A brilliant, bizarre 1973 comedy-horror, Theatre of Blood pitches somewhere between a Hammer horror and the Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. Vincent Price stars as the hammy, self-important and thoroughly psychotic Edward Lionheart, a veteran thespian who refuses to play anything other than Shakespeare. Piqued by a circle of critics, whom he feels were disrespectful in their notices and denied him his rightful Best Actor of the Year Award, he decides to murder them one by one in parodies of some of Shakespeare's grislier scenes. He's aided by his daughter Edwina... (played by Diana Rigg, often in fake moustache and male drag) and a ghoulish company of dosshouse zombies. Some of the murders are quite extraordinarily gruesome, despite their camp, comedic overtones. Arthur Lowe's henpecked critic has his head sawn off while asleep (in a parody of Cymbeline) and Robert Morley's plumply effete dandy is force-fed a pie made from his beloved poodles, choking him to death (cf Titus Andronicus). Jack Hawkins and Michael Horden also meet unpleasant ends. Theatre of Blood is a genuine and underrated oddity in the annals of British cinema and especially uncomfortable for those who happen to be in the reviewing trade. On the DVD: Theatre of Blood on disc is not a triumph of digital enhancement, with sound blemishes unamended and hazy, faded visuals in places. The only extra is the original trailer. --David Stubbs [show more]
If you don't treat this with the seriousness it thinks it deserves, this film is absolutely fantastic. Just don't eat pie while you're watching it.
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Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price), a demented Shakespearean actor, adds murder to his repertoire when he takes gruesome revenge on the eight critics who slighted him. He knows he deserved that major award for his fine acting, but once again, the critics denied him and chose some other, inferior performer. So now he's going to make them pay. All it takes is a faked suicide so they believe him dead, and a few murder scenes taken directly from Shakespeare's plays.... Then, one by one, the eight judges will experience Lionheart's version of poetic justice. His loyal--and equally demented--daughter (Diana Rigg) abets him in his grisly plan.
Vincent Price plays a Shakespearian actor Edward Lionheart, who re-enacts murder scenes penned by the famous bard, in order to gain revenge on the nine theatre critics who have denied him the Best Actor of the Year award. His accomplice is his devoted daughter (Diana Rigg) and together they seek revenge in a most bloody and violent way: one critic is decapitated in his bed, one is made to murder his own wife and another is forced to eat his beloved dogs.
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