Blood Theatre, released in 1984, has the most bizarre opening. The movie begins with a scene where a theater owner stumbles upon his girlfriend committing infidelity with another male, leading him to set the theater on fire. The theater wholeheartedly pays the price as he escapes. The aftermath of this scene serves as a tribute to Sloane’s wide-ranging film portfolio, which includes interesting inspirations like the Vice Academy series and Hobgoblins.
The plot quickly jumps to the present where the manager of the Spotlite Theater chain Dean Murdock (Rob-Roy Fletcher), along with his obnoxiously rude secretary Blackwell, transfers three of his employees Adrian (Andrew Cofrin), Malcolm (Daniel Schafer), and Jennifer (Jenny Cunningham). They have been assigned to clean up the old theater, leading to it being prepped for the takeover. It doesn’t take long for abnormal things to begin. Operand weirdness escalates after the introduction of the workers who are competitively disposed of, Darcy (Stephanie Dillard) and Selena (Joanna Foxx).
Although it is quite tedious to sit through Sloane’s, as we mentioned earlier, the show does have a few saving grace features, other than the nudity. The primary filming location, for example, makes the entire show far more enjoyable than it actually is. It is a stunning, highly ornate classically modern movie theater and it functions as a movie palace. As a result, many are drawn to it. Secondly, there is also Mary Woronov, who portrays her classic smart-mouthed self. She happens to get a fair amount of screen time here and is easily the highlight of the film. The rest of the cast? Well, Rob-Roy Fletcher is not terrible, and Ms. Foxx generously reveals her breasts. Other than that, there is not much to enjoy. The characters are poorly constructed, and so is the bulk of the acting especially with the three younger, leading stars.
The cinematography is serviceable is unremarkable. The film is quite entertaining when it comes to murder set pieces, but the comedic parts of the film lack finesse. Murdock does interesting gags where he boots prints by recording them with the camcorder. The pacing, on the other hand, is rough, the middle stretch is a bore, and even at under eighty minutes it still feels a bit too long. Sloane was dealing with a great deal of stuff in this film. To give him a break, this was basically a student film for him, but it does not have the inspired lunacy that made some of his more enjoyable films fun to watch. Blood Theater had potential, but it mostly just falls flat, even if some of the subtexts about the ways that multiplexes were swallowing smaller theaters around the time it was made are quite interesting.
Sloane’s second film, The Visitants, produced in 1987, can also be found on the disc as a second feature. The story revolves around two aliens, Exeter and his companion Lubbock, who decide to take a break on Earth. They arrive in Los Angeles during the 1950s, and soon after start shooting at teenagers with their laser guns. They later find a television set which reveals a message from their leader telling them that their planned invasion was postponed thirty years!
Things become a bit out of control when next-door neighbor Eric ends up with their laser gun. This messes up their invasion plans and mayhem follows.
This is a tighter and funnier film than the feature attraction. It’s expensive, and it’s clear it was made for peanuts with the opening scene (look for dinner plates in place of alien technology and dryer hoses in abundance) indicating so. They may not have been given a lot to work with, but Capra and Hile were quite commendable in their roles. How central these characters are in the story leaves nugget-sized gaps over them, but despite that, it is clear that they have fun and that is felt by the audience. Great piece of work? Certainly not, but the ability of Sloane to create a work acceptable for such a low price is something to appreciate and while doing so, get a few laughs out of the experience.
The production value is low, but some great animations in there add to the character of the film making it all the more enjoyable. There is a clear indication of references to other sci-fi films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and many others. Not directly related to the movie, but this film is mentioned in Sloane’s later film Hobgoblins, which is what made him well known, thanks to the MST3K treatment he received.
Vinegar Syndrome presents Blood Theatre on Blu-ray, framed at 1.851 widescreen, in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation, taken from a new 2k scan of the original 35mm negative. Just like everything else released under this label, it looks great. Translate: it sure could use some cleaning up. There’s some minor print damage here and there, but aside from a few white specks here and there, it’s not too bad. The picture maintained a great level of detail and natural texture and grain, meaning it’s film-like while still maintaining its charm. Superb reproduction of colors, and solid black levels too, absolutely no complaints whatsoever. There’s no edge enhancement or noise reduction blurs, and no compression problems to note either.
The issue isnogan engish track supports dts-hd mono, with optional english subtitles. It’s acceptable. The audio feels a bit flat in certain spots, but that’s a result of the initial recording. It’s an old mono remix of a sub par movie, and honestly, it works well enough. It’ll certainly do. Most importantly: dialogue is clear and relatively easy to understand, paired with an overly repetitive, strange score that’s almost too acceptable.
Extras feature a commentary track for Blood Theatre with The Hysteria Continues! podcast team. These guys don’t shy away from saying how bad the film is, but do find some interesting things to comment like how it pays homage to some slasher movie tropes, and the amazing setting, as well as the various performance quality and quite a bit more. Rick Sloane has his own commentary for Blood Theatre and The Visitants, and clearly his tracks are more interesting in terms of history. He goes into details about filming Blood Theatre in an old movie palace that has since been demolished and how he managed to get Woronov on board, and what the crew and cast contributed, where he procured the gear from, his budget struggles, and so forth. His commentary for The Visitants is just as intricate as he talks about making the lowest budgeted picture of his career, the origins of the players, the story concepts, props, locations, costumes, and loads more.
Also included on the disc is a nine-minute featurette shot in the New Beverly Cinema of Los Angeles screening alongside Rick Sloane, actresses Mary Woronov, Jordana Capra and actor Marcus Vaughter as they introduce the film. Complementing this is a Q&A session that follows the screening with Rick Sloane and Mary Woronow, which lasts fourteen minutes. Sloane mentions filming his first two features as a non-budget affair, the Blood Theatre’s central filming location as well as the Woronov signing on and Woronov herself explaining her view on the film and her experience making it.
Beyond that, we are presented with the menus and chapter selections, together with a lovely reversible cover that has the Blood Theatre art on one side and the covering for The Visitants on the other.
Blood Theatre is without question a terrible film, but Mary Woronov’s performance, the good location, and some of the interesting murders make it semi-watchable. The Visitants is a bit more entertaining (and even somewhat funny in places). How much enjoyment you get out of this release will really depend on how much you can put up with cheap productions if you can overlook the drawbacks, this package is a good score because while both features are presented in great shape, the extra features are also really interesting. If you are not into cheap films, this release is unlikely to change your mind.
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