Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Horror Musicals

by Cinematical staff Nov 18th 2009 // 6:03PM

By Alison Nastasi

With the announcement of Carrie making a return to the Broadway circuit after a short-lived disastrous first go-round, I'm left holding my head and wondering, "Why?" Horror musicals are like your socially awkward cousin. You know, the one who talks too much and quite possibly bears an uncanny resemblance to Franklin from Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Is it fair to hold the horror musical to the same standards as the dastardly horror film remakes that seem to be happening in droves? I don't think I can help it. Few horror musicals have been born from an original idea which leaves me with the same funny feeling. I'm well aware that remakes have been happening since the dawn of time but this kind of remake is worse. When you add the word 'musical' to anything it evokes a horrible visceral reaction within many people. Adding it to the word horror just seems like a bastardized and shrieking kind of wrong.

Isn't the comical genius of Young Frankenstein and Evil Dead perfect as is? Young Frankenstein was a parody. So, is a mugging Dr. Frankenstein belting out a song called Transylvania Mania anything other than pointless and silly? The film Cannibal! The Musical, another intentional parody by beloved low-budget Troma Entertainment, has more class by comparison. Even Cronenberg's The Fly has been made into an opera, but they don't have me fooled. Adding the smooth vowel-ridden word to the title doesn't soften the blow. In fact, it's almost more cruel. However, Repo! The Genetic Opera would probably disagree with me.

Read the rest at Horror Squad!

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Tags: Buffy Musical Big Screen Extravaganza, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, BuffyMusicalBigScreenExtravaganza, BuffyTheVampireSlayer, Cannibal The Musical, CannibalTheMusical, Carrie, Darren Lynn Bousman, DarrenLynnBousman, Evil Dead, EvilDead, horror musical, horror musicals, HorrorMusical, HorrorMusicals, little shop of horrors, LittleShopOfHorrors, musical theater, musicals, MusicalTheater, New York Times, NewYorkTimes, Once More with Feeling, OnceMoreWithFeeling, phantom of the opera, PhantomOfTheOpera, Repo The Genetic Opera, RepoTheGeneticOpera, rocky horror, rocky horror picture show, RockyHorror, RockyHorrorPictureShow, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, TexasChainSawMassacre, Troma Entertainment, TromaEntertainment, Young Frankenstein, YoungFrankenstein

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-18-2009 @ 7:07PM

Scribblescrawl said...

Wasn't Cannibal! The Musical actually just distributed by Troma?

11-18-2009 @ 7:15PM

Gunner said...

Repo: The Genetic Rock Opera-I rented mistakenly, I'm dyslexic. I was running through the Video Store & thought I just grabbed the traditional 'Repo-man' (non musical, that's a headache waiting to happen.) And even then-I'd made the double mistake-because I'd WANTED to grab 'Re-animator'. I was having one hell of a time trying to figure out when the hell Dr. Herbert West was going to show up. (How about never?) Only to find out, it wasn't any of the above-but something out of some Left Wing Nutters HMO Nightmare..set to a Musical..and Holy Pleather Bat Man-Giles is wearing bondage gear! Needless to say-it's 'nothing' I would have ever intentionally rented. But having seen it once, to all my friends who love Horror & like musicals-it's a good movie to view-once. I don't want to own the OST though.

11-19-2009 @ 9:09AM

Eric H said...

You guys have to stop splitting articles between sites, its a huge pain in the ass.

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