The Flesh and Blood Show is a 1972 British horror slasher film directed and produced by Pete Walker, and starring Ray Brooks, Jenny Hanley, and Luan Peters. It follows a group of actors being stalked and murdered by an unseen assailant while rehearsing a play at a derelict seaside theatre.
Originally released in the United Kingdom in September 1972, and featuring a climactic sequence shot in 3-D, the film achieved a minor cult following in the years following its release.
Plot
Actresses and roommates Carol Edwards and Jane Pruitt are among a group of unemployed actors who are assembled by an anonymous producer to appear in a stage play titled The Flesh and Blood Show. The performers arrive at the Dome Theatre, a dreary abandoned theatre on a seaside pier, where they are scheduled to begin rehearsals. Carol and Jane are met by fellow actors John and Tony, as well as Mike, the play's director. Inside the theatre, the group find actors Simon and Angela, who arrived prior. Yet to arrive is Julia Dawson, an actress who has recently forged a film career.
With local hotels closed due to it being the off-season, the cast are required to stay in the theatre during rehearsals. On the first night, Carol and Tony spend the night together, leaving Jane to room with Angela, who makes sexual advances toward her, which John witnesses. In the middle of the night, Angela goes missing and the group are awoken by the sounds of a woman screaming. Mike finds Angela's severed head in the basement, along with her body, which lay on a prop guillotine. Mike keeps his discovery a secret from the others. Later, a gloved individual fondles Angela's severed head. Mike summons local police to investigate, but when they arrive, they find several mannequin heads, but no sight of Angela's body. Police assume Mike's claim to be imagined. Mike subsequently discovers a note apparently written by Angela in which she states she had to quit the play.
Julia subsequently arrives at the theatre in the middle of the night. The following morning, she accompanies Mike on a walk, and tells him she feels a sense of déjà vu while inside the theatre. Mike confesses his experience from the night before, when he found Angela's corpse, which then vanished. That night, after getting into a fight with Tony, Carol goes for a walk along the pier. She is approached by what appears to be a cloaked vagrant who begins to sexually assault her. Mike and Julia go to search for her, and hear her screaming. Carol is saved moments after the assailant brandishes a butcher knife, and he flees. Mike realizes after that John is now missing, and suspects he may have been Carol's attacker.
Meanwhile, actress Sarah Hales, who is staying with her aunt, Mrs. Saunders, nearby, is hired as a replacement for Angela. Sarah's aunt opens her home to the actors, allowing them to dine and bathe there during rehearsals. Mrs. Saunders, along with her friend Major Bell, recounts the Dome theatre's history to the actors, including a story about how actor Harry Mulligan, his deranged co-star Sir Arnold Gates, and Gates's wife, Pamela, all went missing there during World War II. The story piques Julia's interest, and she visits the local library to reviews newspaper articles about the disappearances.
Major Bell visits the theatre and startles Sarah in her dressing room. Bell requests to observe the actors' rehearsals, which Mike agrees to at a later date. Meanwhile, Carol goes to retrieve a costume from the basement, and is locked inside by Tony, pulling a prank. A figure with a flashlight approaches her in a corridor, illuminating two skeletal remains, before she is attacked. Two fisherman find Carol floating below the pier, severely injured, and she subsequently dies in hospital. Inspector Walsh investigates the murder, which Mike asserts was committed by the unhinged John, who is still missing. Walsh tells Mike that Angela never returned home. Later that evening, John's corpse is found floating down shore from the theatre, and it is determined he was bludgeoned to death and stabbed. John's estimated time of death suggests he could not have been Carol's attacker.