Blood Theatre

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.

I agree that Mary Woronov (Murdoch's secretary) is one of the only good things about this film. She is my favorite actress ever, every role she plays is always done so well. Her character is sly, sarcastic, clever, light hearted, funny and cunning. She really pulls this role off well and you get a good feel for what her character is all about.

The rest of the movie is pretty bad. The music is the most entertaining thing left. One of the characters has this really strange circular radio that she brings with her while she wears her tight zebra striped tank top.

One thing that was a little intriguing about the story was the idea that someone hires these three college-aged kids to spruce up an old abandoned theater. He gives them the keys and says - go at it. That would be really fun and I wish someone would give me that chance! Imagine going into an old abandoned theater with two other people and you get to decide how to decorate it, and fix it up. You have total control over the whole building. That would be so fun! Unfortunately, the characters do not think of this as an exciting adventure, they think of it as a big chore. They walk around with long faces and fight with each other the whole time. It's kind of a bummer. But it's fun to think about the possibilities that these people aren't even excited about.

The movie does a pretty good job at making you feel helpless or a little spooked out by the theater itself. However, the acting (besides Woronov.. and possibly Murdoch, the boss - just because makes a really good money hungry fake smiley business man who never has any luck) is really horrible and you just end up feeling unsatisfied. Plus, the random slapstick is a little tacky and kind of ruins the reality that the film tries to create.

Watch this if you dig Mary Woronov, funky 80's Casio keyboard style electronic beats and if you think having a giant spooky abandoned theater to yourself is at all intriguing.

The acting is mostly horrid, the plot is pretty lame, and the ending is pathetic. Yet...it does have a certain charm about it, it's almost so bad that it's kinda good. It's at times more of a comedy than a horror movie, just listen to some of the lines and sound effects. It reminded me a lot at times of the comedy/horror spoof movie "Student Bodies". I like the early electronica music that runs throughout the film, it's repetitive but effective, I would compare it as very similar to the music from the first "Slumber Party Massacre" film. I think if the killings would have been a little more realistic and unique, and that if the ending would have been a lot better and explained things this could have been a more highly regarded film. It would have also helped if the movie was about 10 minutes longer in length, 75 minutes did seem quite short watching it...

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.

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!