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Friday, September 11, 2020

THEATER OF BLOOD (1973)

High Concept trumps below-par execution in this comic gore-athon, its can’t-miss idea covering a multitude of filmmaking inadequacies.  On the plus side: Hammy Shakespearean actor Vincent Price seeks revenge for a lifetime of bad notices by murdering a cadre of critics with death scenarios plucked from the Bard’s plays.  Helped by equally resentful daughter Diana Rigg, they stage a series of murders assisted by a gang of homeless hangers-on who applaud while Price throttles, slices, dismembers or force-feeds a ripe all-star supporting cast (Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, Jack Hawkins, Robert Morley, etc.).  Minuses would be just about everything else.  In a film that needs to carefully finesse tone (from the playfully gory to the broadly comic), Douglas Hickox megs away with no tone at all, indulging in catch-as-catch-can hand-held camera work that defeats any chance for comic timing and even less organization in the action sequences.  (One car chase a lesson in ineptitude and most of Price’s dramatic entrances botched.)  All while its script settles for the bare minimum out of infinite possibilities in morbid over-the-top comic villainy.  Cheating on Shakespeare when it runs out of ideas (this Shylock takes his pound of flesh), then tossing in flat punchlines.  Not too hot technically, either.  Was the soundtrack this bad originally?  Worth a look anyway for Rigg, always divine, and for a few giggles (the idea really is a beaut), but what might it have been with a more talented creative team?

DOUBLE-BILL: Price was just off a pair of his DR. PHIBES horror pics, both far more stylishly directed by Robert Fuest though missing this film’s underlying wit.

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