Line #53 Film/TheatreOfBlood


1	[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/theatre_of_blood_1973.jpg]]
2
3	->''"It's him all right. Only Lionheart would have the temerity to rewrite Shakespeare!"''
4
5	''Theatre of Blood'' is a 1973 British HorrorComedy film directed by Douglas Hickox and starring Creator/VincentPrice, who regarded it as one of his personal favorites. Also in the cast are Creator/DianaRigg and [[AllStarCast an impressive coterie]] of British character actors, including Creator/IanHendry, Creator/MichaelHordern, Coral Browne, Robert Coote, Jack Hawkins, Creator/HarryAndrews, Creator/ArthurLowe, Creator/RobertMorley, Dennis Price, Creator/EricSykes, Creator/DianaDors and Creator/MadelineSmith, to name just a few.
6
7	Years prior to the start of the film, Edward Lionheart (Price) was one of the [[GiftedlyBad self-styled stars]] of the [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean]] stage, decidedly unloved by the critics of various papers. His performances in his final year, though playing to packed theatres, were panned at each and every opportunity, until finally they unanimously gave the Critics' Award to a new, uprising actor. This pushed Lionheart to the depths of despair, and in a singular act, he [[DrivenToSuicide ended it all,]] jumping off a building while clutching the award which he felt was rightfully his, with his horrified daughter Edwina watching and the critics being amused at his fate.
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9	The film opens with one of these critics being informed that a number of vagrants have begun squatting on a condemned building of his. Despite being warned by his wife that she had a dream of a pack of lions descending upon him, and the horoscope (for March 15th) claiming that it wasn't a good idea to be incautious, he runs off to the building, where he's confronted by the same vagrants who he was about to forcibly remove - and [[Theatre/JuliusCaesar stabbed twenty two times,]] while the [[EtTuBrute local constabulary looks on.]]
10
11	The perpetrator, of course, is Lionheart, who - having [[BungledSuicide survived his suicide attempt]], thanks to a kindly bunch of methanol-drinking homeless chaps - has decided to revisit his last run in the theater... and provide a very ''special'' command performance for each of the critics in turn.
12
13	In 2005, a stage adaptation was produced in London by the British company ''Improbable'', starring Creator/JimBroadbent as Lionheart and Creator/RachaelStirling (Creator/DianaRigg's daughter) as Edwina (renamed Miranda).
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15	----
16	!! ''Theatre of Blood'' contains examples of:
17	* ActorAllusion: One of the eight {{Asshole Victim}}s is played by Dennis Price (no relation to Vincent) who played a VillainProtagonist out to kill eight {{Asshole Victim}}s himself twenty-four years earlier in ''Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets''.
18	** Creator/VincentPrice was a talented chef in real life, making his performance as Lionheart playing the role of a fake chef all the more amusing.
19	** Vincent Price had previously played a non-Shakespeare version of Richard III in the remake of ''Film/TowerOfLondon''. In the original, he played Clarence. Thus, this is the third movie in which he has a role in Clarence's murder, at least symbolically.
20	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: During the scene in the hair salon, Coral Browne is visibly corpsing (pun intended) while Vincent/Lionheart hams it up at her.
21	* TheAlcoholic: Larding loves his spirits. Lionheart lures him to a wine testing session to drown him in a vat of wine like the Duke of Clarence in ''Theatre/RichardIII''.
22	* AssholeVictim: Each one of the critics, except Devlin (who might be an Asshole Survivor depending on what you think of his reaction to Lionheart's death).
23	* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Lionheart not only kills people, but [[spoiler:he kills and chops up two cute dogs, and feeds them to their initially unwitting owner, Merridew.]]
24	* BigBad: Edward Lionheart, a spurned actor pursuing vengeance on the critics who mocked him.
25	* BlackComedy: Lionheart acts positively goofy throughout the movie, using various disguises and hammily delivered Shakespeare quotes along the way.
26	* BloodyHilarious: The decapitation scene.
27	* BondOneLiner:
28	** Two from Lionheart: "I wonder if he'll travel well" (after sealing a man in a barrel of wine) and "Pity; he just didn't have the stomach for it" (after choking a man to death with a poodle meat pie).
29	** One from Devlin: "He was madly overacting as usual, but you must admit he did know how to make an exit."
30	* BungledSuicide: Lionheart jumps into the Thames taking the critics' prize with him and ends being saved by the methanol-drinking CrazyHomelessPeople. Though in this case he was unconscious in the water in such a position that he would have inevitably drowned had the homeless people not taken him out of the water.
