The Theatre Bizarre

Down a seedy city street in her neighborhood, young Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) is obsessed with what appears to be a long abandoned theater. One night, she sees that the front door is slightly ajar and impulsively decides to sneak inside.

This film is just one disappointment after another. I generally enter into a movie with low expectations, and this is no exception. But I had a bit of hope that this could be a decent anthology. The stars are respectable: Debbie Rochon, Udo Kier, Catriona MacColl. The directors have talent: Richard Stanley, Tom Savini, Jeremy Kasten. What went wrong?

I feel like a variety of problems plagued this one -- but it can be summed up in two basic categories. Either the story was not thought-out enough or the segment was not long enough to develop the characters, or both.

Tom Savini's segment was just too confusing, and revolved around an unfaithful man. I feel like the cheating was never made clear. And we are not given time to sympathize with him or his wife or anyone. Should I care about either of their problems?

The concept of stealing memories through eye fluid was brilliant. While the concept is clearly impossible, and it is not clear how someone would have discovered this secret, it is a remarkably good idea that could have been its own film. But even with that one, it went downhill towards the end. I was completely deflated.

The "Sweets" segment was the most visually appealing... but what was going on?

I briefly tasted the extravagance of "The Theatre Bizarre" nearly one year ago, during a modest genre festival in country. Halfway the second segment, however, there were some technical issues and everybody got reimbursed and had to leave the theater. It took me until now to re-watch the whole thing, but my expectations were quite high because I remembered quite a number of good things from my abruptly ended first viewing. "The Theatre Bizarre" is an anthology, and the one element that immediately determines whether or not an anthology is worthwhile is the wraparound story! This film features one of best wraparound stories, with some of the grimmest and most macabre scenery ever seen. A timid young girl is lured to the sinister and seemingly abandoned Grand Guignol Theater across the street of her apartment, where she's "friendly" welcomed by a marionette version of cult legend Udo Kier and numerous other grisly dummies. As the presented stories pass by, both Udo and the girl undergo a nightmarish metamorphosis. The wraparound is courtesy of Jeremy Kasten, the underrated director of one of the better horror remakes of the decade, namely "The Wizard of Gore". As usually the case with horror omnibus movies, some of segments are good, some of the segments are bad and some of the segments are just too plain weird and flamboyant to judge properly. Unfortunately none of the six tales qualifies as truly outstanding, but at least the segments "I love you", "Vision Stains" and "The Accident" rate as well above average. They are diverse stories with either original basic concepts or uniquely tense moments. "I love you" is a prototypic mini psycho-thriller, but benefices from the ravishing Suzan Anbeh and her monologues that will make every male viewer cringe. "Vision Stains" is about a woman who kills homeless/troubled women and injects their eyeball-fluids in her own veins to live their memories… Until she witness things she didn't want to witness. This little plot is inventive and genuinely horrific, but it could have used a better climax. "The Accident" is somewhat of an alien segment, as it's more of a melodrama instead of a horror story, but it features a wonderfully grim atmosphere and a couple of harrowing moments. The other three tales vary from mediocre to inferior. The first segment "Mother of Toads" is very H.P Lovecraft like, with creepy monsters and nasty make-up effects, but writer/director Richard Stanley totally forgot to tell a story. Tom Savini's "Wet Dreams" contains a few solid moments, but the plot is derivative and rather nonsensical. The final chapter "Sweets", somewhat a crossover between "La Grande Bouffe" and "Delicatessen", tries very hard to be artsy and controversial, but it's actually just ridiculous and preposterous. Recommended viewing for experienced and open-minded horror fanatics.

Not since the original Creepshow has there been a horror anthology as amazing as this. Comprising of six different short films, each with a different director and introductory segment, every short film is entirely different and unique in their own way and even the segments in between with Udo Kier and extremely entertaining to watch. Mother of Toads is a great B-movie throwback, I Love You is like a violent version of The Room, Wet Dreams has Tom Savini, therefore it is automatically gold, The Accident is harrowing and haunting, Vision Stains is interesting and engaging and Sweets is disgusting fun. Best horror of the year.

Normally in an Anthology I would break it down by stories. I feel that in this case that will not be necessary. The production of this project had such a cheap feel to it, like it was made way back in the day. It honestly felt like it was draining the life out of me it was all so bland though I did manage to finish the entire "film". This reminded me much of "Tales From The Darkside", in it's tacky form. It didn't even come close to comparing it to episodes of "Tales From The Crypt" or "Masters of Horror" it certainly didn't have that caliper of greatness, and I have seen every episode from all 3 shows I just mentioned. Horror fans do yourself a favor and pass on this I really feel I have to get the message out there because anthology's are my ultimate favorite and this just plain sucked for lack of better words, wasn't even worth watching for free on the net, there are better films to watch out there so pass on this one. 3-4/10

"Theater Bizarre" is a horror anthology that much reminds me of last years "Little Deaths" in that it takes some rather strange and extreme ideas for some of the stories of which there are many. So lets start at the extremely disappointing beginning...

"Mother of toads" is a totally lame and rather typical horror story about a couple on holidays meeting a strange witch inviting them to look at her Necronomicon. Some Lovecraft references, nudity and slimy frogs just don't nail it here. Total snooze fest with the laziest storyline of all.

"I love you" continues equally boring with bad acting, annoying German accents and a dysfunctional couple at the end of their relationship. Throat-slitting and blood on white sheets also don't nail it since the story goes nowhere and seems rather childish to me. Basically as forgettable as the first story and nosedives with dumb lines like "My vagina and your penis never were friends".

"Wet dreams" is about a guy having nightmares about castration and a psycho therapist telling him to open his eyes to wake up from his dreams. The whole thing ends in a rather bloody mess with a twisted idea for the end but ultimately the whole storytelling is uneven and suffers from bad acting.

"The accident" is the first highlight here. This is no real horror story but a rather slow meditation on life and death through the eyes of a mother and her little daughter who witness a motorcycle accident. This has great atmosphere and some really gripping visuals (the deer looked frightenly real and the acting is great) and is especially moody because of the perfect piano score and great editing. Unfortunately the promising short leads absolutely nowhere in the end.

"Vision stains" is some really twisted stuff by "Subconscious cruelty" director Karim Hussain. It starts off gritty with a homeless girl getting high on heroin in some dirty back alley when suddenly another girl appears and kills her and takes her eye liquid in a syringe injecting it in her own eyeball. The basic idea of transferring the last flashing pictures while dying to another person reminded me of an Italian movie with a camera (can't remember the title). But this one goes further and uses some pretty disturbing images. This one has a point to end on but honestly I found it a little uneven too.

Last but not least "Sweets" continues the disturbing imagery with some pretty nasty food fetishes and a bizarre break up scene of a couple. The guys acting is pretty incredible and makes the food fetish theme twice as bizarre. It all culminates in one of the goriest scenes of this anthology.

The surrounding Theatre-Plot with Udo Kier has some great visuals by "Wizard of Gore" Remake Director Jeremy Kasten but the lack of a story and Kiers accent which is nearly as annoying as that of the male lead in "I love you" ruin it.

After all this is your typical anthology. It fails on many levels (most of the time on the lazy storytelling) but has some nice ideas and visuals. Its hard to say which story is the best because basically the first half totally sucks and the second raises the bar a lot but because of the flaws has no real highlight. If you want some bizarre stories like in "Little Deaths" enjoy the second half but don't expect too much. Even with all those sick ideas ... when the curtain falls I was left thinking "Meeeeeh".