Line #20 Film/StageFright2014


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stage_fright1.jpg]]
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3	->''"Sing your heart out!"''
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5	''Stage Fright'' is a 2014 {{Canadian\|Movies}} comedic SlasherMovie that's also [[TheMusical a musical]] featuring the talents of Music/MeatLoaf.
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7	Camilla Swanson is a teenage girl who desperately wants to be an actress like her deceased mother. She auditions for a musical production at the performing arts summer camp where she works as a cook, and wins the lead. Despite it being a revival of the production her mother was starring in when she died, all goes well. Then the murders begin.
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9	Not to be confused with [[WesternAnimation/StageFright the animated short]], [[Film/StageFright1950 the 1950 Hitchcock film]], or [[Film/StageFrightAquarius the similarly-named 1987 slasher]].
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11	!!This film contains examples of:
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13	* AbusiveParents: One kid mentions being beaten by his dad a dozen times for singing Music/StephenSondheim songs.
14	* AdvertisedExtra: Creator/MinnieDriver gets top billing, but her character is killed before the opening credits. Her only other appearance is in a brief flashback during the climax.
15	* AllPartOfTheShow: [[spoiler:The audience at the climactic play thinks the film's climax is part of the reinterpretation of ''The Haunting of the Opera'', and give it a standing ovation.]]
16	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Buddy's first victim is a director who sexually harasses his female stars.]]
17	* AllMusicalsAreAdaptations: InUniverse example; the camp produced a musical adaptation of ''Theatre/TheVaginaMonologues'' the year before the film's events. {{Averted\|Trope}} for the film itself, which is original.
18	* BasedOnATrueStory: Parodied. A disclaimer at the start of the movie claims that it is based on a true story, with the names changed out of respect for the victims and their families. But the songs were performed exactly as in real life.
19	* BigBad: [[spoiler:Roger [=McCall=] killed Camilla's mother, and spent ten years forcing her twin brother to keep quiet about it, eventually inspiring Buddy to go on his killing rampage.]]
20	* BucketBoobyTrap: Liz rigs up a bucket to pour red paint over Camilla and ruin opening night. [[spoiler:[[HoistByHisOwnPetard It later ends up dumping on her instead.]]]]
21	* CampStraight: One of the theatre kids invokes this trope with a HaveAGayOldTime bit
22	-->"I sleep with women but musicals make me feel gay!"
23	** [[spoiler:It's revealed to be an act, in that he is in fact gay.]]
24	* CastingCouch: After Camilla gets cast, Artie keeps trying to get into her pants. [[spoiler: He eventually gives her an ultimatum that she puts out or he'll put her rival on stage opening night.]]
25	** Not the first time, either; when Artie is announced as director, Liz (who will eventually become Camilla's rival for the lead) mentions that when Artie cast her as the lead last summer, he kept wanting to make out with her.
26	** Intentionally employed, in a downplayed fashion, by Camilla also, who isn't actually allowed to audition (she works there vs. these kids paying to be there) and uses flirtation + sex appeal in order to even be allowed to audition for the role at all.
27	* CutPhoneLines: Roger rips out the phone to the camp office to prevent any of the campers from calling their parents and telling them about the murder.
28	* DeadStarWalking: Deliberately invoked; Minnie Driver is one of the top-billed actors, and she dies four scenes in.
29	* DisguisedHostageGambit: The killer knocks out [[spoiler:Liz]] and leaves her bound and gagged in the opera ghost costume and kabuki mask to take the fall for the murders and probably get killed in the process.
30	* FakeActionPrologue: The film opens with a man in evening dress being stabbed by a figure black robes and a WhiteMaskOfDoom. This turns out to a staging of the musical ''The Haunting of the Opera''.
31	* GenerationXerox: Camilla wants to be a Broadway star, just like her mother was about to become when she died. [[spoiler: the final scenes show Camilla about to make her professional debut in the same role she played at camp, and that her mother originated the last night of her life.]]
32	* {{Foreshadowing}}: the Stage Manager vows to the cast he'll do anything to keep the play going to the end, no matter the backstage crisis - except go on stage, because he has horrific [[TitleDrop stage fright]]. [[spoiler: With his villain unknowingly killed, his leading lady on the run from the killer, and a hoodie- and masked-clad Liz stumbling blindly around on the stage[[note]] she's been bound and gagged with duct tape under the hoodie and mask[[/note]], the Stage Manager has to put on a straw hat, run onto the stage, and work with Liz and the wildly improvising orchestra to run a comedy sketch to get the play through to the finale.]]
33	* HarmfulToMinors: [[spoiler:The climax reveals that Buddy witnessed his mother being stabbed to death by his stepfather, who persuaded Buddy that it was his fault. This eventually drove Buddy insane, leading him to hate musicals and stage a string of murders intended to prevent his sister from becoming an actress like their mother.]]
34	* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Sam takes every opportunity that he definitely sleeps with women despite being interested in musical theatre. [[spoiler:It's an act. He actually is gay.]]
35	* MeaningfulName: Karen Swanson. Add one more letter and it becomes ''Swan song''; just to rub it in, Karen is murdered the night she makes her successful Broadway debut performance. Poor woman doesn't even make it to the afterparty.
36	* MirrorScare: [[spoiler:The last scare of the film is a nightmare or hallucination Camilla has of the killer bursting through a mirror to kill her.]]
37	* MsFanservice: Camilla gets a ToplessnessFromTheBack scene, and an ImpossiblyLowNeckline during the play.
38	* PrimaDonnaDirector: Artie is a SmugSnake prone to pretentious rants about art and sexually harassing his leading ladies.
39	* SettingUpdate: The camp's production of ''The Haunting of the Opera'' is transplanted from 1800's France to feudal Japan, and [[RecycledInSpace done in kabuki style]].
40	* ShearMenace: The killer stabs [[spoiler:Tom]] with a heavy pair of dressmaker's shears.
41	* ShoutOut:
42	** A ''Literature/{{Fantomas}}'' poster is seen in an opening scene.
43	** Music/StephenSondheim, Creator/GilbertAndSullivan and Creator/RodgersAndHammerstein are namedropped in the film.
44	** The camp is mentioned as having performed a musical adaptation of ''Theatre/TheVaginaMonologues''.
45	** Camilla's rival plans on dropping a bucket of red paint on her, a la the pig blood scene in ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''.
46	* ShowWithinAShow: A major plot device in the film is ''The Haunting of the Opera'', a horror musical that's a pretty obvious riff on ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera''.
47	* ToplessnessFromTheBack: When Camilla succumbs to Art's CastingCouch techniques, the camera shows her removing her top and her bra from behind.
48	* WhiteMaskOfDoom: The killer wears one. Starts off as a generic ghost mask, but he later adopts a kabuki mask to account for the play's SettingUpdate.

Context Film / StageFright2014