Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3691 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-21
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

Theatre of Blood -- Brush Up Your Shakespeare
I think that Vincent Price is always worth watching. He could be both
horrible and funny at the same time. Theater of Blood is a near perfect
example. It was filmed in London in 1972, with an excellent cast of actors who, like Price, are unfortunately deceased.

Price plays a second-rate actor who fakes his own death in front of critics who did not like his stage work, which included only Shakespeare. With the help of his daughter, played by Dianna Rigg, and a gang of homeless people who are mentally-ill, Price plots the deaths of the critics who panned his Shakespearean roles. Price kills nearly all of them using the clever means of making the punishment for each fit his version of what each deserves.
I enjoy his pursuit of vengeance and at the same time wish for his
apprehension by the film's end. Then I return to being sympathetic with him once more.

Theater of Blood gives us a good tour of London in the early 1970's and
has such a superb cast of so many British actors who made Twentieth Century theater and film so entertaining. Perhaps only Alec Guinness is
missing in this one.

Critics Beware - What Vincent Price does in this film could happen to you if you continue to write unfair criticisms of actors' work and if some
of them decide to take revenge against you !!!!!

Art imitating life?
Vincent Price Edward Kendall Sheridan Lionheart a shakesperian actor who seemingly commited suicide. This hillarious and quite gory horror is one of Price's greatest horror films he is perfectly suited in this role as a lot of people could argue that Price had many reasons to go around murdering critics. Vincent Price remains not only one of the greatest horror actors of all time but also an excellent actor just look at his performances in Laura and While the City Sleeps. Even in his horror roles his voice and his sense of timing are nothing other than fantastic.
The plot Price returns from the dead to murder the critcis who caused his demoise by infilicting terrible deaths on them based on shakesperian deaths. For example one gets drowned in wine one burnt alive and everyones favourite is when Robert Morley is choked eating a pie filled with his own poodles. Top stuff

It's another Classic VP film
One of my fave films - Vincent Price is fab as a hammy old actor who will only play Shakespearean roles. Constant critical scorn drives him to a failed suicide attempt. Believed to be dead he takes his murderous revenge on the critics.

This is where the black humour of the film really kicks in. The murders are all based on the plays of Shakespeare and are really quite gruesome in places, although top marks for creativity! Without giving too much away if you're a dog lover you might want to look away during one of the killings and you'll never look at those over the head hair dryers in the same way again.

Price is aided and abetted by a bunch of alcoholic vagrants and his daughter played by Diane Rigg who gets to wear some quite dodgy outfits - dressed as a male hairdresser in a bad perm wig and tash is one of my particular favourites!
All in all it's a brilliantly camp film, just the thing for when you've had one of those days at work where someone has treat you like a stink beetle. Stick this in the DVD player and enjoy seeing Vincent getting even!