31	* CampGay: Meredith Merridew. He dresses mostly in pink, talks effeminately and has two poodles. His murder places him in the role of [[spoiler: Tamora from ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'']], and there's a joke made about both characters being "queens".
32	* CantTakeCriticism: Lionheart is an actor who kills the critics who gave him bad reviews, each murder in the theme of a Shakespeare play he was in which the reviewer panned. There's also the fact that he attempted to kill himself when denied an award.
33	* ChattyHairdresser: One of Lionheart's many guises is a CampGay version of this trope, with an afro hairstyle to boot. He plays AbhorrentAdmirer to the attending policeman to keep him out of the salon-- and away from his charge.
34	* ClimbingClimax: When Lionheart climbs up to the top of his burning theatre building to recite a part from ''Theatre/KingLear''.
35	* CrazyHomelessPeople: Lionheart uses the methanol-drinking homeless people who saved him from drowning as his minions to carry out the murders. That drink has the expected effects on their brains.
36	* CrazyJealousGuy: Critic Solomon Psaltery is quite easily manipulated into re-enacting the murder scene from ''Theatre/{{Othello}}''.
37	* CulturedBadass: Lionheart is a Shakespearian actor, a highly intelligent and scheming criminal, and pretty good with a sword (not to mention surprisingly agile for a man his age, managing some impressive leaps during the swordfight), able to defeat Devlin who apparently fences regularly and has done for some time.
38	* DaddysLittleVillain: A more sympathetic example than some, but no less dangerous for it. [[spoiler:Edwina genuinely loves and is devoted to her father...and assists him in his crimes. While her love for him, and anger at how cruelly the critics treated him, is presented somewhat sympathetically, she's also just as willing to kill people as he is if not more so, casually reading a magazine while one of the critics gets electrocuted and showing no remorse for her murderous actions.]]
39	* DeadlyEuphemism:
40	** "Pity, he didn't have the stomach for it."
41	** "He did know how to make an exit."
42	* DeathByGluttony: Lionheart feeds the extremely overweight Merridew his two [[MisterMuffykins pet poodles]] (who he regards as his children) baked into a pie, as a revenge based on ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus''. He then finishes Merridew off by ForceFeeding him the rest until he chokes to death.
43	* DeathByIrony: All critics bar Psaltery and Devlin.
44	* DeathByTransceiver: An early example PlayedForLaughs shows up: a cop hiding in the trunk of a car in an attempt to follow Lionheart ends up [[RailroadTracksOfDoom parked on train tracks.]] We hear him over the walkie-talkie to the other cops:
45	-->'''Cop''': I can hear a train whistle... ''(rumbling sound)'' I can definitely identify it as a train... ''(sound grows louder)'' T-R-A... '''KERRRR-UNNCH.'''
46	* DecapitationPresentation: Lionheart sends Sprout's head to Devlin, stuck atop a milk bottle.
47	* DesecratingTheDead: After murdering Snipe, Lionheart ties his body to the tail of a horse and sends the horse galloping into [[LastDisrespects Maxwell's funeral]].
48	* DisguisedInDrag: Lionheart's hippie NumberTwo, who assists him in the murders, is actually [[spoiler:Edwina, with a male WigDressAccent disguise.]]
49	* DisneyVillainDeath: Lionheart falls through the burning roof of his theatre in the finale, and crashes on the ground.
50	* DirtyOldMan: Trevor Dickman is this, eyeing woman and inappropriately touching the young actress several times.
51	* TheDragon: The 'Stage Manager' is Lionheart's primary assistant in the murders, marshaling Lionheart's followers and even committing some of the murders personally.
52	* DramaticUnmask: Used in the opening. When Maxwell is lying on the ground dying, one of the constables removes his helmet... and part of his facial features, revealing Edward Lionheart.
53	* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Lionheart's eventual death, climbing on the roof of his theatre carrying the body of his dead daughter and reciting ''King Lear'', then falling to his death in his theatre that went up in flames.
54	--> '''Devlin''': He was madly overacting as usual, but you must admit he did know how to make an exit.
55	* ElectricTorture: To death, loosely mimicking Joan of Arc's elimination in ''Theatre/HenryVIPart1''.
56	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Lionheart and his daughter are very close and genuinely love each other. She is clearly angry at how the critics have treated him, [[spoiler:and her death breaks him completely.]]
57	* ExoticEntree: One critic is [[ForceFeeding forcibly fed]] his beloved poodles, mimicking a scene from ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus''.
