Blood Theatre

Mary Woronov and the chick that plays Selina (the bitch of the group) were the saving graces of this movie. There is barely any blood, the acting is bad, the killings are off screen, but on the other hand it has a couple of funny moments, topless nudity, it has a high body count and a lot of good one-liners. See it, you'll laugh a lot.

To truly appreciate this film you had to be there (acting?) or have been a crew member.

Yes, I am "Selena", and at the ripe old age of 42, have serious doubts about what we were doing/did.

It all started out to be like a "John Waters" type thing, friends acting badly in bad films. Somewhere along the line,the fun discontinued, people who were supposed to be friends didn't speak anymore, and BAD became worse.

I regret the bad image I might have projected.(Try to fit in size one gold spandex pants,)

Other than that, the film SUCKS so badly, I would not even make my mama watch it.

To my director, cast and crew I say,

"Why can't we just all get along??

It's been OVER TWENTY YEARS, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My review was written in January 1986 after watching the movie on Active video cassette.

"Movie House Massacre", made in 1984, is an unimpressive spoof of horror films which went directly to the home video market, bypassing theatrical release. Despite the presence of accomplished actress Mary Woronov, it plays like amateur night at the bijou.

Gimmick is a presumably haunted movie theater (originally a legit theater house), where many years ago the manager went nuts, started a fire (creating a panic) and stabbed the ticket booth girl to death. Now the owner of the 11-screen Spotlite Theaters chain attempts to reopen the accursed place, sending three hapless employees to clean up the site for the big opening night. Supposedly he will get a $25,000 reward from parties unknown for daring to reopen the joint.

Hokey subplot has one of the employees being a school cheerleader, so her fellow cheerleaders can visit her at the theater and become standard victims of the ghostly killer. Body count mounts until a botched nonending.

Filmmaker Alice Raley demonstrates an ignorance of rudimentary technique, with poorly matched shots, minimal sound mix and incompetent editing. Woronov keeps busy with irrelevant bits of business as tghe theater owner's assistant, but the rest of the cast is blah. Location filming at the Beverly Theater in Beverly Hills and Fairfax Theater in Los Angeles delivers some atmosphere.

If "Massacre" had been released theatrically, exhibitors would not have been pleased by its silly in-jokes, emphasizing a corrupt theater owner who is more interested in videotaping bootleg versions of films off his screen than in satisfying his (less lucrative) filmgoing clientele.

The most hardcore bad film buff will be surprised by the overall ineptness of this grade-z "film". Mary Woronov, a clever actress best known for her roles as Mary Bland in Eating Raoul and Miss Togar in Rock 'N' Roll High School, is by far the best thing about this tripe. This film is almost too bad even for MST3K - honestly!

I stumbled upon the 1984 horror movie "Blood Theatre" by random luck here in 2024. And of course I opted to sit down and watch it, since it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen before, nor actually heard about. And the fact that Mary Woronov was on the cast list, definitely was a plus.

Writer and director Rick Sloane delivered a very stale script for the movie. It felt like a farce at times, because it was so cliché and generic. In fact, it felt like something that was either taken out of the 1970s and dressed up in a 1984 outfit or something that was an homage to the old Lucio Fulco movies, given the way it looked and sounded.

Regardless of what "Blood Theatre" was supposed to be, then it wasn't a movie that particularly entertained me much. It was somewhat of a struggle to sit through.

Of the entire cast ensemble in the movie, then I was only familiar with Mary Woronov. The acting performances in "Blood Theatre" was nothing to write home about.

If you enjoy horror movies, then this movie is hardly something you should rush out and get to watch. And it definitely isn't a movie that will grace my screen a second time.

My rating of "Blood Theatre", from writer and director Rick Sloane, lands on a three out of ten stars.