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Rating: What struck the most about Vincent Price was his gaze.
Those light blue eyes were striking, often framed in an exasperated frown, sometimes unsettling, sometimes self-ironic, always irresistible, capable of frightening and moving, threatening and reassuring. What struck was his way of staring into the void, grave and suffering, with which he masterfully brought to the screen the deeds of men sometimes evil and unscrupulous, but also, and above all, lonely, sad, crushed by suffering and adverse destiny. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the pinnacle of a film career that, between 1938 and 1990, saw him as the performer in over a hundred films, perhaps not always of a high level, but to which his presence added value, a valid reason to watch them. Certainly, however, among the films that saw him as the protagonist, a place of honor must be given to "Theatre of Blood."
The film, the seventh feature by English director Douglas Hickox, narrates the macabre deeds of Edward Lionheart (a Shakespearean actor appreciated by the public but systematically trashed and mocked by a clique of "authoritative" critics), who, after yet another denied recognition, another humiliation, decides to end it all by throwing himself into the Thames in front of his incredulous daughter. Miraculously saved, he exacts his revenge, killing one by one those very critics who ruined his life, drawing inspiration for each murder from a tragedy by the immortal bard. Evidently, it is far from an original plot. In the first place, the theme of revenge, as well as the systemic elimination of co-actors, fits within the most widespread and used tropes of crime literature. Secondly, long before the release of this film, several other films had already been produced on the same narrative scheme (e.g., Truffaut's "The Bride Wore Black"), among which stands out the still enjoyable "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," only two years earlier, which also starred Price, and of which "Theatre of Blood" can be considered a sort of reinterpretation. Just as in Fuest's film, the subject of "Theatre of Blood" ends up being flawed by what can be considered two main "physiological" limits of such a subject: excessive predictability and a lack of ample maneuvering room in the development of the story. So much so that even Hickox's film, although superior to its predecessor, cannot avoid falling into some contrivances (especially the masseur-lover sequence) and in some rather predictable twists (e.g., the true identity of Lionheart's bearded assistant).
The greatness of this film, however, should not be sought in the plot but rather in the play of contrasts, in the merciless black humor that can be perceived even in the most macabre scenes, in the irreverent irony that accompanies the most solemn and dramatic ones. Love, death, pain, art… everything that seems to be sacred and "high" in human existence appears to fall under the merciless axe of a story in which horror and comedy are wisely balanced and mixed with cynical awareness. Lionheart's dramatic suicide is accompanied by a chorus of laughter bordering on collective hysteria; a critic's love for his wife is ridiculed and exploited; the sacredness of the theater is profaned to the point of turning a place of art into the dormitory of a group of drunken vagrants. The savagery of the murders, sometimes flaunted with self-satisfied close-ups, is constantly tempered and diluted by some element of absurdity (if not even comedy), giving a film with a strong grand guignolesque flavor, an almost humorous twist (exemplary, in this regard, is the murder of the poor Coral Browne, electrocuted by Lionheart with a hair dryer helmet, while dressed as a hippie hairdresser, in a kitschy reinterpretation of Joan of Arc's pyre from the first act of Richard VI).
But it is above all Price's performance that is superb. The character of Lionheart finally offers the actor the chance to express himself at best, to show and prove once and for all the versatility of his acting: with "equestrian" agility, as a true chameleon of the stage, Price continuously changes outfit and register, going from the exaggerated theatricality of Julius Caesar's monologue, to the role of a chef on a television program, to transforming, in one of the most acrobatic scenes of the entire film, into a skilled swordsman. His is the changing mask of madness and love, of a thirst for revenge that knows no hesitation, and of the despair of someone who has lost everything. His Lionheart is much more than the classic homicidal maniac from a horror movie: he is a proud and wounded man, humiliated and with a desperate desire for redemption.
Price's work is not just a stylistic exercise: it is fun, it is love for his craft. It is skillfulness.
Truly, in this case, reality and fiction blur: Lionheart's drama is the drama of Price himself, who, for a significant part of his career, had to endure the disapproval of that "high" criticism that accused him of bogging down in a minor genre like horror, culpably forgetting his studies, his culture, and, not least, his capabilities. Thus, "Theatre of Blood" ends up delivering not even a too-veiled denunciation of a certain kind of snobbish and elitist critique, the victims of Lionheart's revenge seeming to be the perfect representatives: a group of presumptuous and vicious intellectualoids, ruthless in tearing down others' work, sadistic in enjoying the defeats and humiliations of those not in their favor, too caught up in "giving themselves an air" to recognize the greatness of an artist who has worthily won the public's favor.
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