What better way to end a night than with a classic Vincent Price movie, this time it’s Theatre of Blood
The movie opens up with a wealthy property developer / Theatre Critic (I’m not actually sure what he is) who is charged with removing some squatters from a property he manages. He gets to the property and is confronted by a group of squatters that looks more like a scene from “Night of the Living Dead”. The squatters attack and kill him for his troubles. It’s not long before it becomes apparent that Price’s character is running a theatre of sorts out of the abandoned building performing to the local homeless and drunk folk.
Prices character, Edward Lionheart is a frustrated shakespearean actor and extracting revenge on those who mocked his acting in similar fashion to the deaths depicted in Shakespeare’s plays. He was thought to be long dead, but of course once the bodies start turning up the local constabulary realise they’ve never actually found the body to confirm his death. I’ve read some Shakespeare in high school, but can’t pretend to be familiar enough with them to get the finer points of whats going on. The first murder I know was reminiscent of “Julius Ceaser” (The dialogue was a dead giveaway) and a very cool recreation of “The Merchant of Venice” where. our protagonist actually does get his pound of flesh!
<The murders continue and I have to say there’s some pretty inventive kills in this movie. I can’t think of a lot of Vincent Price movies that have explicit gore in them but this a pretty decent level of gore in this one! The movie is very well done, as is everything I’ve ever seen with Price in it, and never looses the viewers attention from start to finish. This is one of those films where you actually find yourself cheering the villain on. Does Edward extract revenge of all those who would deride his past performances? Well, the only way to find that out is to watch the film!
Despite the over all “British-ness” of the film (and my own personal biases / man-crush towards Vincent Price) I really think virtually any horror fan should be able to get into this. The acting is top notch and of course so is Price. The plot is nicely tied together with the Shakespearean references and is an enjoyable watch from start to finish. Fully recommend!
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