Though it's always been more of a fans' indulgence rather than a box office powerhouse, the horror anthology has been a surprisingly durable force over the years. Long after the days of films like Dead of Night and the classic Amicus anthologies, we're still seeing fresh spins on the format like this outlandish offering, a Grand Guignol-inspired compendium that throws in a heavy dash of surrealism and art house aesthetics to go along with some heavy helpings of gore and nastiness. Like any omnibus, some stories will resonate more strongly with viewers than others, but it's certainly a trip you'll never forget-- and at its best, this is a rare modern horror film that manages to be both transgressive and wildly entertaining.

The main hook here is the fact that each segment is directed by a different filmmaker with his own association to the horror genre. The framing story (directed by Jeremy Kasten, who helmed the Wizard of Gore remake) involves a young woman (Newcomb) who becomes the sole audience member in a darkened theater, where a macabre puppet man (Kier) appears and regales her with a series of stories -- during which his appearance becomes more human yet unsettling. First up is "Mother of Toads" (from Hardware director Richard Stanley), an adaptation of the Clark Ashton Smith story (with a heavy splash of Lovecraft, anticipating his later Color Out of Space) in which an anthropology student, Martin (Woodward), and his girlfriend Karina (Maurette) become involved in supernatural shenanigans in the European countryside involving a creepy sorceress (The Beyond's MacColl) and an ancient myth about the titular dark goddess. Obviously MacColl's creepy turn is the main attraction here, and it's great to see her on screen again in a horror role. Stanley's gift for atmosphere and capturing the local flavor of his location is well in evidence here, and it's fascinating to see him adapting to the demands of the anthology format. It all ends pretty much how you think it will, but the path getting there offers a few chilly occult flourishes via Stanley's hallucinatory visual sensibilities. Next up, permanent '80s cult hall of famer Buddy Giovinazzo (Combat Shock, Life Is Hot in Cracktown) offers a darkly humorous and ultimately splattery character sketch called "I Love You" in which a ridiculously tolerant, cuckolded man (A Dangerous Method's Hennicke) pleads with his verbally abusive wife (Anbeh) to stay while her lover wait in the car, escalating to a grotesque twist ending. Continuing on a similar theme (which occurs again later in the stories) in "Wet Dreams," an adulterous man named Donnie is hurled through a series of dreams dovetailing into reality involving his genital mutilation at the hands of his wife (Troma regular Rochon) while he seeks help from his shrink (director Savini). It's a twisty little piece that often plays like a more sexualized, graphic version of the 1990 film Brain Dead, and Savini certainly knows his way around short-form horror after helming some of the best episodes of Tales from the Darkside.

Things take a sudden left turn at this point with the most unexpected and divisive story of the bunch, Douglas Buck's "The Accident," a subdued visual poem on the nature of death with a little girl reflecting back on a road accident involving another driver and a deer. Though some of the imagery is briefly disturbing, it's way outside of the horror genre and plays more like a beautifully shot short film on its own. Best known for the notorious short "Cutting Moments" and his remake of Sisters, Buck has a distinctive, hypnotic rhythm to his films that can challenge some viewers but definitely leaves a strong imprint afterwards. Then the film smacks the audience in an entirely different way with the most extreme installment, "Vision Stains," from Subconscious Cruelty director Karim Hussain (who also shot the Stanley and Buck segments). The premise here is pretty great and could have easily been a jumping-off point for a feature film, as society's discarded women ranging from addicts to prostitutes are slain in alleys by a writer (Horn) who's discovered that extracting fluid from their eyes and injecting it into her own at the moment of death allows her to absorb their life experiences. She records everything she sees in a journal, but when she gets a bright new idea, things don't go quite as expected. It's a brutal and aggressive piece of work that can pulverize some unprepared audience members, and apart from a questionable "happy" coda, this may be the highlight of the film for those with a taste for the very dark and experimental. Last up is the DayGlo gore fantasia of "Sweets" from director David Gregory (Plague Town), which features a bravura performance from Guilford Adams as Greg, a sad sack who munches on candy all day and suffers a deteriorating relationship with his very mismatched girlfriend (Goranson, the nasty stepmom from Plague Town). As it turns out, she has an ulterior motive involving nocturnal activities in a society including a memorable turn by alternative icon Lynn Lowry (Score, The Crazies) as a sinister mistress of ceremonies named Mikela Da Vinci. In true anthology fashion, it all wraps back around to the theater of the title where the spectator becomes another part of the macabre narrative.

