Vincent Price over the top, but wonderful
Vincent Price was not one of our subtlest actors. He’s remembered today for his many horror film performances, many of which feature him wringing every ounce of juice out of his dialogue. Some would say he was a shameless over-actor, but fans and audiences in general love his screen persona. He’s in full Price mode in “Theater of Blood,” a revenge thriller with a full bow — rather than a nod — to William Shakespeare.<br /><br />Edward Lionheart (Price) is an actor who feels he was robbed of London’s annual Critics Circle Award after what he believes was his triumphant season in a series of Shakespearean plays. So he killed himself in front of the very critics who favored a younger actor for the award. When the very same critics start dying off in bizarre ways, the authorities can’t figure who is committing the gruesome murders. But Lionheart was saved from his  plunge into the Thames by a group of homeless people. With the help of his daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg), he sets up an elaborate series of murders, luring each of the critics by playing into their egos.<br /><br />Lionheart follows the chronology of his Shakespearean season to off one critic after another according to the modes of killing in each of the plays— beheading, drowning, burning, eviscerating, impaling, smothering, blinding. As he stages the murders with his audience of grimy, alcoholic acolytes, he quotes appropriate lines from “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Titis Andronicus” and others in full-out hamminess, with a generous helping of vitriol.<br /><br />The murders are pretty graphic. Director Douglas Hickox and the Anthony Greville-Bell screenplay treat Lionheart’s vendetta as a wild, madman’s game. Determined to make the critics pay the ultimate price for their slight, he isn’t content with simpler and likely easier ways to kill them. No, Lionheart must go big! So old theaters, abandoned buildings, private homes, and even a beauty parlor become his sets while he, in full costume and make-up, forces his victims to watch him recite lines from the plays they panned before he inflicts the coup de grace.<br /><br />Price is playing not only Edward Lionheart but also the many personas he assumes to lure his victims — chef, lover, hairdresser, grave digger,  policeman, and fencing master. One of the wittiest scenes, in fact, is a fencing match on trampolines between Lionheart and critic Peregrine Devlin (Ian Hendry). Taking a page from an Errol Flynn swashbuckler, the two men exchange thrusts and parries while they bounce, turn cartwheels, and use other acrobatic moves (courtesy of stuntmen) as they fence with untipped sabers.<br /><br />Rigg (“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”) is lovely and her Edwina figures more prominently in the plot as the film progresses when the police put two and two together and conclude that the murders have the mark of Lionheart. A dutiful and loving daughter, Edwina is protective of her father, shares his indignation toward the London critical community, and may be more an abetter to his crimes than is initially evident. Though “Theater of Blood” is clearly Price’s film, Rigg adds a nice extra bit of star power.<br /><br />The other critics are played by Harry Andrews (Trevor Dickman), Jack Hawkins (Solomon Psaltery), Robert Morley (Meredith Merridew), Arthur Lowe (Horace Sprout), Dennis Price (Hector Snipe), Robert Coote (Oliver Larding), Michael Hordern (George Maxwell), and Coral Browne (Chloe Moon). Milo O’Shea plays Inspector Boot, head of the investigation into the spate of grim murders.<br /><br />“Theater of Blood” has a wicked sense of dark humor and a memorable, appropriately over-the-top performance by Price. Apart from being fun, with inventively horrific murders, it is highly entertaining, with opportunities to watch Vincent Price performing Shakespeare — the sprinkles on the ice cream cone. There are similarities to the Dr. Phibes films Price made prior to “Theater of Blood,” but “Theater…” is directed with more panache and style.<br /><br />Director Hickox for the most part balances comedy with melodrama but occasionally makes certain scenes hard to believe, such as critic Psaltery conveniently showing up when his wife (Diana Dors) is getting a massage, mistaking her moans as evidence of a sexual tryst, and smothering her with a pillow. And it’s never clear why the coterie of outcasts have attached themselves to Lionheart. Are they turned on by the extreme violence he creates, his elephant-sized ego, or both?<br /><br />Bonus materials on the R-rated Blu-ray release from Kino-Lorber include two audio commentaries; “Trailers From Hell” with Alan Spencer; TV spots; radio spots; theatrical trailers; and reversible cover art.<br /><br />“Theater of Blood” was the last film in which Price was the lead. He would go on to make “The Whales of August” and “Edward Scissorhands,” but “Theater of Blood” closed the book on a rich chapter in his professional career, and was a fitting way to tip his hat to a genre that embraced him for years.
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