Deliria (Bloody Bird)(Sound Stage Massacre)(Stage Fright) (1987)

66% of users liked it
(1,291 ratings)

Horror film actor Michele Soavi's directorial debut was this stylish giallo thriller about an escaped lunatic terrorizing the cast of a stage musical who get locked in a theater after dark. David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, and perennial victim Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka "John Morghen") lead the… More Horror film actor Michele Soavi's directorial debut was this stylish giallo thriller about an escaped lunatic terrorizing the cast of a stage musical who get locked in a theater after dark. David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, and perennial victim Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka "John Morghen") lead the cast, most of whom spend their time sniping at each other with amusingly typical backstage cruelty. The murder scenes are the film's primary attraction, artfully handled by Soavi in setpieces such as a blue-lighted stage strewn with feather-covered bodies. The killer wears an owl mask, which is offputting at first but seems progressively more sinister as the film goes along. Soavi's stylistic mentor, Dario Argento, directed the similar Opera the same year, while this one was produced by Aristide Massaccesi ("Joe D'Amato") from a script by actor Luigi Montefiori ("George Eastman"). ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 35 min.
Directed By: Michele Soavi
Genres: Horror

In Theaters: Feb 8, 1987 Wide
On DVD: Mar 22, 2005

Critic Reviews

Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
The kind of ridiculously self-assured debut that declares its maker to be some kind of savant or prodigy.
Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine
Skimpy on the extras, Blue Underground nevertheless provides Soavi's spunky freshman effort with an agreeable presentation.
Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine
Stagefright proceeds as a rather earthbound taster of winky genre self-reflexivity.
Alan Simpson, Sex Gore Mutants
Simple but very stylish genre fare

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Featured Audience Ratings

Keiko A

Michele Soavi's directorial debut and he has other credites like Alien 2 on Earth his first acting role. Still Soavi still puts on some stella murder scenes. The direction is great for a first time gig...Some great creepy music and some stella acting for its time (Mnus the… More
Michele Soavi's directorial debut and he has other credites like Alien 2 on Earth his first acting role. Still Soavi still puts on some stella murder scenes. The direction is great for a first time gig...Some great creepy music and some stella acting for its time (Mnus the dubbing no doubt). Still amazing camera work and gory effects,
Cassandra M

Deliria, Aquarius, Bloody Bird or Stagefright is the horror movie I remember most during my adolescent years, and it freaked me out!!! There is an extremely high level of violence with Soavi showing in graphic detail power drills being shoved through bodies, severed torsos and the… More
Deliria, Aquarius, Bloody Bird or Stagefright is the horror movie I remember most during my adolescent years, and it freaked me out!!! There is an extremely high level of violence with Soavi showing in graphic detail power drills being shoved through bodies, severed torsos and the like - all of which initially serves to give the impression that Soavi is a director without any style, just a penchant for ultra-violent dispatch. However there are also a number of occasions where Soavi demonstrates considerably more style - particularly in moments that he blends the suspense with the illusion of the stage, like one sequence where the director directs the killer in the play how to kill an actress unaware that he is directing the killer who really is killing the actress. And once Soavi has gotten his string of victims out of the way he develops the film into a vividly drawn-out series of suspense sequences - in one scene the heroine is hiding in a shower cubicle as a friend is stabbed by the killer in the adjoining cubicle and she must do all she can to stop her friend crying out for help and giving her presence away; or where a cat trips a fan blowing away a pile of feathers revealing the key embedded in the cracks of the stage and the heroine's suspenseful crawl under the stage to try and get it while the killer sits directly above. Go buy a tub of popcorn and a Coke, this movie is great. <a href="http://photobucket.com/images/deliria" target="_blank"><img src="http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr208/Kulumbyo-Macanas-de-Niobio/RomaiiiCiiiiDeliriaiiiMaeAlViiii100.jpg" border="0" alt="Cena do longa-metragem DELIRIA (1987, dire&ccedil;&atilde;o de MICHELLE SOAVI) Pictures, Images and Photos"/></a>
Lee ?

A well executed Italian slasher. Nothing original or ground-breaking but it does it's job well with a killer that dispatches his victims as messily as possible using an array of harmful objects and tools. Well worth a look.