Italian horror auteur Dario Argento produced and co-wrote (with director
Lamberto Bava) this gory, nightmarish horror film set almost entirely
within the "Metropol," a huge, cathedral-like Berlin cinema showing an
invitation-only screening of a rather lame slasher film. The difference,
of course, is that the cheap scares on the Metropol's screen are
child's play compared to the horrors which soon emerge to lay hold of
the unsuspecting filmgoers: when a young woman is scratched by part of a
display in the theatre lobby, she begins to mutate into a fanged,
slavering creature who then attacks other audience members, spreading
the demonic infection until only a handful of survivors are forced to
combat rampaging armies of inhuman beasts, making the latter portion of
the film resemble Night of the Living Dead. A handful of sequels
followed; there's a little "reward" for those who stick around for the
end credits.