Theater of Blood (1973)

It's not easy to be criticized or to accept a bad review. I know. I'm both a creative and a sensitive person. When one of my creations is panned, I'm hurt. If I know I've done a bad job, then maybe I'm amused or unphased. But when I've worked hard and poured my lifeblood into it, then it's personal. On the other hand, criticism is important. We do what we do for other people. If we don't do as good a job as we could have done, then justly are we condemned. If someone is a genius at the craft, then justly is s/he praised. The trouble is that critics are wo/men of letters and this makes them very fond of their own words. A clever turn of phrase, a witty remark, is too great a temptation for most of them to resist. So they become cruel, do a 'hatchet job.' Some critics, like the reprehensible Dale Peck, have made a career out of particularly vicious hatchet jobs. They do not concern themselves with the reality: that real people are being hurt by their words; they're too proud of their phrasing, the adulation they get from those who agree. Frank Langella, after producing, directing, and starring in a performance of Cyrano de Bergerac (based on Les Miserables, of course), says in interview, "It's been really trashed by the critics. Major trashed by the critics. And I read reviews in the vain hope I'll learn something... The need to be quick, fast, cynical, and crude; vulgar and unkind is strong everywhere. It has become the fashion, for some reason, to take a big hammer and hammer hard... But if you have a big hammer, you should be rather gentle with how you use it and you should be rather compassionate and understanding... Say you don't like it; but say you don't like it with some instruction... don't just say 'This is absolutely awful; get it off my stage.'... That sort of criticism says more about the critic than the thing he's critcizing."

Such are the concerns of Theater of Blood, in which an aging matinee idol, whose acting was considered stale and melodramatic by theater critics, begins murdering his worst critics one-by-one in poetic ways. That the murderous actor is played by Vincent Price in one of his finest performances adds another layer to things. Price, ever typecast as a horror actor and deemed a ham by many, received this review for his performance in The Pit and the Pendulum, "The uncredited [sic] scenario violates Poe’s gothic style with passages of flat, modernized dialogue…But the peccadilloes of the script pale beside the acting…Price mugs, rolls his eyes continuously and delivers his lines in such an unctuous tone that he comes near to burlesquing the role. His mad scenes are just ludicrous. The audience almost died laughing." I needn't explain to the readers here the problems with that review. What's important is what Price had to say, "I find I must break a 25 year determination never to answer a critic. Since your review of The Pit and the Pendulum was obviously not meant to be instructive, and therefore constructive, but only to hurt and humiliate, I’m sure you would enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that it did. My only consolation…is that it is the second greatest box office attraction in the country." I suspect Price received many hurtful and humiliating reviews over his career. While watching the film and seeing Price meting out 'justice' (arguably) to the critics, those words of Price's kept surfacing in my mind and I couldn't bring myself not to sympathize with his Edward Lionheart's vengeance. Of this film, the villain is also the hero.

The critics indeed come off as villains--as Langella's quote says, their nasty reviews says more about them than Lionheart's performances; these are cruel people. One scene, where an award-deprived and humiliated Lionheart vents to the critics, gathered for a post-awards dinner, they do nothing but laugh at him. His daughter, Edwina (Diana Rigg, also of Avengers fame), tells him to stop because he is only giving them more opportunity to humiliate him. That is the butt of it. You can see the critics taking delight in their witty chiding of Lionheart right up until he attempts suicide. In other scenes, Lionheart reads out particularly cruel lines the critics wrote or the critics themselves smugly recall a well-turned barb. While these people don't deserve to die, they've made what I consider a major critical error: they've put a love of their own prose above the feelings of the people involved. They're writing to hurt and humiliate rather than to be instructive, as Price puts it. Anyone who reads critics regularly knows they do indeed delight in their own writing.

Or so it would seem. To slightly complicate matters thematically, the one critic we get to know best, Devlin (Ian Hendry, of Avengers fame), isn't really inclined to humiliation. He genuinely believes Lionheart to be an inferior actor and, even when threatened with death, will not back down. This is the one time Lionheart seems petty and a little less sympathetic. He delivers a particularly moving speech to Devlin, "How many actors have you destroyed as you destroyed me? How many talented lives have you cut down with your glib attacks? What do you know of the blood, sweat and toil of a theatrical production? Of the dedication of the men and the women in the noblest profession of them all? How could you know you talentless fools who spew vitriol on the creative efforts of others because because you lack the ability to create yourselves!" This is a common belief: that critics destroy others because they are envious. Sometimes that may be the case, but I think usually it's pride, power, and callousness that motivates them. But because both Devlin and Lionheart are sympathetic characters to some degree, Lionheart's speech forces the audience to make a choice. What Lionheart says is true to a degree: critics can indeed destroy; their 'glib attacks', cynical and heartless, can really ruin talented lives. On the other hand, people can work really hard and still produce crap; is a critic not to say, if he really thinks the work is bad, that it is bad, just because the actor may have worked hard? One can't be too sentimental in a trade like criticism. One must be honest.

As to the story itself, it is successful on all fronts. It is genuinely frightening and gruesome. The first murder was truly nightmarish for me and I was quite taken aback and disturbed. At the same time, while disturbing, the macabre sense of humour pulls through. This film isn't quite a comedy, but there's a sense of wry humour there that really works. Lionheart rolling his eyes in exasperation when his assistant is slow getting a pot to collect the torrents of blood gushing from a victim's recently-slit throat is grimly hilarious.

The film's structure is also praiseworthy. Each murder is based off a murder from a Shakespeare play (of which we get several silent film clips in the opening credits). Each victim is particularly suited to the death in the play. Each victim, moreover, has a particular vice. Robert Morley, as an impossibly camp character with poodles and pink tuxedos, is clearly a glutton; another man is obviously the embodiment of lust. Each murder setpiece is a brilliantly staged vignette with Price doing some Shakespeare, killing, then adding some more Shakespeare as a witty farewell. While you don't need to know a lick of Shakespeare to enjoy the film, it will only enhance your enjoyment if you know the speeches he's reciting and the scenes he's perversely staging.

My favourite Price performance had been The Tomb of Ligeia. It is now Theater of Blood. Price's performance, on which the whole film pretty much hinges, is brilliant. Subtle and over-the-top all at once, he is both frightening, sympathetic, and amusing. The finale, which involves a re-enactment of King Lear, is perverse and perfect.

This proto-slasher nightmare, a film you should think about before you call a film a 'steaming pile' ever again or call someone the 'worst actor ever', is also perverse and perfect.