Blood Theatre
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| Blood Theater/Movie House Massacre/Blood-O-Rama/The Movie House Massacre | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Rick Sloane |
| Written by | Rick Sloane |
| Produced by | Rick Sloane |
| Starring | Mary Woronov, Johnathon Blakely, Jenny Cunningham, Joanna Foxx |
| Cinematography | Bill Fishman |
| Edited by | Rick Sloane |
| Music by | Rick Sloane |
| Distributed by | Moore Video/Retromedia Entertainment/Active Home Video |
Release date | 1984 |
Running time | 75 Min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
Blood Theater (a.k.a. Movie House Massacre) is an Independent Film Slasher/Horror Comedy. It was the first feature film by director Rick Sloane.
The film includes many bizarre movie theater related deaths, such as being fried inside a popcorn machine, stabbed in the ticket booth, electrocuted by a film projector, face removed by an escalator, decapitated by a projection booth partition, stabbed while a movie is playing on screen, electrocuted in a fountain, smoke inhalation from burning film and a telephone receiver which breaks apart while a dying girl screams hysterically into it.
The majority of the movie was shot at the historic Beverly Warner Theater in Beverly Hills, which was also a location in the film Xanadu. It was later demolished and the site became a bank building.
All the movies which play at the Spotlite Theater Multiplex in this film, were short films made by Rick Sloane while he attended Los Angeles City College. They include Clown Whores of Hollywood, Chainsaw Chicks, Amputee Hookers and Nightmare Of The Lost Whores.
Plot
A group of teenagers, including Ellen and Danny, sneak into a movie theater after hours. A masked killer stalks them and then begins killing them. When Jane, Larry and Kyle have a threesome in the bathroom, he beats Kyle to death with a faucet, beheads Larry by slamming his neck into the rim of a metal toilet, and drowns Jane in the sink. Sue goes to look for Larry, her boyfriend, and is violently stabbed by the killer. She escapes and reaches a phone, but the phone's receiver falls apart for seemingly no reason and she dies. Ellen and Danny discover the bodies of their friends before they too are attacked. Danny manages to incapacitate the killer with a movie theater seat before they flee the theater. Ellen and Danny identify their killer as Dean, a local teenager who was dating June, Ellen's twin sister.
Three months later, another eleven teenagers, consisting of Angi, Bethanie, Bobby, Craig, Darryl, Hank, Lisa, Melanie, Zach, and Zariah, as well as June, sneak into the theater to memorialize Kyle, Larry, Jane and Sue. They enter a theater and start watching a film, but Zariah sits away from the others because she is bitter after her breakup with Craig. Meanwhile, Danny drops Ellen off at her house after a date. Late at night, Ellen looks out her bedroom window and sees that Danny's car is still in her driveway. She goes outside and finds the dead body of Danny in his car. Before she can react, she too is killed.
During the movie, Bobby and Angi sneak off to have sex. A man wearing a mask, seemingly the same one from the previous murders, stalks them and eventually attacks them. He electrocutes Bobby with a film projector and locks Angi in a closet with the projector and Bobby's corpse. Angi dies from smoke inhalation caused by the burning film in the broken projector. The killer then stabs Zariah to death inside the theater, unbeknownst to the others. When the film suddenly stops halfway through, Hank and Melanie go to investigate. While they are in the projection booth, the killer attacks them and decapitates Hank with the booth's partition. Melanie screams and desperately bangs on the window of the booth. She manages to get her friends' attention, but all they are able to do is watch in horror as the killer strangles her with filmstrips.
Zach and Lisa panic and lock June, Craig, Darryl and Bethanie in the theater as bait for the killer, but he knocks them both unconscious. He then boils Zach alive in the snack bar's popcorn machine and burns off Lisa's flesh with liquid nitrogen. Meanwhile, the other four escape the theater and run to the front, finding Zach and Lisa's bodies. They try to leave, but find that all the doors and windows have been blocked. Bethanie crawls through the air vents to get into the ticket booth to use the computer to call for help, but the killer is waiting there and stabs Bethanie to death while the other three watch. June, Craig and Darryl run to the escalators, finding that they have been supercharged by the killer. The killer then appears and shoves Craig's head into the escalator, scraping his face off.
June and Darryl flee up the stairs and run to the office of Fred, the owner of the theater. When they arrive, they find blood and weapons inside. The killer then shows up and is revealed as Fred. June asks him why he is committing the murders, and he replies that he was tired of teenagers sneaking in after hours and wrecking the theater. June and Darryl flee the office and jump off a balcony, landing in a fountain. Fred, however, cuts loose a light fixture, which falls into the fountain. June escapes in time, but Darryl is electrocuted.
June lures Fred to the projection booth, but locks him out. While Fred slowly breaks down the partition, June attaches a film reel to the projector and turns it on. When Fred breaks through the partition, June and Fred battle. June eventually forces Fred's head onto the spinning reel, splitting his forehead. June begins leaving, but Fred rises and attacks her. However, June dives out of the way, and Fred falls through the window and is impaled on a theater seat. June uses Fred's keys to leave the theater and calls the police.
It is determined that Fred killed Kyle, Larry, Jane, Sue, Danny and Ellen in addition to June's friends. Dean is released from the mental institution, and he and June get back together.
In a post-credits scene, June and Dean are watching a movie in their home theater. June hallucinates that it is an actual theater while Dean is making dinner, and someone wearing Fred's mask chops his head off with a meat cleaver. June walks into the kitchen and finds Dean's severed head in the oven. The killer then appears and boils June's face off. However, it is then revealed that it was just a dream, and June is comforted by Dean.
Cast
| Actor / Actress | Character |
|---|---|
| Jenny Cunningham | June / Ellen |
| Jonathan Blakely | Fred Blackwell |
| Mary Woronov | Caroline Blackwell |
| Andrew Cofrin | Darryl |
| Rob-Roy Fletcher | Craig |
| Joanna Foxx | Bethanie |
| Stephanie Dillard | Lisa |
| Daniel Schafer | Zach |
| Cynthia Hartline | Melanie |
| David Millbern | Hank |
| Lisa Lindsley | Angi |
| Carl Bressler | Bobby |
| Brett Sagle | Dean |
| Bruce Nangle | Danny |
| Joni Barnes | Sue |
| Holly Baker | Jane |
| Barrie Metz | Larry |
| Jeffrey Shaker | Kyle |
| Tony Goldman | Police Officer |
| Paul Schubin | Police Officer |
Reception
Film critic Scott Weinberg panned Blood Theatre, writing "Rare is the film that fails so resoundingly in two separate genres at the exact same time."[1] TV Guide also criticized the movie, calling it "incredibly inept".[2] In 2014 Chiller wrote that the film is considered by some to be one of the worst horror films ever made but stated that "if you appreciate incredibly ‘80s hair and clothes, and the uniquely bizarre, very intentional humor of director Rick Sloane (Hobgoblins; the Vice Academy series), there is much here that will warm your heart."[3]
See also
References
- ^ "The Movie House Massacre (Blood Theater)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
- ^ "Movie House Massacre (review)". TV Guide. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
- ^ "13 Haunted Things That Are Not Houses". Chiller. 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2016-05-02.