58	* EyeScream: Devlin is threatened with this.
59	* FaintInShock: The Sprouts' maid screams and faints when she sees Sprout is dead. Not even decapitated, just dead.
60	* FamilialCannibalismSurprise: Lionheart feeds Merridew his two [[MrMuffykins pet poodles]] (who he regards as his children) baked into a pie, as a revenge based on ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus''. He then finishes Merridew off by ForceFeeding him the rest until he chokes to death.
61	* FateWorseThanDeath: The aforementioned CrazyJealousGuy goes to jail 'til the end of his days, having killed his wife. (It's implied, though, that his age and health won't let him survive prison for long. [[note]]In a particularly sad example of RealitySubtext[=/=]HarsherInHindsight, Jack Hawkins, who played Psaltery, died about three months after the film's initial release.[[/note]])
62	* FingerInTheMail: After cutting out Dickman's heart (and ensuring that it weighs exactly one pound), he mails it to Devlin in a gift-wrapped box.
63	** Lionheart somehow obtains Sprout's severed head and puts it on a milk bottle on Devlin's doorstep.
64	* {{Flashback}}: When Devlin realizes that the deaths correspond with Lionheart's most recent Shakespeare run, the scene changes to the day the award was given, during which Lionheart took the award given to another actor and then jumped to his [[BungledSuicide death]].
65	* {{Flynning}}: The SwordFight, lovingly stolen from ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', which contains trampolines and a balance bar [[RuleOfCool just for the hell of it.]]
66	* ForceFeeding: Mr. Merridew is forcibly fed until he dies of suffocation... [[EatTheDog with pieces of his beloved poodles.]]
67	* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the opening critics' meeting, Larding goes for the wine bottle. He meets his death later, by wine.
68	* FunnyAfro: A fake one is worn by Lionheart when disguised as the very camp hairdresser "Butch". The "stage manager" also has one [[spoiler:as part of her crossdressing disguise.]]
69	* GiftedlyBad: As part of Lionheart's LargeHam status... but he knows his Shakespeare, and ''did'' know how to make an exit...
70	* GoryDiscretionShot: The part where a heart is cut out is very carefully blocked by the head of one of the vagrants; the decapitation scene does this, too.
71	* GratuitousIambicPentameter: Lionheart sometimes slips into this even when not acting.
72	--> The whole world knows that it is mine by right
73	--> But you deliberately withheld it from me!
74	* GraveMarkingScene: Edwina is shown laying flowers at Lionheart's grave during Maxwell's funeral.
75	* GrievousBottleyHarm: When Lionheart's gang of tramps rise to attack Maxwell, one of them smashes a bottle to stab him with.
76	* HaveAGayOldTime: Used for a joke in one of the murders. Lionheart commits the ''Henry VI'' inspired murder (specifically, based off the death of Joan of Arc) in his CampGay hair dresser disguise:
77	-->''"Spare for no fagots, let there be enough..."''
78	* HeroAntagonist: Devlin and the police since they're opposing Lionheart's murder spree.
79	* HighVoltageDeath: Miss Moon is electrocuted underneath a hairdryer by Lionheart posing as a hairdresser, sort of parodying the death (by being burned at the stake) of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc in ''Theatre/HenryVIPart1'' since it leaves her body with burns.
80	* HollywoodPoliceDrivingAcademy: The police think they see Lionheart driving by, and immediately scramble into a traffic jam reminiscent of the Keystone Kops.
81	* HoneyTrap: The Stage Manager pretends to be a young actress to lure Dickman into a trap.
82	* HonorBeforeReason: Devlin has a choice between a horrible blinding and granting Lionheart a Critic's Award that wouldn't be considered legitimate by anyone. He still won't do it because Lionheart just plain doesn't deserve it.
83	** Lionheart would have likely blinded or killed Devlin [[MortonsFork anyway]], once Devlin gave him the award.
84	* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: The Ides of March.
85	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Snipe's fate.
86	* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: In the opening, Lionheart and the Stage Manager pose as constables to lure Maxwell into the ambush at the squat.
87	* InformedFlaw: For all Lionheart is supposedly a terrible actor, he ''is'' played by Vincent Price, who while characteristically hammy is clearly giving his all to the many Shakespearean soliloques he quotes in the film.
88	* IWasQuiteALooker: Lionheart is described as an "aging matinee idol"--i.e. an actor who, in his younger years, was popular for his looks and had a large number of {{Fangirl}}s. While not treated as ''ugly'' exactly by the time of the film, he's getting old and now seems to play mostly villains rather than romantic leads. It's unclear how many of his fans have stuck around, but the critics treat him as a laughing-stock and past his prime.
