The film was shot at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco and also stars Thomas Dekker, Cassandra Peterson, Noah Segan, and Jack Donner.

In 1984, young Deborah Tennis is electrocuted by a microphone during a stage performance at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco, which her family owns and operates, but she miraculously survives.

Sixteen years later, the introverted Deborah works as a librarian, and operates her family's now-decrepit theater, which primarily holds revival screenings of exploitation and horror films.

When Tammy confronts her one night about selling the theater, Deborah flies into an unexpected rage and brutally stabs her to death in the lobby, just as a screening is about to begin.

Meanwhile, in order to generate new material, Deborah and Mr. Twigs pose as family members of Veda and Vera, two sociopathic twin sisters who are about to be released from a child psychiatric hospital for murdering their parents years prior, and manage to take the girls under their wing.

Evelyn's torture footage, dubbed The Maiming of the Shrew, is shown at a subsequent screening, attended by Steven, who is accompanied by his popular classmate, Claire Cavanaugh.

Steven's friend, Judy, visits the theater to interview Deborah for their school newspaper, but attempts to leave after finding Claire's bloody cell phone.

Veda and Vera serve the patrons cups of punch laced with cyanide, planning to hold a toast during the screening in which the entire audience will ingest the poison and die, an event to be filmed by Mr. Twigs.

Steven botches the mass-poisoning by warning the others, before Deborah proceeds to screen her film, Gore and Peace, in which she attempts to murder Judy in real-time footage backstage.

Adrian is killed when Evelyn's corpse falls on him from the attic, and one of Steven's classmates, Lolita, stabs Mr. Twigs to death while Veda and Vera attempt to start a fire to incinerate everyone inside, though the guests manage to escape unharmed.

[9] The film had its European premiere at Cornerhouse in Manchester as part of the AND (Abandon Normal Devices) festival on October 2, 2010, coinciding with the debut of Midnight Mass performed outside of the US.

[2] Dennis Harvey of Variety described the film as a "campy gore-horror opus" in the tradition of Blood Feast (1963) and Serial Mom (1994), concluding: "Over-the-top perfs and colorful low-budget production polish hit the right notes of knowing cheese, but the good-naturedly derivative script could have used some real wit.