Movie House Massacre (1984)* (out of 4) Three college students are asked to clean up an old movie theatre so that it can open back up. It doesn't take long for the three to regret taking the job.This forgotten film is out there under a couple different titles including the catchy MOVIE HOUSE MASSACRE as well as the better known BLOOD THEATRE. No matter what you call it, it's doubtful that you're going to be overly entertained by this thing, which tries to put the slasher genre inside an old theatre. Obviously one will think of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA but sadly there's just not too much going on here.The biggest problem is that there are some really bad performances, not enough violence and what violence there is all happens off screen. For a horror movie, even by 1984 standards, this here is rather lame as it just doesn't feature enough to keep the viewer entertained. There are a couple quick shots of nudity but that's about it. The story has a few interesting ideas and a better screenplay would have helped but sadly there's just not enough going on here to make it worth watching.

Watching this, my heart broke for the actors. What could it have been like actually being in this? And it holds the distinction of being the most ineptly directed movie I've ever seen, and I'm well into Senior Citizen status.The premise isn't bad. Three very young employees at a cineplex are handed the keys to an wonderful old cinema and told to clean the place up so that it can be reopened.The premise isn't bad. The movie is.It's about 80 minutes long, but moves at a snail's pace. Nothing except some brief nudity livens up the first two acts. At long last the theater opens, a local news crew spouts some exposition about the theater's history, a few characters are killed, mostly offstage. The original owner of the cinema shows up, he's killed by the Last Girl, she runs to a pay phone and calls the police. It ends with the police arriving.I'd guess that the people who made this have a background acting and directing for the stage. I realized- and this was more upsetting than any of the "horror" elements- that people would say a line, pause, beat, two, three, four, and someone else would say a line. This was because they were inserting these pauses so that the audience's laughter wouldn't cover the lines.Uh, kids. Let me be frank with you. Those lines aren't funny. Not the least bit.There were exactly two good things about this film. The actress/writer/painter/sculptor Mary Woronov is always fun to watch, but her performance was arch and mannered. She realized that the people acting opposite her had nothing to give, and seemed bored.Best yet, the 'haunted' theater is one of those wonderful old downtown single screen movie palaces that young audiences probably have never experienced. It brought back the days of my youth and young adulthood at the Loew's (where I saw my very first movie, a re-release of THE WIZARD OF OZ, when I was a small child) , Metropolitan, and Majestic in Houston, the Jefferson in Beaumont, the Paramount and State in Austin, and, best of all, the Aztec in San Antonio.

The most hardcore bad film buff will be surprised by the overall ineptness of this grade-z "film". Mary Woronov, a clever actress best known for her roles as Mary Bland in Eating Raoul and Miss Togar in Rock 'N' Roll High School, is by far the best thing about this tripe. This film is almost too bad even for MST3K - honestly!

Mary Woronov and the chick that plays Selina (the bitch of the group) were the saving graces of this movie. There is barely any blood, the acting is bad, the killings are off screen, but on the other hand it has a couple of funny moments, topless nudity, it has a high body count and a lot of good one-liners. See it, you'll laugh a lot.