I must mention I have also seen Man with a Movie Camera_ and _Berlin: Symphony of a Great City_. I know these are available, but what about others like it. I find it interesting that we get _Dark City_ and _The Truman Show_ in one year. What does that say about our society when we make films about entrapment in false realities. I know there are other films like this, but I'm drawing a blank on them right now. This is much more specific than "mindbending films," and I don't think Gilliam's really represent this, except maybe _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_. Yesterday I saw Michele Soavi's (as Michael Soavi) _StageFright: -Aquarius-_ and I get to wondering about the stereotypes of the slasher films. This has an escaped mental patient named Irving Wallace killing the crew of an avant-garde play about a homocidal maniac in an owl mask. After the escape is reported, Peter, the director, further sensationalizes the play by rewiting it about Wallace. Bret, the gay actor playing Wallace is bound while putting on the spare costume by the real one, wearing the original. He is apparently not killed for Wallace's glee in having someone else kill a friend. The film was excruciatingly violent, but the cast was not played as cannon-fodder, and the scenes were more gruesome and affecting because Soavi develops his characters enough (aside from the comic relief old-young cops outside, the younger one being an uncredited Soavi, at one point asking if he looks like James Dean, which he does) that we even care about the greedy producer, and the zero-tolerance director who keeps them locked up in the place (the one who knows where the keys are is the first to go). The character softens up quite a bit, but gets cut up with a chainsaw, struggling vainly to defend himself with an axe. The film developed the plot and the characters to great effect, and although I would say it is probably one of the most violent films I have ever seen (except Demoni and Demoni 2). I take it American films like Paramount's Friday XIII framchise (which I have never seen any of) stereotype all horror films into their Facets lump of "guilty pleasures." Aside from the Demons films, and _Pumpkinhead_, I've never seen any horror film where the characters were NOT interesting. This film is not free of chucklable cliches, but the point is that horror, at least modern has always seemed a pigeonhole for bad films. While I wouldn't say this is a great film, certainly Soavi himself has made better, but this was his first shot, it is certainly an interesting film; certainly not trash. Scott ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.