89	* {{Jerkass}}: Each and every one of the critics, who mock Lionheart and his daughter whilst they are in the room, proceed to mock Lionheart's death, and really don't seem to care much for each other. When the first critic is murdered, one of them remarks that they've finally a headline, not a byline. Even Devlin, largely the OnlySaneMan of the critics, refuses to admit to Lionheart's genius when his sight may depend on it, and openly mocks Lionheart when he [[spoiler: dies for real]].
90	* TheKeyIsBehindTheLock: Lionheart infiltrates a house by being moved there in a box with the keys, then opens a small hatch and unlocks the chest.
91	* LargeHam: Oh, ''yes''. One can tell that Price had far too much fun throughout the movie. One critic describes one of Lionheart's performances as [[LampshadeHanging putting him in mind of a ham sandwich.]] (And Lionheart's reaction to that line is just ''precious''.)
92	* LastDisrespects: Lionheart disrupts the funeral of his first victim Maxwell, by tying the body of his second victim Snipe to a horse and having it gallop into the funeral.
93	* LiteralMetaphor: "I am sorry to miss the meeting, but my heart is with you."
94	* LoonyFan: Lionheart might not have been terribly sane to begin with. It's mentioned at one point he only ever exclusively did Shakespeare plays.
95	* LuredIntoATrap: Snipe. The Stage Manager tells him that Lionheart is alive and about to make a comeback. Snipe goes to visit the theatre and is subsequently attacked and killed.
96	* MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter: Edwina Lionheart [[spoiler: who's really DaddysLittleVillain and is basically TheDragon to her father]].
97	* MasterOfDisguise: Lionheart and the Stage Manager. Every victim is fooled unless Lionheart shows up as himself to them right away.
98	* MatchCut: When Lionheart is posing with a large trunk, the scene fades to black... and when the scene lights again, the trunk is sitting in the next victim's house.
99	* MauriceChevalierAccent: Lionheart affects one when posing as a cook (certainly because FrenchCuisineIsHaughty) to murder Merridew.
100	** Lionheart also uses a French accent when acting as a masked fencer in Devlin's gym.
101	* MeaningfulName: True for several characters:
102	** Dickman is a lech.
103	** Snipe is a CausticCritic. His first name is Hector, which mirrors his fate (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice and [[WhatADrag dragged by a horse]]).
104	** Larding likes a consumable (although he's a drunk rather than the glutton suggested by the name).
105	** Devlin is a subversion. While his name implies an evil, LouisCypher type, he's a fairly decent guy.
106	** And finally, who can forget Edward Lionheart himself, named after two kings of England? No wonder he had a huge ego.
107	* MissedHimByThatMuch: The police only get to where one of their targets is just after he's been lured away by Edwina.
108	* MissingMom: Nothing is said about Edwina's mother.
109	%%* MistakenForCheating: Poor Maisie Psaltry.
110	* MrMuffykins: A pair of the little buggers belong to Meredith Merridew, though they're at least not too yappy. They meet a suitably awful end.
111	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In the flashback, Edwin says this about Edwina when she tells him not to give his critics the satisfaction of seeing him humiliated.
112	* NotNowKiddo: "Hey, just go about your normal life, and leave the rest to us."
113	* OffscreenCrash / SoundOnlyDeath: A cop hiding in the trunk of a car in an attempt to follow Lionheart ends up parked on train tracks. We [[DeathByTransceiver hear him over the walkie-talkie]] to the other cops:
114	-->'''Cop''': I can hear a train whistle... ''(rumbling sound)'' I can definitely identify it as a train... ''(sound grows louder)'' T-R-A... '''KERRRR-UNNCH.'''
115	* OffWithHisHead: Done to Sprout... all while Lionheart was dressed as a surgeon.
116	* TheOphelia: ''Sort'' of, in that Lionheart's daughter is pretty scarred from the supposed death of her father. [[spoiler: Or, at least, appears to be.]] She even dresses like Ophelia for a scene.
117	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler:Edward Lionheart has to witness the death of his daughter, in a parallel to Theatre/KingLear.]]
118	* PaperThinDisguise: Creator/DianaRigg is very obviously the young actress who approaches Dickman. He might not know her, but the audience does.
119	** Lionheart's disguises don't disguise Price's distinctive face, either.
