I don’t know about you, but this news makes me want to dust off my copy of Bat Out of Hell and start singing at the top of my lungs. Variety reports that Douglas Smith has joined the cast of Stage Fright, an independent slasher movie co-starring the legendary singer / occasional actor Meat Loaf. Written and directed by Jerome Sable (making his feature debut in both areas), Stage Fright tells the story of a teenage girl who lands a role on a Broadway-bound show. But, before the show can go on, the production ends up as the bloody playground for a masked killer.
Since Smith is a man, I’m assuming he isn’t playing the lead role — unless they’re going old school Shakespearean-style and dressing him up as a woman. No word on what Loaf‘s role will entail, either, but with any luck it’ll involve him belting out long, complex numbers while sweating heavily and wildly swinging a handkerchief in his hand. (If you can correctly visualize this, you’re either older than you want to admit or have peculiar taste for a young person.)
The fact that he’s signed on is already enough to get me interested; not only do I love his insanely intricate music, but he’s also proven time and time again to be a more than capable actor (most of you probably remember him as Bob from Fight Club). But, having watched the trailer to one of Sable’s short films — entitled The Legend of Beaver Dam — I’m now even more jazzed about the prospects of Stage Fright. The trailer mixes goofy and bloody very well, and one would assume this ends up having the same feel — but, obviously, with a bigger budget and longer runtime.
Check out the trailer for The Legend of Beaver Dam below to get a feel for the kinds of stuff Sable makes (NSFW if your workplace is afraid of fake-looking gore):
Does Stage Fright sound like something up your alley? Are horror-musicals an underappreciated sub-genre?