30 Best Hidden Gem Horror Movies Perfect For Halloween
18. Stage Fright (1987)
While Italian genre cinema helped father the slasher movie with its iconic giallo subgenre - born from pulpy mystery novels - it rarely produced a straight, American-style slasher. If you were going to pick one, though, Stage Fright is definitely worth a look.
A struggling theatre troupe is rehearsing a play about an owl-masked serial killer when a real escaped maniac sneaks onto the set, dons the costume, locks the doors, and begins taking everyone out in inventively grisly fashion.
Stage Fright comes from an unsung hero of the ’80s Italian scene, Michele Soavi. Not as productive or infamous as peers like Dario Argento or Lucio Fulci, he directed only a handful of movies (The Church, Cemetery Man) during the genre heyday, all of them fantastic, which was a rare feat for that era. Strongest among them is this tight, lean shocker that Soavi squeezes for every drop of suspense.
The set pieces are nail-biting, the style is gloriously ’80s Italy, and the kills are shocking and vicious. Most impressive, though, is how unpredictably the plot unfolds from such a seemingly generic premise. If there’s a hidden-gem slasher to watch this season, Stage Fright is the top pick.