"Blood Theatre" follows a cinema chain who acquires a new location-an abandoned theater that was the site of a massacre years prior. As the building is prepared for the reopening, staff start dropping like flies.
I'm not going to pretend that "Blood Theatre" is high art, or even good; the truth is that it's really not. But I'll be damned if it's not one of the most charming quasi-slasher flicks I've seen. The film was directed by a then-21-year-old Rick Sloane, who went on to make a career out of notoriously corny, low-budget B-movies.
The film inexplicably blends supernatural elements into the slasher plot with no real explanation, so these moments feel utterly goofy, but again, they add to the weird charm. Save the lush abandoned theater location (the now-demolished Beverly Hills Warner Theater), the majority of the proceedings occur in the cinema chain's main location, which appears to be an office building dressed to look like a cinema. The production design here is obviously low-grade, nearly "high school play"-level, but it gets the job done.
Visual references to "The Phantom of the Opera" abound, and there are a few confrontations with the killer that are decently-handled, and while the film does lack substantial gore, what it does have is either passable or ridiculous looking. The characters are largely disposable, and the acting is mostly horrid, supplanted with outrageous lines. Mary Woronov spends the majority of the film indignantly answering the office phone and smoking cigarettes, but her presence is welcome irrespective of this.
In the end, "Blood Theatre" is going to alienate most people, and the truth is that most people wouldn't sit through it, but for fans of bad movies, it's not quite as bad as some reviews may lead one to believe. There are moments of creativity here, albeit many more misfires and instances of pure nonsense. But, in the spirit of good fun, "Blood Theatre" is a fun bad movie. Worthwhile for a select few. 6/10.