Line #24 Film/StageFrightAquarius


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2013_11_03_1987_stagefright.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:The theatre of death.]]
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4	''[=StageFright=] -Aquarius-'' (a.k.a. ''Deliria'', ''Aquarius'' and ''Stage Fright'') is an Italian SlasherMovie with {{giallo}} elements from the year 1987. It is the first feature film directed by Creator/MicheleSoavi, who also did ''Film/CemeteryMan'' seven years later. The screenplay was written by Italian horror veteran Luigi Montefiori, better known under the name Creator/GeorgeEastman.
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6	The film opens with our main characters rehearsing the play by the name of ''The Night Owl''. Alicia, one of the actors, slips away briefly with Betty to get some treatment for her sprained ankle. They visit the local psychiatric hospital, where Alicia runs to Irving Wallace, an actor who recently went crazy and gruesomely killed and mutilated 16 people. Irving manages to escape from the hospital and hitches a ride with the women to the theatre. He then kills Betty just outside the theatre. After Alicia finds her body, the police are quickly called to the scene.
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8	After the police and the press leave, Peter the director convinces the main funder Ferrari and the cast to keep on practising the play, as the murder can get them more attention. To ensure the show going on, he locks up the doors, not knowing that Irving is with them and about to start hacking them up in various ways.
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11	!!Examples within the film:
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13	* AllPartOfTheShow: When Irving kills Corinne, Peter's first reaction is to wonder why is he using a knife.
14	* AlliterativeName: Alicia Alvarez.
15	* AnArmAndALeg: Irving cuts off Peter's right before his chainsaw runs out of fuel.
16	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Peter, Ferrari and Laurel.]]
17	* AutoErotica: When Laurel is being called to the stage, she is busy making out with Dominic in an automobile prop.
18	* AxCrazy: Irving. It's hard to classify you as sane when you slaughter people and then pose them.
19	* BarrierBustingBlow: Irving punches through a door to grab Mark.
20	* BigBad: Irving Wallace.
21	* BigNo: Peter's last words.
22	* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler: [[AvertedTrope HELL NO!]] Willy gets off the set before the slaughter starts and only comes back at the end of the film... to shoot Irving [[KilledOffForReal right between the eyes!]]]]
23	* BloodFromTheMouth: Corinne bleeds from the mouth after being stabbed.
24	* BreakingTheFourthWall: At the very end, [[spoiler:supposedly dead Irving smirks at the camera. [[WordOfGod According to Soavi]], it's a LampshadeHanging on how the killer is always alive at the end]].
25	* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler:CampGay Brett is among Irving's victims. Fortunately, unlike other horror films, he doesn’t get the most brutal, harrowing, or torturous death. That (dis)honor goes to Laurel.]]
26	* CampGay: Brett could be called an offensive stereotype if he wasn't so ''fun'' about it.
27	* CatScare: Willy's cat Lucifer provides one to Betty when she goes to check her car.
28	* ChainsawGood: When Danny goes after Irving, he kills him with a chainsaw.
29	* ClosedCircle: Peter locks up the he theatre to coerce the actors to accept his sensationalistic changes to the script.
30	* CoversAlwaysLie: Some posters depict Irving smashing a fish tank with an axe. The fish tank in question does appear, but it doesn't get destroyed.
31	* CreatorCameo:
32	** Soavi appears as the younger cop stationed in the car outside the theatre.
33	** One of film's writers appears as a nurse.
34	** Screenwriter George Eastman has an uncredited appearance as the masked Irving Wallace.
35	* CutPhoneLines: Irving cuts the phone line to the theatre.
36	* DeathByMaterialism: Ferrari dies soon after leaving behind others to secure his briefcase full of his money.
37	* DeathByMocking: Brett, who [[InformedAttribute according to the characters]] is fond of pranks.
38	* DirtyOldMan: Ferrari, [[InformedAttribute according to the cast]]. And the scene where he offers to help Alicia in a conspicuous way and doesn't deny it when she accuses him more or less that he just wants to help himself to her.
39	* DonutMessWithACop: The younger cop stationed outside happily munches on a donut while the older cop laments the fact that his wife forces him to eat healthily.
40	* EyeScream: Alicia stabs Irving in the eye when he grabs her.
41	* FinalGirl: Alicia
42	* FlippingTheBird: Laurel flips off Brett when he waves at her from the sidelines.
43	* GenericDoomsdayVillain: Irving Wallace's motives and backstory aren't explained in any detail. He's just a former stage actor who went violently nuts and seems to enjoy being in center stage among dead bodies. The film wouldn't have changed that much if he'd been replaced with a killer shark.
44	* {{Gorn}}: The film is quite violent, as one would expect from an Italian Slasher flick.
45	* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Irving pulls Sybil through a floor, and as Peter and Danny try to pull her up, he slices her in half.
46	* HangingByTheFingers: When Irving loses his balance up in the scaffolds, he finds himself hanging onto a ledge and Alicia hitting his fingers with a fire extinguisher.
47	* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: Willy gets one when he shoots Irving..]]
