Theatre of Blood (1973)

Theatre of Blood
Directed by Douglas Hickox
Written by Anthony Greville-Bell
1973/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1000 Great Horror Movies on theyshootzombies.com

George Maxwell: You… It’s you! But you’re dead!
Edward Lionheart: No. Another critical miscalculation on you part. I am well. It is you who are dead.

Vincent Price, Diana Rigg and a sterling cast of British character actors ensured that I had a good time despite all the blood and gore.

Edward Lionheart (Price) is a famous or perhaps infamous Shakespearean tragedian.  He is certain he is the greatest actor who ever lived had his heart set on winning a theater critics guild award as Best Actor of 1970.  Why he thought he could win is unclear as the critics on the awards committee roundly panned all his performances.  In the event, the award went to a newcomer leaving Lionheart humiliated.  He barges into the after-party takes the award and jumps out the window several stories up. We learn that his doting daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg) has never recovered from her grief.

It turns out Lionheart is not dead after all.  He is now living in a derelict theater with a bunch of hoboes who resemble the living dead.  He enlists their help in his fiendish plan to kill off the critics one by one using a murder featured in each of the plays he performed that season.  These murders are customized to dole out the deranged Lionheart’s idea of poetic justice.  I’m not going to say any more as part of the fun is figuring what the murderer is going to do next and there is a major plot twist too (one that you will probably anticipate well before the reveal).  The critics are played by Ian Hendry, Trevor Dickman, Corale Browne, Robert Cooke, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Robert Morley, and Dennis Price.  Milo O’Shea and Eric Sykes play detectives.

I thought this was clever in an extremely gruesome sort of way.  The script keeps you on your toes.  I especially enjoyed seeing Price reciting some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines.  His no holds barred style suits the Bard very well.  Rigg compliments him beautifully and the cast of character actors is rock solid.  Production values are strong.  I loved the somewhat romantic score though I thought it possibly would have fit better in another movie. As mentioned, there is a lot of bloody gory close-up murder to sit through.  Highly recommended to fans of the genre.