120	* PastimesProvePersonality: Devlin is a fencer; this characterises him both as well-off and intellectual, and (since despite its posh image it ''is'' based on fighting) as having more courage than the rest of the critics. [[spoiler:When facing his own death he goes for HonourBeforeReason while most of the others plead and beg.]] The only other character in the film to fence is Lionheart (who claims not to be very good at first, but then goes on to defeat Devlin--though they're not exactly following the normal rules of fencing, instead leaping around with sharp swords), which characterises him as WickedCultured and dangerous, and sets up Lionheart and Devlin as intellectual equals and {{Worthy Opponent}}s in a way that the other critics are not.
121	* PoeticSerialKiller: Lionheart's kills mimic the deaths of various characters in Shakespeare's plays.
122	* PoliceAreUseless: The finest officers of the Met repeatedly fail to stop a crazed actor and his homeless flunkies killing all but one of their targets. When they try to do a stakeout, their entire unit scurries off after one guy, allowing Lionheart and his people to break into Merridew's house, then kill and cook his dogs and set up the props of a fake TV show. In Larding's case, the cop protecting him drives off, having grown bored with waiting for him at the wine tasting.
123	* PunkInTheTrunk:
124	** Lionheart hides in a large trunk to infiltrate Sprout's house.
125	** A policeman tries to follow Lionheart by hiding in the trunk of his car. Lionheart just parks the car on a train track and walks off. DeathByTransceiver ensues.
126	* RailroadTracksOfDoom: PlayedForLaughs of a very dark kind, combined with DeathByTransceiver: a cop hiding in the trunk of a car in an attempt to follow Lionheart ends up parked on train tracks. We hear him over the walkie-talkie to the other cops:
127	-->'''Cop''': I can hear a train whistle... ''(rumbling sound)'' I can definitely identify it as a train... ''(sound grows louder)'' T-R-A... '''KERRRR-UNNCH.'''
128	* SameLanguageDub: Jack Hawkins (Solomon Psaltery) had to be dubbed by an uncredited Creator/CharlesGray as his larynx had been removed in 1966 following throat cancer (which makes the fact that he was still acting-- with dubbed voices-- all the way up to 1973 rather remarkable!).
129	* SamusIsAGirl: Lionheart's lead henchman, the British accented guy with the hippie glasses, afro, and beard turns out to be his daughter Edwina (Creator/DianaRigg).
130	* ShoutoutToShakespeare: Every death is staged to re-enact a famous play by the Bard. It helps (or hurts) that Lionheart desired to be known as a Shakespearean actor.
131	* SleekHighRiseApartment: The circle of theatre critics held their meetings in such an apartment until Lionheart jumped from it.
132	* SmallNameBigEgo: Lionheart. Averted in that he doesn't have a ''small name'' though.
133	* SoleSurvivor: By the end of the film, Devlin is the only critic who's not dead or jailed for life.
134	* SoundtrackDissonance: A lovely, calming theme plays while Lionheart and his main flunky surgically remove Sprout's head.
135	* StealthPun: Inspector Boot notes that one of the murders in ''Titus Andronicus'' involves "an old queen" being forced to eat her children baked in a pie. When Lionheart re-enacts this scene, he chooses the CampGay Merridew for his victim.
136	* StrawCritic: The critics are generally this, although their reviews of Lionheart appear to have been pretty accurate.
137	** The film implies that Lionheart might be CriticProof, as his theatrical productions generally draw audiences (he doesn't seem SoBadItsGood). [[invoked]]
138	* SunglassesAtNight: The 'Stage Manager'.
139	* SweetPollyOliver: [[spoiler:Lionheart's lead henchman with the hippy glasses, afro, and beard is actually his daughter Edwina in disguise.]]
140	* TemptingFate: "Oh, there's only three of us left, surely the might of the British police force can protect us all."
141	* ThemeSerialKiller: Lionheart kills theatre critics in the manner of various deaths from Shakespeare's plays.
142	* TooDumbToLive: Despite knowing that there's a murderer out there who's following Lionheart's last season on stage, one decides to go into a wine tasting, asking the officer to wait outside. It gets even more foolish from there.
143	* VillainHasAPoint: When Lionheart and Devlin spar during their fencing battle Lionheart chastises Devlin for the damage a critic can do to a production. As self centered as Lionheart is he must have seen how careers can be destroyed by flippant critics, and arguably has seen many friends and colleagues suffer at the hands of cynics like Devlin.