48	-->[[spoiler:'''Willy''': ''I... I just went to get the gun, trying to show you how to put a bullet in the chamber. See that? I got him right between the eyes! Just like I said... Right between the eyes! Damn... You see that Ally? Right betw... right between the eyes! Just like I said. Between... between the eyes. Got him...'' etc.]]
49	* {{Homage}}: The MirrorScare scene is a homage to Creator/DarioArgento's ''Film/{{Tenebre}}'', where Soavi worked as an assistant director.
50	* AHouseDivided: Averted, as when the remaining cast starts to crack in the dressing room, Alicia quickly tells them off.
51	* HystericalWoman: Sybil after Corinne's death.
52	* ImplacableMan: Nothing will stop Irwin until he gets his twisted hands on every member of the cast and turn them into corpses-props for his play. Not even [[spoiler: falling from a great height or getting burned alive will do more than slow him down.]]
53	** Getting sprayed with a fire extinguisher is somehow able to stun him though.
54	* {{Jerkass}}: Peter is one throughout the production.
55	** It seems that he is mending his ways by apologizing to Alicia after the massacre begins and even tries to be proactive and suggests some GenreSavvy moves like sticking together. Then when Irving comes at him with a chainsaw, [[DirtyCoward he just has to push Laurel towards him.]]
56	* KickTheDog: Peter pushing Laurel at Irving when he is approaching the two. Prior to this, he throws the cat Lucifer across the stage.
57	* MadArtist: Irving seems to be one. After he thinks that he has killed everyone, he organizes the bodies bizarrely on the stage, setting up a fan to blow feathers across them, and takes a seat at the stage's center with the theater's cat on his lap. Dialogue exchange earlier in the film reveals that he posed the bodies during his last slayings.
58	* ManOnFire: Alicia sets Irving on fire with one of the TrashcanBonfire props.
59	* MirrorScare: When Brett takes a bow for an imaginative audience on front of a mirror, it is shown that Irving was standing behind him.
60	* MorningSickness: Sybil is pregnant and suffers from this throughout the film.
61	* MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: [[ParodiedTrope Gruesomely parodied]] with Irving using his victims as actors on a stage.
62	* MurderByMistake: Peter kills Brett in the attic, thinking that he was attacking Irving.
63	* MysteriousPast: We're not told why Irving went insane and why exactly he arranges his victims bodies the way he does.
64	* NeverSplitTheParty: When the cast realizes that they can't get out the building, Peter suggests that they stay together and retreat to the dressing room. However, due to Alicia's sprained ankle they all can't go to get the spare keys together. This leads Peter and Danny justifiable [[LetsSplitUpGang splitting up with others]] temporarily to go look for them.
65	* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: In-universe, Mark decides to uses Betty's murder to get some extra publicity for their play. He also alters the script to more closely resemble the Irving Wallace murders.
66	* NotQuiteDead: To an exasperating degree [[spoiler: there are not many films where one of the main in-jokes is that the killer just.won't.fucking.die]]
67	* OffWithHisHead: Irving beheads Peter. He also does it to one of the mannequins when he is organizing his "exhibit".
68	* OneWomanWail: On the soundtrack.
69	* PeekABooCorpse: Irving sets Ferrari's corpse on a rope to surprise the men who come looking after him.
70	* PetTheDog: Peter gets such moment when he openly admits his faults.
71	%%* ScreamingWoman
72	* TheShowMustGoOn: Peter convinces the cast to keep on practicing after Betty's murder, because now they have change for some recognition.
73	* ShowWithinAShow: ''The Night Owl'', a sleaze-filled dance play featuring sex and murder. Has it's own tropes:
74	** CreepyDoll: A mannequin portrays Corinne's character's lover.
75	** TheDeadCanDance: After being murdered, Alicia's character starts dancing.
76	** DisposableSexWorker: Alicia's character.
77	** {{Fanservice}}: Initial selling point of the play.
78	** OminousOwl: The killer in the play wears an owl head. Irving starts wearing it himself.
79	** RapeAsDrama: Laurel's character in the cheesy play gets raped. Also, there's supposedly a moment where the killer is [[MindScrew raped by his own dead victim]].
80	** RealLifeWritesThePlot: To cash in on Betty's murder, Peter changes some aspects of the play to reflect it.
81	** SoundtrackDissonance: Plays during the death of Corinne's character.
82	** TrashcanBonfire: One of the stage props in the number shown in the film's opening.
83	* SilentAntagonist: Irving never says anything, [[spoiler: closest is in the ending when he looks at the camera and gives a bemused "hmph"]].
84	* StaggeredZoom: Used when Irving falls from the scaffolds and his body is shown.
85	* ThisIsADrill: Mark is killed with a power drill.
86	* ThoseTwoGuys: The two cops stationed outside the theater, who provide little comic relief.
87	* TokenMinority: Willy. However [[spoiler: not only was he in no danger to begin with, but he even gets the honour to be the one to deliver the finishing blow to Irving and the one to suffer from the trauma afterwards.]]
88	%%* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Irving’s “set display” near the end.
89	* VomitIndiscretionShot: The first instance of Sybil's morning sickness.
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92	->''"Hmph."''

Context Film / StageFrightAquarius