At it's worst, it's a little sleepy and meandering, but at it's best, there are few films that can compare to its creep factor.

It's got a young woman who travels to a seaside town to visit her artist father and discovers that the entire town has been overrun by blood-thirsty zombie-like creatures.

The cinematography is very striking and it has a few moments that will really get under your skin.