History Main / AbominableAuditorium

* '''Villainous'''. These venues may be more functional than their counterparts in the previous category; some might actually be quite successful. In this case, what makes it terrible is the fact the place is clearly villain central: it may be an integral part of a villain's plans, it may be a secret lair for the villain, or there may be something intrinsically evil about the building itself. For good measure, it may result in a final confrontation taking place on stage, with generous lashings of "AllPartOfTheShow."

Advertised as glamorous night spots in which to experience the latest masterpieces of the stage and screen, some theaters just can't live up to the hype, instead exposing audiences to openly unpleasant conditions - or even serious threats to their safety. Venues such as this may include playhouses, cinemas, amphitheatres, opera houses, or even arenas.

# '''Non-Functional'''. The venue is a largely mundane setting known for poor overall quality: the lights are busted, the performances are terrible, the seats are broken, the snacks are absolutely vile, the staff are either apathetic or hopelessly out of their depth, and it's best not to speculate as to why the carpet's so ''sticky.'' In extreme cases, the place might be actively falling apart or even abandoned.

# '''Villainous'''. These venues may be more functional than their counterparts in the previous category; some might actually be quite successful. In this case, what makes it terrible is the fact the place is clearly villain central: it may be an integral part of a villain's plans, it may be a secret lair for the villain, or there may be something intrinsically evil about the building itself. For good measure, it may result in a final confrontation taking place on stage, with generous lashings of "AllPartOfTheShow."

* ''ComicBook/CinemaPurgatorio'' takes place in what appears at first to be a Non-Functional example: the eponymous cinema is a slightly dilapidated venue plagued with terrible food, awful toilets, and a film lineup that ranges from the bewildering to the nightmarish. Much to the main character's confusion, once she enters, she finds herself unable to leave - and gradually bears witness to the collapse of the audience's sanity and the unveiling of the Purgatorio's [[EldritchLocation true eldritch nature]]. [[spoiler: As it turns out, the place is the Evil variety; it's essentially a very special kind of afterlife, with the staff and customers alike consisting entirely of damned souls condemned to live out eternity within its premises - including the protagonist, who is guilty of murdering her daughter.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'', the Other World has its own theater run by the Other Miss Spink and the Other Miss Forcible. It seems a little on the grotesque side at first, given that the audience is composed entirely of dogs, while the only two performers are two old ladies performing a BawdySong and getting into a fight onstage - up until the Other Spink and Forcible unzip their skins and reveal their beautiful true selves in an impressive display of acrobatics. [[spoiler: It's actually yet another element of the [[BigBad Other Mother]]'s attempts to lure Coraline to her death; in the finale, as the glamour surrounding the other world breaks down, the theater becomes a haunting ruin where the audience has become a menacing flock of bat-dogs, while Other Spink and Forcible [[BodyHorror have been merged into a nightmarish monster]] [[AnthropomorphicFood made of living taffy]].]]
* Moon Theater in ''WesternAnimation/{{Sing}}'' is of the Non-Functioning variety. It its glory days, it was a highly successful venue; now it's falling apart, its owner Buster Moon has to scrimp to make ends meet (stealing electricity from the building next door, for example) and the bank is threatening to repossess it. The singing competition that makes up the plot of the film is Buster's last ditch attempt to raise enough money for restorations, and he manages to make enough to upgrade the stage, [[spoiler:but an accident during rehearsals causes a catastrophic flood that destroys the theater. After the contestants do their performances in the ruins regardless and it becomes a sensation, Buster finally gets enough money to restore the theater better than before.]]

* ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' initially appears to provide a Non-Functional example: the immortal Parnassus heads a traveling stage show that does avant-garde performances in London, but [[WhoWantsToLiveForever centuries of life have left him both alcoholic and apathetic]], reducing the show to a shoddy laughingstock. It's subverted when we see the portable stage conceals a portal that leads audience members into Parnassus' mind and shows them their literal wildest dreams... but thanks to the influence of [[LouisCypher Mr Nick]], the dreams can easily turn fatal if the participants can't resist their baser instincts, making it a complicated Villainous example.
* ''Film/MeetTheFeebles'' is set in a seriously seedy, run-down variety theatre, suiting its nature as a dark parody of ''The Muppet Show'' perfectly.

