Vincent Price plays Edward Lionheart, arrogant and hammy Shakespearean actor who lost out on the Critic's Circle Award and apparently, killed himself by leaping from a balcony into the Thames. When the offending critics suddenly start dying in really nasty ways, it becomes obvious that Lionheart isn't as dead as they thought, and when Lionheart's murders are found to relate to his last season of Shakespeare the fun begins, for the film is, essentially, humorous, although the humour gets pretty black at times.

Of course, the premise brings another treat with it, and that treat is watching Price do Shakespeare. He covers a huge range of characters here, from Richard III to Shylock and a bit of everything in between. Not only do we get the Shakespeare everyone knows, but more obscure works, like "Cymbeline" and "Troilus & Cressida". The script is intelligent, well written and funny.

The serial killer as premise is nothing new in film, but it's rarely done well. Frequently, we're reduced to screaming victims running around until they are killed in one gruesome manner or another.
Where's the fun in that?

There's a sub-genre of serial killer films were the killer knows the psychology of his intended victims so well that he or she is able to make them walk blindly into the death trap even when they think they're avoiding it. The advantage to this approach is that we aren't stuck with a bunch of stupid cardboard cutouts getting bumped off. The sheep are shying away from the slaughter, so the villain has to work a lot harder. Consequently, the audience is much more involved.

When films like this work, they can be excellent and Theatre of Blood is such a film.
The critics know a killer is after them. They take steps to avoid becoming the next corpse. It doesn't matter, because they're each lured with the one piece of bait they can't resist.

An alcoholic critic is invited to a wine tasting and goes the way of Clarence in "Richard III." A lecherous critic follows a mini-skirted woman to an "experimental" version of "Merchant of Venice" and pays up his pound of flesh. In one of the film's nicest twists, Lionheart turns one of his targets into Othello and lets him do the killing. One of the funniest moments is when Robert Morley sits down to dinner, having no idea that he's been cast as Queen Tamora from "Titus Andronicus.".

The film is quite gory and a lot of films use this method to cover the lack of a decent script, but the humour and intelligence of Theatre of Blood make sure the bloody scenes give it a nice edge.

 
With Lionheart and his troupe donning different disguises, we see:

a group stabbing a critic to death on the Ides of March (Julius Caesar)
a man stabbed with a spear, his body then tied to a horse and dragged along the road (Troilus & Cressida)
a beheading (Cymbeline)
a pound of flesh cut out of one unfortunate victim (The Merchant of Venice)
a drowning (Richard III)
a victim of a fencing match (Romeo & Juliet)
a jealous man prodded into killing his wife (Othello)
a man forced to eat his two precious poodles (Titus Andronicus)

All of it is presented in very glossy cinematography, and the film was shot in and around the permanently grey but shiny London of the mid-70's, before they fucked it up with modern ideas about architecture and decimal currency.

The cast is excellent. Besides the chameleonic Price, we have the always fabulous Diana Rigg taking on just as many roles. Coral Browne (Mrs. Price at the time) does a memorable turn (and gets done to a turn) as the only female critic. As other victims, Michael Hordern, Robert Morley, Diana Dors, Harry Andrews, Arthur Lowe and Dennis Price, among others, fret and strut their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more. Milo O'Shea and Eric Sykes are the investigating coppers with Ian Hendry as the "nice" critic who manages to survive to the end.

Theatre of Blood is a perfect collision of cast, time and place, it's not a classic in the sense of Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but it is a classic of it's genre and far more interesting than Halloween for example. Its a film that has survived the test of time for a lot of good reasons. The most obvious reason of all is Vincent Price. Price always managed to bring humanity and hence, the audience, into any film in which he appeared, even when he played a psychotic mass murderer. Such was his personality and his talent.

Vincent Price was born on May 27th 1911 in St. Louis Missouri, USA.
He died on October 25th 1993 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Luckily, we have his films and we have Theatre of Blood.

Theatre of Blood

Directed by       Douglas Hickox

Writing credits       Anthony Greville-Bell

Cast

Vincent Price    .... Edward Lionheart
Diana Rigg    .... Edwina Lionheart
Ian Hendry    .... Peregrine Devlin
Harry Andrews    .... Trevor Dickman
Coral Browne    .... Miss Chloe Moon
Robert Coote    .... Oliver Larding
Jack Hawkins    .... Solomon Psaltery
Michael Hordern    .... George Maxwell
Arthur Lowe    .... Horace Sprout
Robert Morley    .... Meredith Merridew
Dennis Price    .... Hector Snipe
Milo O'Shea    .... Inspector Boot
Eric Sykes    .... Sergeant Dogge
Madeline Smith    .... Rosemary
Diana Dors    .... Maisie Psaltry
Joan Hickson    .... Mrs. Sprout
Renée Asherson    .... Mrs. Maxwell
Bunny Reed    .... Policeman
Peter Thornton    .... Policeman
Charles Sinnickson    ... Vicar
Brigid Erin Bates    .... Agnes
Tutte Lemkow    .... Meths Drinker
Stanley Bates    .... Meths Drinker
Eric Francis    .... Meths Drinker
Sally Gilmore    .... Meths Drinker
John Gilpin    .... Meths Drinker
Joyce Graeme    .... Meths Drinker
Jack Maguire    .... Meths Drinker
Declan Mulholland    .... Meths Drinker
Tony Calvin    .... Police Photographer (uncredited)
Charles Gray    .... Solomon Psaltery (uncredited) (voice)

John Kohn    .... producer
Stanley Mann    .... producer

Original Music by Michael J. Lewis
Cinematography by Wolfgang Suschitzky
Film Editing by Malcolm Cooke
Production Design by Michael Seymour
Set Decoration by Ann Mollo
Costume Design by Michael Baldwin
Special Effects by John Stearns
Stunts Terry Yorke
Choreographer Tutte Lemkow

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