The majority of this movie was filmed on location in Kingston, Jamaica in the Ward Theatre, 10, North Parade, Kingston. The theatre was opened December 16, 1912 with a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". It is in a poor state of repair after being badly damaged by Hurricane Dean in 2007 and from 2012 funding has been sought for renovation.I watched this film recently on the Horror Channel in the United Kingdom and found it entertaining, holding my interest until the end. The acting was average for this type of film. As an aficionado of cinema and theatre building, it was its authentic setting which made it most enjoyable for me, and it was great to see the building in such good shape. Let's hope it will be restored in the near future.

A group of film students organise an all-night horror marathon at an old movie theatre to raise funds. Trouble is, there is a maniac in the house who starts a killing spree this night.Popcorn came in at the tail-end of the first slasher wave. The genre had been treading water for years, meaning that new entries at this time had to try and find new original angles to base their slasher antics around in order to keep people interested. Popcorn takes a more comical approach, without going out-and-out for laughs entirely at the expense of its horror. It does admittedly have some fairly original ideas, namely the way the films-within-the film are integrated into the story. Those movies are a series of 50's/60's B-flicks with ludicrous gimmicks of the exact same type that William Castle was famous for producing. 'Mosquito' has a giant model insect that flies over the auditorium, 'The Amazing Electrified Man' has audience members receiving shocks from electrified seats and 'The Stench' has a selection of odours. Except, of course, these gimmicks are in fact used by the maniac to kill people in the theatre! In theory, this all sounds quite good but unfortunately I found Popcorn as a whole somewhat lacking and uninvolving. Despite its reasonable set-up it essentially goes through the motions and you are left not remembering an awful lot about it by the end. Although it was admittedly somewhat unexpected to see regular Woody Allen actor Tony Roberts appear in a role as a popular teacher. It's quite a contrast going from starring in the all-time classic Annie Hall to being impaled by a giant puppet mosquito in Popcorn!

1991: The slasher boom of the early eighties has already dried out and the only things that were left from that era are tired unoriginal sequels of franchises and low-budget horror b-movies that have rip-off the formula of famous slasher franchises... Popcorn popped out during 1991 and was yet another slasher b-movie...NO!!!Popcorn may be a cheesy slasher film without budget but is very original and is the movie that ends the era of slasher films.A comedy/parody/horror slasher hybrid,unique in its own way,Popcorn satirizes the horror industry itself and the horror audience of the time that want more senseless blood and gore. The plot centers upon Maggie who is being stalked in her dreams. She's part of a film school crew that stage a horror movie festival. The killer stalks her in the movies(Not very original).Instead of the gore or the antagonist,Popcorn's selling point was its satire, pop culture references and genre deconstruction and the makers of Scream were all aware of that,using these elements as the principal idea of their big budget film.Also if you remember Ghostface has an electronically altered voice used for the signature prank calls of Scream.The same method that was FIRST used by Popcorn killer doesn't feature as heavily as it does in Scream but it is significant.May Scream be a rip-off of Popcorn?The bad thing of this movie is the plot.When it starts as something unoriginal and predictable,in the middle it changes to a brilliant suspenseful film and at some point towards the end it is suddenly fallen apart.What a waste...Yeah it is a forgotten movie and it will continue to be but it may deserve better luck.May the false advertising as a standard slasher film or the changes and the replacement of director and female lead be the cause of the failure of this good movie???I don t know and no one does but it sure deserves credits for the creation of a franchise that would change the luck of the slasher films in the following years called Scream...

When a group of film students need to raise some cash, they organise a horror movie festival at a run-down theatre, offering fright-fans a selection of old monster movies—complete with their original promotional gimmicks! As a packed house enjoys a triple bill of hokey trash (fictional B-movies 'Mosquito', 'The Amazing Electrified Man' and 'The Stench'), a disfigured killer proceeds to use the movies' gimmicks to bump off the students, whilst wearing a variety of latex masks to deceive his victims.Popcorn is exactly like its title suggests: a light-hearted, teen-centric, and not-to-be-taken-too-seriously popcorn movie. Although this means it is fairly light on the gore (and features absolutely no nudity), with its pretty nifty horror-film-themed script (that any fan of the genre should get a kick out of), some fine make-up effects, and a genuine sense of fun, this early 90s offering proves to be great escapism for its duration (plus, I'm a sucker for a gorgeous brunette in peril, so the film automatically scores points with me for starring the lovely Jill Schoelen as its helpless female in distress).The screenplay, by talented genre scribe Alan Ormsby definitely shows that the man knows his stuff when it comes to schlock horror, with the three films-within-the-film taking plenty of good natured swipes at the clichés and conventions of the genre. The cast all give spirited performances, with Dee Wallace-Stone racking up another solid horror film credit, Tom Villard giving a particularly memorable performance as goofy film fan Toby, and the always impressive Ray Walston appearing in a short but welcome cameo.Occasionally the film gets a little too daft for its own good (the running gag where the hero continually gets hurt soon becomes tiresome), and the ending seems to rattle on forever, but there's easily enough fun stuff in this one to make it worth checking out.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.