Scary Movies: Theatre of Blood

Theatre of Blood is a highly entertaining horror and black comedy from 1973 starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg (the Bond girl from the best Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). In fact, I would say this is one of the best Vincent Price movies I’ve seen, up there with The Fly and Witchfinder General. Vincent plays a famous actor, Edward Lionheart, in the London theatre who committed suicide after being snubbed for a prestigious best actor award, while Diana Rigg plays his daughter, Edwina, who believes her father was unjustly targeted by critics jealous of his success.

Right from the beginning, you get a good sense of where the movie is going, when a famous theatre critic in London is called out to a dilapidated property he owns that is being torn down to build new apartments. It seems some squatters have moved in and the police need someone with authority there while they chase the squatters out. But in fact, when the critic arrives, the police stand by and watch as a mob of drunks and vagrants dressed in togas stab the critic to death in a scene reminiscent of the Julius Caesar assassination on the floor of the Roman Senate.

And so it goes on, with each member of the London Theatre Critics Guild who criticized Edward Lionheart in print and voted against him for the best actor award being murdered in the manner of a famous killing in a Shakespeare play. Many of these take place in an abandoned theatre that has been taken over by Edward, Edwina, and the band of vagrants, who in exchange for copious amounts of liquor act as both an acting troupe and an impromptu cheering audience for the extravagant killings Edward carries out.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Dogge of the London Metropolitan Police and the ever-shrinking pool of Guild critics are investigating the murders and trying to figure out who committed them. Only gradually does it dawn on them that Lionheart, who they all saw jump from the high balcony of the Critics Guild office into the River Thames, might still be alive and taking revenge. This is confirmed by critic Peregrine Devlin, who engages Lionheart in a fencing match at a gym a la the swordfight in Romeo and Juliet, and barely manages to escape with his life.

Eventually, they track down Lionheart to his theatre hideout, but Devlin is captured and tied to a chair with a contraption aiming knives at his eyes to blind him, as Lear was blinded in King Lear. Will Sergeant Dogge be able to reach Devlin in time? And to what extent is Edwina complicit in her father’s murders?

Theatre of Blood (1973)
Story/Plot/Characters— Vincent Price, so often accused of chewing the scenery himself, here enjoys the delicious role of a horrible ham who fancies himself the world’s foremost Shakespearian interpreter. And he plays this chronic overactor, ironically enough, with great subtlety, if that makes sense. Fine acting as well from Diana Rigg, the members of the Critics’ Guild, and Vincent’s troupe of theatre-loving vagabonds. The dialogue is great and while the plot at its heart is a simple story of revenge, the whole movie’s tone successfully pulls off the tricky balance of genuine horror and actually funny comedy (though much of the humor is more ironic than laugh-out-loud). (3.5 points)
Special Effects— Beautiful costuming and sets, and while this is far from the gore-fests that were soon to come in horror, the murders are realistically portrayed even at their most theatric, and far bloodier than one might expect from a 1973 film. (2 points)
Scariness— Played more for laughs than frights, but there are definitely a few truly scary, or at least disturbing, parts. (1 point)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— Lots of atmosphere in the abandoned Victorian theatre that Edward Lionheart and his crew have adopted and staged for their own nefarious purposes. (1 point)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)

A late career horror/black comedy that really takes advantage of Vincent Price’s (mostly undeserved) reputation for overacting with a character who fits that description to the fullest. A fun two hours of sick humor and unsavory entertainment, and a true treat for horror fans.