Popcorn (1991)

Marketed with the tagline-"Buy a bag...Go home in a box", Popcorn is a quirky little movie, with a very interesting premise. Jill Schoelen stars as the young film student Maggie who has disturbing nightmares about a strange man who uses a long curvy knife in an attempt to stab a girl, and a then a woman who is lying on an altar. The man's severed head is also seen on a dinner-table plate, and in the background there is some explosion or storm through which the girl is running before the man catches her hand.
The entire movie was shot in Kingston, Jamaica and the disused Dreamland theater used by the film students for screening their all-night "horrorathon" is Ward Theater, in my opinion a perfect setting for the crazed maniac to be lurking in wait for his victims, with its numerous rooms, corridors and dark passages. The audiences' preference for reggae music is also attributable to the prevalent Jamaican culture.

The group of film students decide to hold this movie festival consisting of sci-fi B-movies from the 50's- The Stench, Mosquito and The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man, along with the gimmicks with which these movies were originally released( the clips of these B-movies were made exclusively for Popcorn, and are not part of any actual film). For instance, for Electrified Man, there are electrical "buzzers' fixed to the seats, which are set off in sequence whenever the on-screen character is subjected to electric shocks, and there is a giant prop mosquito which is remote-controlled to fly near the theater ceiling during the screening of Mosquito.
A movie memorabilia shop owner assists the group in their efforts. As they search through the trunks brought in from the shop, the group stumbles across a roll of film titled "The Possessor". When the movie is run through a projector, Maggie becomes deeply affected on seeing close-ups of the lip, forehead and the eyes of the same man whom she has seen in her nightmares. Davis, one of the festival organisers, informs them that "The Possessor" was the only movie made by deranged filmmaker Lanyard Gates, who sacrificed his family during the premiere of his movie, but was also burnt to death in the theater on account of an accidental fire.
At home, Maggie tells her mother (Dee Wallace) about their discovery of "The Possessor". Her mother looks scared and pleads with Maggie to cancel her festival participation plans, and instead to accompany her on a holiday, to which Maggie refuses. Then the mother receives a threatening call and pays a nocturnal visit to Dreamland Theater, from where she disappears.
Later, at the opening of the night festival, Maggie notices a man resembling her tormentor at the ticket counter, but following him, she loses sight of him. She then meets her on-off boyfriend Mark and tells him that Lanyard Gates may be alive, and may have made his way to the theater . The two then wander off in search of Gates.
The death scenes are not gory, however they have been innovatively managed. For instance, the first victim, Davis, is shown to coordinate  the prop mosquito's movements, but he loses control and the killer instead sets it to fly directly to the victim, thus he is killed upon being impaled by its plastic stinger. Then, using a variety of ingenuous devices, the killer creates a skin mask of Davis which he dons in order to escape notice. The second victim, Tanya goes over to 'Davis' in order to steal a kiss from him in the dark, but in the film's most disorienting scene, as she starts kissing him, finds his skin peeling off to reveal a grotesque face.

The killer is revealed to be Toby, who is a film director, a part of the group organising the festival. He takes Maggie hostage and tells her that long ago, he and his mother had been sitting in the front row during Lanyard Gate's screening of possessor. Gates murdered his wife on-stage but before he could harm his daughter Sara, her aunt Susan ( none other than Dee Wallace) shot him dead. In the process, the theater was engulfed by a fire from which Sara escaped but Toby's mother was scarred to death. As for Toby, he survived with horrific injuries and had to go through extensive facial grafts. He also tells her that she is Sara, Lanyard's daughter, and blames both her and Susan for his misery. He discloses his idea to kill them in the same manner as Lanyard had done years ago, as a 'live show' before the audience, while "The Possessor" is being shown in the background.
In the meantime, Mark visits Toby's apartment and through newspaper clippings and pictorial representations, understands Toby's hatred for Maggie, and apprehending danger to her life, rushes back to help her.
Toby then takes control of the screening booth and inserts the roll of Possessor. He plasters Susan and takes her and Maggie to the stage, in final preparation for their sacrifice, which he has planned to mirror the horrific drama which had unfolded during the original screening of Possessor. The waiting audience cheer him on, thinking his antics to be another maverick surprise at the horror-festival.
In the moment of crisis, Mark arrives and uses his belt and a rope to swing towards the stage. He falls down among the props clumsily, but as an effective consequence, the prop mosquito gets electrified by flying sparks, and moves towards Toby, impaling him.
If you are looking for a genuinely enjoyable horror-comedy with lots of schlock and cheese, then look no further than Popcorn. A  minus factor permeating the structure of the movie is the inherent lack of coherence and logic, but otherwise you won't be disappointed !
Popcorn was released on DVD in 2001 by Elite Entertainment. It was discontinued in 2010. Synapse Films is releasing a dual Blu Ray-DVD limited steel box edition in March 2017, and the extras include the usual radio spots and theatrical trailer covered in the Elite DVD plus a making of featurette and interviews and audio commentaries with the actors, screenwriter and the make up artist.