Clearly someone thought this was a good idea - Meat Loaf starring in a musical horror movie. I have no idea who sold this, but they should be shot. I think this was riding on the unfathomable and unlikely success of Glee and various other musical things that I haven't seen. Fact is, I'm not the target audience, and that will be clear as this review continues.
Minnie Driver was the first name I saw associated with this movie. I generally like Minnie, so I thought this was a good sign. The problem is that she is not a factor pretty early on in this movie. Her character does little more than provide motivation for other characters to do things in her memory after the first couple scenes. Minnie doesn't have a terrible voice, and she only sings one song, so I'd have to say she earned her one day of work's pay for the movie.
Meat Loaf is not a good actor, and I don't like his singing, either. Really, in this role he's a double whammy in that respect. You name the thing that he sucks at, and he's going to try to do it. He plays the manager of the theater where Minnie sings, and then he accepts responsibility for her children after her unfortunate demise. It seems that he falls on hard times after that, as something happens that makes him lose the theater and he winds up managing a summer camp for wealthy theater geeks. It is here that he decides to run the same musical that Minnie had headlined - a Musical that is essentially The Phantom of the Opera without anything that might require royalty payments.
Allie MacDonald is Minnie's now mostly grown daughter who decides that she wants to try out for the role that Minnie played. This is against the rules, as she works in the kitchen with her brother but, as you might expect, exceptions can be made. So, she can try out, and we consequently see her doing an okay job singing and dancing and trying to act at various points on the movie.\
The music is really bad. Every singing scene (including some scenes with the killer killing people) just sucks. The melodies are bad and the lyrics stink. It is noteworthy that Meat Loaf didn't actually contribute to the composing of the music at all (according to the credits, at least) so he only shoulders the burden of his own lackluster performance.
I don't really like most musicals, and this demonstrated most of the reasons.
Direction was not good
Music was bad
Singing was not great
Acting was not great
Story was weak
0.75/5