SPOILERS - THE ENDING!!!

There was something truly bizarre in establishin Devlin as the hero like that.

Early on he said he criticized Lionheart to try to get him away from Shakespeare.

But even his final line has a remarkable kick to it. And then the way he looks at Milo O'Shea and turns and leaves. It kind of drives it all home, like there will always be critics, is what i got from it. like nothing was learned.

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I believe he was the only critic who expressed valid reasons for not giving Lionheart the award, and he had enough respect for his profession as critic that he was willing to stick to his principles even in desperate circumstances.

Well I mentioned in my review of THEATRE OF BLOOD the differences between it and the Phibes movies.

The supremely dark tone of THEATRE OF BLOOD established in the opening killing led me to believe that the movie would end on a real downer, very much in contrast to the "protagonists rescued by the police" ending in the first Phibes movie. In the Phibes movies, the protagonists survived and the same is true of Devlin in THEATRE OF BLOOD. But personally I agree with you that Devlin should have died. He learnt nothing from his ordeal (almost having his eyes burnt out and knowing his colleagues were brutally murdered) and the indifference he shown as he summed up Lionheart's "performance" as the theatre burned up was unbelievable. A great alternate final scene in my view would have been to see Inspector Boot looking over the dead body of Devlin, having arrived too late to save him but also coming to the realisation that he deserved to die with the others.