The Theatre of Death in Paris specializes in horror presentations. A police surgeon finds himself becoming involved in the place through his attraction to one of the performers. When bloodless bodies start showing up all over town, he realizes there could be links with the theatre.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Horror, murder, mystery and mayhem make up the principal ingredientsof the Theatre de Morte. New director Phillipe Darvas [Christopher Lee], son of the olddirector, vows to dedicate his life to the theatre, as did his father. Atthe opening night cast party, patroness Mme Angelique [Evelyn Laye] requests that Darvasgive a preview of coming attractions, so Darvas asks Dani Gireaux [Lelia Goldoni] andnewcomer Nicole Chapelle [Jenny Till] to perform a scene from 'The Witches of Salem'.
Darvas first hypnotizes the scared Nicole who then performs sorealistically that Dani's boyfriend, Dr. Charles Marquis [Julian Glover], interrupts thescene when it looks like Nicole intends to burn Dani's face with the hotpoker she is brandishing. Charles, a police surgeon recuperating from ahand injury, is meanwhile investigating the deaths of 3 women, all stabbedin the neck with a sharp item, all drained of blood, a situation known topolice as 'hemaphagia', to the public as vampire. Since the instrumentused seems to resemble knives used in one of the performances at theTheatre of Death, Charles suspects that Darvas may be involved.
Meanwhile, Darvas takes a liking to Nicole and, thinking he can makean actress of her, he begins to probe her life, her motivations, her innersecrets. When Darvas asks Nicole to move into his theatre apartment withhim, Dani becomes upset. Her concern is that Nicole is too young andvulnerable to get mixed up with Darvas, but Darvas sees it as jealousy andfires Dani on grounds that she is mentally unstable, as she recently spenttwo years in a mental hospital. When Charles gives Darvas a ride home andprobes him about the hemaphagiac murders, Darvas becomes agitated. IsDarvas the vampire?
The next day, Darvas's cape is found covered with blood, but no bodyis found. The murders stop but Nicole acts as though Darvas is still withher. Is Darvas really dead? Is Nicole hiding Darvas somewhere? Charles andDani decide to 'babysit' Nicole. They move into the theatre apartment withher and follow her everywhere, but she leads them nowhere. Suddenly, themurders start up again--a prostitute on the dock, a young woman cominghome from a date. Then Darvas's decomposed body is discovered floating ina pond. Whatever Darvas might have been, he isn't the hemaphagiac murderer.
One evening, Dani, Charles and Nicole have dinner in a Romanianrestaurant. Nicole plays her guitar for the patrons, and the restaurantowners wife recognizes the tune as Romanian. The names Constantine andAnna engraved into Nicole's guitar remind them of a gypsy family with whomthey escaped Romania in 1946 by crossing the Italian Alps in February. Thesmall caravan became entrapped by an avalanche in a little-traveled pass.One of the men killed the horses, and they ate the meat. But Anna's babycould not eat meat, so she killed one of the other children and fed hisblood to her child. That child's name was Nicole. Could Nicole Chapelleand the gypsy baby Nicole be one and the same?
Then Dani discovers a script written by Darvas just before his death.Entitled 'The Caravan', it tells the tale of a gypsy caravan caught in anavalanche and of a mother killing one child to feed his blood to her baby.Dani now knows for sure that the baby is Nicole Chapelle. Yes, Nicolekilled those women to satisfy her need for blood. Yes, Nicole killedDarvas because he was about to unveil her story. Now Nicole must kill Danito safeguard her secret.
Nicole hypnotizes Dani to confess to all the murders, then she forcesDani to stab herself. But Charles interrupts them in the nick of time.Nicole escapes, runs to the theatre where she hides under the stage and isaccidentally speared during the final scene of the show. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]