Digitally shot in HD (including some portions with a Red camera) with often colorful and stylish results, The Theatre Bizarre might be best experienced in a movie theater with a like-minded audience. However, at home you'll still get more than an eyeful from the disparate visual schemes on display here ranging from the dank, hallucinatory Gothic scheme of the first tale to the candy-colored freak out of the final one. The film was first released on DVD in 2012 from Image Entertainment, which a very belated Blu-ray following later; as you'd expect from the vintage and the source, it looks and sounds great with an immersive DTS-HD MA English 5.1 track. In an interesting approach, the audio commentary essentially works as a tag team effort between various participants from the film including the director of each segment (apart from Buck, whose "The Accident" plays silent even though he appears elsewhere for "Vision Stains," which he edited). Kasten kicks things off (sounding like he's coming through Skype or a phone) to discuss where and how he shot the wraparounds, and then he hands off the baton to Stanley, whose discussion is as fascinating and dense as you'd expect from his previous work. It's also oddly delightful how he says "Ouija," and he's also joined by Maurette and cinematographer Hussain who talk about the steps they took to create the magic-infused ambiance of the piece including "toad-vision" and the genuine odd history of the shooting location. After a phoned-in anecdote from Kier about meeting Kasten and playing the "host" of the film (to which he returns during his later interstitials), Giovinazzo takes over to cover the Berlin shoot (the city in which he lives), his experience working in German TV, removing certain lines of dialogue, the similarities to "Sweets," and the stories behind the three actors from the film, whose language abilities dictated the direction of the characters in the film. (Gregory is also on hand to provide some fleeting questions.) Savini, associate producer Robert Lucas, and producer Mike Ruggiero appear for the third story, covering everything from cooking food on the set to teasing the audience as well as the obvious rationale that Savini, the reigning godfather of modern gore, would be the perfect choice for an anthology based around Grand Guignol theatrics. Hussain, Horn, and the aforementioned Buck chime in on "Vision Stains" to talk about the hiring of all the performers, the astonishing makeup effects (the heads used for the eyeball piercings were three times more than normal size), and creating the correct on-set environment in Canada. Then Gregory reappears for his full-length coverage of "Sweets," which starts off talking about capturing the proper food colors and launches into writing the role for Goranson, shooting in L.A., and pointing out a familiar face from the now-legendary Birdemic as well as a quick but key role for Damon Packard, director of the briefly notorious underground "epic" Reflections of Evil. There's also a funny phone call halfway through, but you'll have to discover that one for yourself. Other extras include the theatrical trailer, three bite-sized Shock Till You Drop "Choice Cuts" episodes with Ryan Turek featuring interviews with Gregory (15m5s), Giovinazzo (10m27s), and Kasten (12m53s), and brief, mostly raw segments of behind-the-scenes footage from "The Accident," "Mother of Toads," the wraparound, "Sweets," and "Vision Stains," with an understandable focus on creating some of the grislier scenes and a "fisting" FX gag that will make most viewers do a double take.

In 2020, Severin Films released an expanded edition of the feature on Blu-ray. The transfer looks as great as it always has given the recent vintage, with loads of sizzling color and a sleek, detailed appearance. Audio options are DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 English and 2.0 French, all of which sound excellent, with optional English SDH subtitles. The original 2012 commentary is carried over, but you also get a new 2020 filmmakers' audio commentary kicked off by Kasten and featuring a number of contributors popping in and out for an updated account of how the film was put together (often with minimal resources) to put together everything from the music to the makeup effects. Don't miss the Richard Stanley bit in particular -- he's in fine, colorful form here as always. The new "Backstage: The Making of The Theatre Bizarre" documentary (103m20s) featuring all of the directors, producers Daryl J. Tucker, Fabrice Lambot, and Michael Ruggiero, Kier, MacColl, Lowry, Victoria Maurette, Kaniehtilo Horn, and more, mostly culled from 2011 interviews with a few recent ones interspersed where needed. The tidal wave of production coverage here is both entertaining and impressive, with some surprising little detours along the way like an affecting chat with former adult actress Lisa Belle (who appears in "The Mother of Toads") about being forced by violence into the adult film industry. There's even an appearance by "unit sorcerer" Uranie, who played a pivotal role the following year in The Otherworld. The bits with Hussain and Buck are wonderful as well, expressing a respect and trust in each other that allows them to pass in and out of each other's projects with ease. A French TV on-set report (7m46s) shows Stanley at work on his home turf, followed by two arty making-of segments devoted to "Vision Stains" (9m3s) and "The Accident" (9m7s) and the three "Shock Till You Drop" segments. "Boswell Scores" (10m23s) catches up with composer Simon Boswell, a regular Stanley composer, who talks about their ongoing partnership and his involvement with two of the segments for this film. One curious new addition is an extended cut of "The Mother of Toads" (20m34s) which, as an opening note explains, was created to "fulfill production and credit requirements of the local governing bodies" and was never completed in anything above lo-res quality. It isn't radically different but nice to have for the sake of completeness. Finally the disc closes out with two trailers. and a soundtrack CD is also included featuring 50m37s of the original score.

Updated review on November 26, 2020