HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 41
5th of 12 countries: Italy

Although I'm a big fan of director Michele Soavi, I think I'd always assumed StageFright would be a lesser entry from him. It's certainly a little less ambitious than his later films, in which he really pushed the envelope in terms of visual style - striving for a personal auteur stamp in the vein of his previous pals and mentors, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci (full disclosure: I have no idea if these guys were his "pals" but he worked with them a lot, so I'm assuming they got on OK - phew! Glad I clarified that - I think we all are).

And it doesn't start all that well. I mean, it starts out like any one of a number of cheap Italsploitation horror films from the era, which is not a bad thing, but I wasn't expecting to end up loving this as much as I did.

Because the bald fact stared me in the face at about the midway point: this is one of the most outrageously entertaining slasher films of the 80's. Not bad considering all the best slashers came out in the 80's, and outrageous entertainment is kind of their raison d'etre.

Although not up to Soavi's later standards of visual inventiveness, the film still looks terrific and nothing is done with lazy conventionality. Swirl that in a mix with a novel killer concept and a metric ton of gruesome, over the top kills and you've got yourself a major winner as far as I'm concerned.

Saovi's genre career was cut short by personal tragedy (I think he lost his daughter? After which he lost most of his interest and energy for directing horror, I heard - although he has continued to work in TV, I think) Soavi's deep, personal loss was horror cinema's great loss too. I mean look at that run: StageFright, The Church, The Sect and Cemetery Man - it's amazing, every one of those films is great if not a classic!

Glad I finally got around to this one - terrific slasher.