Theatre of Blood (1973) on Netflix
Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart is denied a critics' award and presumed dead after a suicide attempt. He returns to kill the critics using death scenes from Shakespeare.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb7.1/1013,891 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart, a Shakespearean actor, believes he has been denied proper recognition by London's theater critics. At their annual awards ceremony, the critics give the best actor prize to someone else, and Lionheart publicly confronts them before leaping into the Thames. He is pulled from the river by vagrants and presumed dead. Two years later, he reappears and begins murdering the critics one by one, staging each killing as a death scene from the Shakespeare plays he last performed. Before each killing, he reads aloud the review that had dismissed his performance. The police begin to suspect him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Theatre of Blood (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Coral Browne, cast as the critic Chloe Moon, insisted on wearing only clothes designed by Jean Muir. Costume designer Michael Baldwin was told the budget could not stretch to designer clothing, but director Douglas Hickox increased the budget solely to accommodate her, and Browne kept every dress after filming wrapped.
- While making Theatre of Blood, Diana Rigg introduced her co-star Vincent Price to Coral Browne, who became his future wife. Rigg did not know that Price was already married.
- Coral Browne had not wanted to appear in "one of those scary Vincent Price movies", but her friends Robert Morley and Michael Hordern persuaded her to take the part of Chloe Moon.
- Edward Lionheart's hideout, the Burbage Theatre, was the Putney Hippodrome, built in 1906 and vacant and dilapidated for more than ten years before filming. It was demolished in 1975 to make way for housing.
- Lionheart's tomb is a real Sievier family monument in Kensal Green Cemetery. For the film, plaster masks of Vincent Price and Diana Rigg replaced the real faces, the Bible was swapped for a volume of Shakespeare, and Lionheart's name and dates were added.