144	--> How many actors have you destroyed as you destroyed me? How many talented lives have you cut down with your glib attacks? What do you know of the blood, sweat and toil of a theatrical production? Of the dedication of the men and the women in the noblest profession of them all? How could you know you talentless fools who spew vitriol on the creative efforts of others because because you lack the ability to create yourselves! No Devlin, no! I did not kill Larding and the others. ''Punished'' them my dear boy, punished them. Just as you shall have to be punished.
145	* VillainOpeningScene: The first scene has Maxwell being led to a bunch of rowdy vagrants who subsequently stab and beat him while the cops look on. One of the cops removes his helmet and reveals himself to be Lionheart.
146	* VillainProtagonist: Lionheart.
147	* VorpalPillow: When Psaltery thinks his wife is guilty of adultery, he smothers her with a pillow.
148	* WhatADrag: After murdering Snipe, Lionheart ties his body to the tail of a horse and sends the horse galloping into Maxwell's funeral.
149	* WickedCultured: Lionheart, of course. His serial killings deliberately mirror Shakespeare.
150	* WigDressAccent: The most obvious, hippy-esque flunky (the 'Stage Manager', actually [[spoiler:Edwina]]) manages to disguise himself as a hairdresser, a wine tasting host, a masseur, a policeman; Lionheart does even ''more''.
151
152	!! Tropes found in the theatre adaptation:
153	* ActorAllusion[=/=]CastingGag: Rachel Stirling takes the same role her mother did in the film.
154	* AdaptationNameChange: Edwina is renamed Miranda for a ShoutOut to ''Theatre/TheTempest''.
155	* AdaptedOut: The deaths based on ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' and ''Theatre/{{Cymbeline}}'' are omitted since they involve people other than Lionheart, his crew, and the critics. The subplot with the police is also omitted (see ClosedCircle below).
156	* BalloonBelly: Merridew gets the hose of a large sausage grinder jammed down his throat, and Lionheart proceeds to dump the pies and poodles in, [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/a4ee2550e30ae5f9d89a62e10ebc2dad/3723bf31f7eadcae-8a/s2048x3072/47373c21207547c1972a0544bd5c87823c86b30e.png causing his stomach to bulge grotesquely]] (one of the many death stage illusions created by Paul Kieve). It's possible that this happened in the original film too, but if so it's very downplayed as 1) the food is shoved in manually; 2) we only see a shot of Merridew's corpse at the end; and 3) Robert Morley is pretty dang round to begin with.
157	* ClosedCircle: The play is set entirely in a derelict theatre (or, on a meta-level, the actual theatre made to look derelict).
158	* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Devlin]] offers to pay off the Tramps, thinking they will free him [[spoiler:however they check to see he can't escape the chair he's stuck in and leave him with the bodies of the Lionhearts and the award statuette as they lock him in the theatre with no chance of escaping or being found]].
159	* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: [[spoiler:Miranda]] goes to stab [[spoiler:Devlin]] however he manages to get the tramps on [[spoiler:his]] side and they stop [[spoiler:her]] only for [[spoiler:her]] to stab [[spoiler:herself]].
160	** [[spoiler:Lionheart]] doesn't die from [[spoiler:falling]] he still quotes [[spoiler:Lear]] but he instead either has [[spoiler:poisoned a communion wafer or has a heart attack lying next to Miranda]]. [[note]]I watched the Pro-shot so I'm unsure until I get a copy of the script.[[/note]]
161	* PeriodPiece: The 1970s setting is kept, probably to avoid dealing with CellPhonesAreUseless. The {{camp}} fun of 70s fashion might have been a factor as well.
162	* ScreenToStageAdaptation: The play differs from the film in that the critics are from British newspapers (examples including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Times'') and is entirely set in an abandoned theatre. The play remains set in the 1970s, rather than being updated to contemporary times. Most of the secondary characters were excised including police and the number of deaths reduced. The killings based on ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' and ''Theatre/{{Cymbeline}}'' are omitted as they would have to take place outside the theatre and rely on secondary characters, such as the critics' wives. The name of Lionheart's daughter is changed from "Edwina" to "Miranda" to enhance the Shakespearean influence. The adaptation ran in London at the National Theatre between May and September 2005 and received mixed reviews.
163	* SkullForAHead: When Moon is killed, Lionheart has not only wired her up to a salon hairdryer but pulls the bonnet [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXSPUcEXsAAQBEI.jpg completely over her head]] before throwing the switch: when he cuts the juice and lifts up the bonnet, this is the result.
164	* TheXOfY: ''Theatre of Blood''

Context Film / TheatreOfBlood