** In ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera1962'', the London Opera House is the territory of ''two'' villains: crooked publisher Lord Ambrose D'Arcy is running the opera house into the ground in his efforts to get his magnum opus just to his liking, while also [[CastingCouch actively trying to seduce young singers]]; meanwhile, the Phantom and [[DepravedDwarf his henchman]] are undermining D'Arcy by sabotaging instruments, destroying props and murdering staff [[spoiler: as revenge for D'Arcy plagiarizing his music.]]
** As with the musical, ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004'' features examples of both the first and second type: in the intro, the Opera Populaire has been derelict for many years and is basically just waiting for the wrecking ball while the staff auction off old props for pennies. During the main body of the film, thirty years previously, the Opera is firmly under the thumb of the Phantom.

* ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShowLetsDoTheTimeWarpAgain'' has a FramingDevice of fans walking into a Gothic mansion of a cinema called the Castle[[note]] [[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma Casa Loma]] in real life[[/note]]. But given the fanbase, it's the kind of thing they'd like. The InUniverse movie is set in the same castle with the now dilapidated Castle cinema sign still outside.

* ''Literature/AngelsOfMusic'': The Grand Guignol is a dark theatre in Paris which showcases bloody shows and satire for the audience; though initially suspected of foul play, it's really just a deeply controversial horror show that's otherwise perfectly above board... or at least it is during work hours. Unknown to all, the theatre has been taken over by the villainous [[LegionOfDoom Red Circle]] who use it to stage late-night snuff performances for their sick amusement while [[CreepyGood Guignol]] himself is ForcedToWatch. [[spoiler: Ironically, it ends up being brought down with direct assistance from the Phantom of the Opera himself.]]

* The Theatre des Vampires of ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Interview With The Vampire]]'' and [[Film/InterviewWithTheVampire the film adaptation]] is a theatre troop composed almost entirely of vampires. Under Armand's leadership, it allows the vampires of his coven to murder human victims live on stage [[AllPartOfTheShow without the audience suspecting it to be anything other than a particular lurid horror show]]. [[spoiler: The Theatre proves no more hospitable to their fellow vampires: once they discover that Louis and Claudia murdered Lestat, they have the former BuriedAlive while the latter is executed by sunrise.]]
* ''Literature/MovingPictures'': In the caverns under Holy Wood Hill, the protagonists discover the remains of an ancient moving-picture pit -- which the narration dubs "the [[Literature/CthulhuMythos Cthinema]]" -- from the first Holy Wood civilisation, which was destroyed when the [[EldritchAbomination Things from the Dungeon Dimensions]] used it to break through onto the Discworld. Unseen creatures scuttle over the rotten remnants of ancient carpets and curtains, and an audience of skeletons, who apparently died watching the last showing, stare at a strange, rippling screen that hangs in the air, apparently attached to nothing. [[spoiler:When they return later, knowing the Things are trying to emerge once again and can only be stopped there, they find the entire population of Holy Wood sitting in the audience, transfixed by the screen...]]

* ''Series/Charmed1998'': in the episode "[[Recap/CharmedS7E15ShowGhouls Show Ghouls]]" Cabaret Fantome is a club and cabaret parlour known for being the most corrupt in the city of San Francisco. Its owner, the evil Count Roget, ended up making a deal with the demon Sargon to kill the occupants and trap their souls in an endless loop where they're forced to have to endure the same night - which ends with their deaths - again and again. This is repeated every day for over a 100 years.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': The time Lily was in a play, it was in a place like this. According to Ted, theater in New York ranges from Broadway to off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway to homeless people screaming in the park, to this theater a step down from that. You have to climb eleven flights of stairs to get there, and according to Barney the building smells like a "urine factory". The writing, acting and effects of the play itself are even worse. Later, Barney hosts his own one man show there to spite Lily, turning it into a (comedic) villainous example.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', every Rakdos nightclub on Ravnica probably qualifies as an example of the "villainous" version.

* ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' features examples of both the first and second type: in the prelude, the Opera Populaire is a ruin being used as a makeshift auction house where relics from the glory days can be sold off for a few francs - including Lot 666, a chandelier in pieces. The rest of the musical is set in the Opera House's heyday, when it's a lot more glamourous... but unfortunately, it's also the Phantom's territory, and anyone who fails to follow his instructions to the letter is due for "[[TraumaCongaLine a disaster beyond your imagination]]."

