History Film / Popcorn

Maggie (Creator/JillSchoelen) is a film student in college, looked after by her aunt Suzanne (Creator/DeeWallace) since Maggie's parents died years ago under suspicious circumstances. She's currently writing a film about a girl named Sara - based on the dreams/nightmares that she's been having. Her film professor, Mr. Davis (Tony Roberts), is working on getting the funds to help her make her movie, along with the movies of the other students in her film class. To that end, Davis suggests putting on a fundraiser movie marathon of three shlocky sci-fi movies: "Mosquito!" about a giant mutant blood-sucking insect, "The Amazing Electrified Man," about a felon wreaking havoc with new-found control of electricity, and "The Stench," a Japanese horror movie about a smell powerful enough to kill people. One of Davis' friends, Dr. Mnesyne (Creator/RayWalston), has the original gimmick props for all three films, so they can be shown as they were originally intended, gimmicks and all.

[[quoteright:182:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/popcorn.jpg]]

Maggie is a film student in college, looked after by her aunt Suzanne since Maggie's parents died years ago under suspicious circumstances. She's currently writing a film about a girl named Sara - based on the dreams/nightmares that she's been having. Her film professor, Mr. Davis, is working on getting the funds to help her make her movie, along with the movies of the other students in her film class. To that end, Davis suggests putting on a fundraiser movie marathon of three shlocky sci-fi movies: "Mosquito!" about a giant mutant blood-sucking insect, "The Amazing Electrified Man," about a felon wreaking havoc with new-found control of electricity, and "The Stench," a Japanese horror movie about a smell powerful enough to kill people. One of Davis' friends, Dr. Mnesyne, has the original gimmick props for all three films, so they can be shown as they were originally intended, gimmicks and all.

* ShoutOut: Among all the fake movies, the festival is also showing ''Film/TheIncredibleMeltingMan''.

* LukeYouAreMyFather: [[spoiler: Lanyard Gates was Sarah's dad, and tried to kill her along with her mom during the original screening of ''Possessor''.]]

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Poor [[spoiler:Bud]] is helplessly restrained, taunted via audio message and forced to wait and futilely struggle until [[he is slowly and painfully electrocuted to death.]] This is ''much'' harsher than the other kills and [[spoiler:Bud]] gets it simply because it fits with the "theme" of the killings matching the movie being currently showed.

-->'''{{Tagline}}'''

->''"[[{{Tagline}} Buy a bag . . . go home in a box.]]"''

* AudienceParticipation: In-universe - the marathon allows people to shout their own ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' [=/=] Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow style lines at the screen. For example:

* DancingBear: Each of the three creature features shown has its own William Castle-style gimmick. [[spoiler: The killer ends up incorporating all three gimmicks in attempts to kill.]]
** "Mosquito" has a large animatronic mosquito come out of the screen and fly over the audience, similar to the skeleton used for Film/HouseOnHauntedHill.
** "The Amazing Electrified Man" has apparatus attached to chairs in the theater that give shocks to seated patrons, similar to the gimmick for Film/TheTingler.

* MamaBear: [[spoiler: Suzanne stepped in to save Sarah, her niece, when Sarah's own mother couldn't and managed to rescue her before her insane father killed her.]]

* TragicVillain: [[spoiler: Toby is completely insane, but turned out this way after he watched his mother burn to death in the fire that raged during the original showing of ''Possessor''. The same fire destroyed all the skin on his body, and he spent most of his life in and out of surgeries that left him hideously disfigured and forced to apply prosthetic skin to his face on a daily basis just so people wouldn't be terrified of him. While it's clear he's very much enjoying the kills he commits, it's laced with him ranting about how he'll never have a normal life and how much he hates Sarah and Suzanne for indirectly being the cause. What stops him being a total monster is that he can't bring himself to kill Joanie when she reveals she's in love with him (not knowing it's Toby she's talking to.]]

* GenuineHumanHide: The killer likes to wear the skin of his victims in order to lure others in.

!!This film contains examples of:

* AudienceParticipation: In-universe - the marathon allows people to shout their own ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' [=/=] Film/RockyHorrorPictureShow style lines at the screen. For example:

->''"Buy a bag . . . go home in a box."''

->''"Pay to get in, pray to get out."''

-->''"Pay to get in, pray to get out."''

'''''Popcorn''''' is a 1991 comedic SlasherMovie.

* AudienceParticipation: In-universe - the marathon allows people to shout their own Main/MST3K [=/=] Film/RockyHorrorPictureShow style lines at the screen. For example:

Maggie is a film student in college, looked after by her aunt, Suzanne since Maggie's parents died years ago, under suspicious circumstances. She's currently writing a film about a girl named Sara - based on the dreams/nightmares that she's been having. Her film professor, Mr. Davis, is working on getting the funds to help her make her movie, along with the movies of the other students in her film class. To that end, Davis suggests putting on a fundraiser movie marathon of three shlocky sci-fi movies: "Mosquito," about a giant mutant blood-sucking insect, "The Amazing Electrified Man," about a felon wreaking havoc with new-found control of electricity, and "The Stench," a Japanese horror movie about a smell powerful enough to kill people. One of Davis' friends, Dr. Mnesyne, has the original gimmick props for all three films, so they can be shown as they were originally intended, gimmicks and all.

While preparing for the showing, the students come across a short film: "Possessor," a truly bizarre piece of film. Davis explains that Possessor was made by a maniac named Lanyard Gates, who filmed everything except the final scene, which was to be performed on-stage: a ritual sacrifice. When the film was shown, Gates attempted to perform the sacrifice for real - there was a fight when this was realized, and the struggle ended up setting the theater on fire, killing several people. The students agree that Possessor can stay sealed up at the bottom of the case where it was found, but seeing the film starts to trigger new nightmares for Maggie, as the film seems somehow to her strangely familar.

The night of the marathon comes, and everybody is ready to go - but as the movies start rolling, Maggie discovers to her horror that her friends are dying, one at a time, by various means related to the movies being watched - and that it all seems related to her connection to "Possessor," and that perhaps someone she knows, someone close to her, might be the killer...

A group of film buffs start a film festival. The festival has a particular focus on 1950's BMovie type schlock. Sounds great, right? One problem: A man with no face is killing everybody within!