Somewhere in America, a small-town play is rehearsing late into the night. Peter (CALIGULA: THE UNTOLD STORY’s David Brandon), a hard-nosed director, nervously eggs his actors on, worrisome of the rapidly approaching opening night. Alicia, one member of the harried cast, is injured on the set and takes along her friend Betty (Ulrike Schwerk) to a nearby hospital to treat her ailment. They arrive at a psychiatric ward, which just so happens to house the notorious local lunatic Irving Wallace. On their way out the two friends fail to realize that Wallace has escaped (in their car, no less). Once back at the theater, Betty is gruesomely slain. Panic ensues among the cast, but Peter callously manipulates her death to his advantage, arguing that a death of a cast member could boost interest in the play. The cast is further outraged when he insists they continue to rehearse, circumstances notwithstanding. Little do any of them know that Wallace has the upper hand and has trapped the cast in the theatre, sealing their fates.

Yes, the admittedly contrived (and derivative) slasher set-up is in full-gear here. But first time director (and Argento protégé) Michele Soavi almost single-handedly elevates his debut film and the slasher genre out of the muck with astonishing confidence. Most critical to the film is Soavi’s tremendous sense of just what works and what doesn’t in a slasher film. The low budget (the film was produced by Joe D’Amato) only strengthens the film, forcing Soavi to get to the basics but still sweat the details. But before one can praise Soavi’s merits, it is imperative to take a closer look at his work for Argento.

Soavi’s earliest work for his crimson maestro was for 1982’s TENEBRAE, in which he served as second assistant director. He then was assistant director for 1985’s PHENOMENA and DEMONS (same year). His most ambitious work before his feature film debut was a documentary on the man himself, 1985’s DARIO ARGENTO’s WORLD OF HORROR, which he wrote and directed. But Soavi’s second unit director work on Argento’s 1987 film, OPERA proves the most elemental in his future directorial style. The plot of OPERA (that of an opera diva’s stalking by a crazed maniac) strikes an obvious narrative parallel in Soavi’s AQUARIUS. This similarity is nowhere as interesting as the two films’ stylistic echoes. Soavi’s tutelage served immensely fruitful, as he replicates many of Argento’s standby flash in his debut, either purposely or sub-consciously.

The most apparent mimicry of Argento’s style is the film’s camerawork. While not as frenzied and mischievous as Argento’s lens, Soavi’s film has its fair share of extensive POV and tracking shots. The result is the same as an Argento film: a densely visual film, effortlessly pulling the viewer into the events, no matter how outlandish. The sequences with Wallace running across various catwalks in hot pursuit of his victims (in wobbly POV) could practically be transposed with the stalking scenes in Argento’s OPERA. And, like all Argento films, music plays a key role here. Whether thrilling or seductive, the score (by Simon Boswell) proves an effectively eerie ambient menace. Music heightens key scenes, as well, such as the climatic showdown between Alicia and Wallace. Similarly, Argento is fond of touching up grandiose murder setpieces with corrosive, high-octane musical accompaniment (often by the likes of Goblin or heavy metal acts such as Motorhead). AQUARIUS may not be as rigorous in its use of screeching sonic accompaniment, but the outcome, that of boosting the adrenaline, is basically the same.

There are subtler, yet equally plausible Argento repercussions reflected in the Soavi style. For one, AQUARIUS shares OPERA’s fascination with the voyeur/victim relationship. OPERA’s nastiness takes place largely on (or around) a stage, as does AQUARIUS’. Both films are sort of "films within films" as they both use thematic productions as centerpieces. Both films project a self-conscious notion of the act of watching horror unfold, and how the lines between reality and illusion are often blurred, and the results can be dangerous. OPERA accomplishes this by having the ill-fated rendition of MacBeth springboard a killer’s murderous spree. In addition, OPERA’s killer partakes in the bloody business of forcing his victim’s eyes open with needles, forcing her to play voyeur in his bloody show of mayhem. AQUARIUS’s similar mission is no less apparent: Peter utilizes the offscreen terror (Betty’s death) to his advantage, transposing the terror of real life into the world of fantasy (the play). Soavi further teases the reality/fiction line by having Wallace dispatch of his first cast member on stage, in costume, no less. Hooded in an owl suit, no one suspects that Wallace has usurped a cast member’s role. Peter continues shouting directions to the masked killer, ordering him to act according to the script and "kill" a fellow actress. The murder is all part of the play, and no one raises even an eyebrow until Wallace takes an unscripted knife and plunges it into the actress’s chest. The lines between fiction and reality have merged, and the result is deadly.

But AQUARIUS wouldn’t be so special if Soavi didn’t take more than a few liberties of his own. From the first frame, Soavi plays a clever trick on the viewer. A woman (whom we soon learn to be Alicia) is walking down a dingy, dimly lit street. Suddenly, music is heard and a woman pops out from a stuffy apartment window and blows a sax. The camera pans out to reveal a stage set, crewmen, and miscellaneous theatrical paraphernalia. Only when the camera pulls out to reveal an obvious set do we realize we’ve been had. By fooling the film’s audience into believing a false reality, Soavi is able to shatter one’s feelings of security and warns the viewer to keep their wits about them for the remainder of the film.

Soavi also has an excellent feel for pacing. While some may find the initial half hour needlessly padded and sluggish, Soavi allots crucial data for the viewer during this period: minimal (but satisfactory) character development, a set-up (Wallace escaping from the hospital) and a "spark" (the first murder and the imprisonment of the survivors). Unlike so many other slasher films, Soavi knows when it’s time to move on. Once the situation is clear, his film switches gears into the familiar slasher territory. Even here, in the well-tread slasher path, Soavi manages to boil the genre down to its most basic elements and even expand upon them by way of the "build-up" first half-hour. Since the characters have had time to introduce themselves somewhat to the audience, the viewer has a preconceived notion as to how each one will interact with one another in the dire situation. This also allows for some surprises, as well. Peter, being the play director, fashions himself the unofficial leader of the pack. He takes an authoritative hand with the survivors as he would with them onstage. Expectations of his own survival are shattered when he is messily slaughtered and decapitated halfway through the film. Most surprising, however, is the fact that Alicia, the most skittish and frail ultimately prevails against the masked menace.

The best is saved for last, however. The standout sequence of the film, that of a shell-shocked Alicia making a grab for the key that holds her redemption, elevates AQUARIUS far above any other slasher film of the decade. The sequence is both hypnotic and tense; Alicia must retrieve the key from the floorboards only by moving under them (and the killer) and plucking it from below. There is some psychological exchange at play here as well. The killer waits patiently for her, cognizant of her obligation to retrieve the key in order to grant her freedom. It must be kept in mind that the killer volunteered her the key, taunting her with freedom from this nightmare. Literally, the killer holds the key and she is now in need of the man whom she was running away from for the entire film.

AQUARIUS has the fortunate situation of coming well after the early eighties slasher boom. Soavi had the advantage of both watching the various films from the sidelines and being involved in highly polished genre efforts by the likes of Dario Argento. This unique position proved sly fruitful for Soavi, and his AQUARIUS may be his ultimate emolument to his beloved mentor, Dario Argento.