Michele Soavi's Stagefright, aka Deliria, aka Aquarius, aka Bloody Bird, is one of the all-time horror classics to emerge from the shaky late 80s period of Italian genre cinema. A protege of Joe D'Amato who later became a protege of Dario Argento, Soavi's short-lived spotlight in directing Italian horror led him to produce classic after classic: this film, The Church, The Sect, and finally his magnum opus Dellamorte Dellamore. The soundtrack to Stagefright contains what could be considered the other seeds of the "Filmirage sound" set by Carlo Maria Cordio, even though I don't recall this soundtrack being recycled in future Filmirage productions.
This soundtrack was mainly composed by Simon Boswell, previously of Phenomena and Demons 2 fame, and later went on to compose movies like Hardware, Dust Devil, Clive Barker's Lord Of Illusions, and Ashens And The Quest For The GameChild, while other cues were composed by Stefano Mainetti, who later achieved notoriety as the composer to the infamous Zombi 3.
The centerpiece of Mainetti's contributions is easily the main title theme; if you've seen the film, it's the piece that plays during the first sequence on stage, and really sets the tone for the film. The centerpiece of Boswell's contributions is easily Sharp Groove, one of the most recognizable pieces in the film, because it's the one that has the breakbeat throughout it. I remember reading an interview with Boswell in a Fangoria issue where he said what song the breakbeat was sampled from, but I honestly don't remember.
The tracklisting is as follows:
2. Locked Up
4. Quartet
5. Locked Up
6. Fish Dreams
7. Corridor
8. Sharp Groove
9. Locked Up
10. Voices (After The Burning)
11. Gun Talk
12. Stage Fright
13. On Mrs. "J" Planet*
14. Ballade For Corinne*
15. Aquarius-End Titles*
*Composed by Stefano Mainetti
This edition was released by Peter Blumenstock's Lucertola Media in 1994, in a limited edition of 1200 copies. Blumenstock is a name that has come up pretty often when I did extensive research for Al Festa's film Fatal Frames, especially when I picked up the June 1994 edition of German horror mag Splatting Image with Fatal Frames as the cover story, so it was cool to see a familiar name behind this. If you go to the Discogs page for this release, you'll notice that the "lowest" amount on the sales is an even $25... because that's how much I paid for my copy. This had to have been OOP since at least 2000, and the prices I usually see it for are very much OOP prices, so I was stoked to jump on that price when it was available. If you manage to find it for under $40, by all means, go for it.
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