* In ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns,'' the Carpenter and the Walrus have been running one of these in the Deluded Depths, and though it seems to be quite majestic outwardly, the Dreary Lane Theater quickly turns out to be of the non-functional variety: the script writer is drunk, the orchestra is out of tune, the performers are left in precarious conditions, and the whole place looks to have been made from driftwood. However, in the final stage, Alice discovers [[spoiler: a mass grave of audience members buried under the stage, revealing that Dreary Lane is actually a villainous example; it turns out that Carpenter has been using the theatre as a means of [[VillainousGlutton feeding Walrus]], and the performance of ''Totentanz'' ultimately devolves into the actors and audience being devoured alive.]]
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' concludes with a visit to the old Monarch Theater; presumably abandoned for several years, the fact that a good chunk of the surrounding area has been converted into the Arkham City prison has only left the aging cinema complex in even worse condition. It's been repurposed as a temporary base for the Joker and his gang by the time you find it [[spoiler: because there's a Lazarus Pit directly under the building, giving Joker an easy route to immortality once he blasts the floor open.]]

*** During the visit to Fort Frolic, it's found that [[MadArtist Sander Cohen]] has taken over the Fleet Hall theater and is using it as a base of operations in his various artistic efforts playing out across the district. Cohen has decorated the abandoned playhouse with plastered-over corpses posed to resemble audience members while he tortures one of his former proteges live on stage - even blowing him up when the poor bastard can't get that piano composition just right.

*** The Triton Cinema in Dionysus Park; once a glamorous movie theatre, it was flooded along with the rest of the park many years ago, killing anyone who happened to be inside at the time. As soon as you drain the water out of the place, the dilapidated cinema immediately becomes a gathering ground for the Little Sisters, all of them eager to harvest ADAM from the long-dead victims.
*** The Fontaine Futuristics building features a small showroom-style theater that encompasses both categories: during the company's heyday, it was used for sales reps to show off the latest Plasmids to the public, though most of the "performers" were usually political prisoners that had been reduced to Splicers by brutal experimentation during their stay in [[HellholePrison Persephone]]. In the present, with the building abandoned except for rogue Splicers, the theater is essentially a gladiatorial arena where [[TheCaligula Alex the Great]] plays at being a corporate overlord by pitting Subject Delta against his "employees" before [[MummiesAtTheDinnerTable an audience of corpses]].
* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas - Dead Money,'' one of the many venues within the Sierra Madre Hotel and Casino is the Tampico Theater, an auditorium meant for only the best performers in America, including such stars as Dean Domino and Vera Keyes. However, by the time ''you'' visit it, it's every bit as deadly as the rest of the Sierra Madre: the murderous holograms are actively patrolling the area, speakers can set off your bomb collar, and [[ArcVillain Elijah]] is still watching you for any sign of rebellion. [[spoiler: Also, [[GreenEyedMonster Dean Domino]] is currently using this place as a hidey-hole; if you've gotten on his bad side, he ''will'' turn the theatre's security against you and try to kill you in person if that doesn't work.]]

** The Combat Zone, Tommy Lonegan's fighting area, is set in a pre-war theater. According to Lonegan, the Zone used to be fairly legitimate by Wasteland standards... up until raiders took the place over. Since then, it's gone downhill - to the point that cheaters have to be trussed up and put on display so nobody gets any ideas about breaking the rules in a match.

* ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' features an… "amusement" park invested by robots who clumsily try to imitate the long gone humans, which includes an old theater. Said theater became the den of a machine called Simone who went berserk and started to kill both machines and androids to incorporate their parts and become "beautiful". After you defeat her in a boss fight, the theater becomes used for an extremely weird (and hilarious) rendition of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' by small machines.

* Early in ''VideoGame/TheSuffering: Ties That Bind'', Torque is led into the Grand Theater, a derelict cinema in the slums of Baltimore. It was obviously in pretty bad shape even ''before'' the Malefactors took over the city: the place is littered with rubbish, the seats have been removed from the theater itself, and it's obviously been converted into a den for homeless drug addicts - most of whom have been butchered in the last few hours. [[VirtualGhost Dr Killjoy]] uses this place as a briefing room for Torque, keeping it relatively safe... up until [[BigBad Blackmore]] appears and sends in the Malefactors to make Torque manifest his rage form again.