Rock n' Roll Nightmare (

1987

) ½

When it comes to music, my tastes are decidedly less developed than they are for film and video games. Indeed, where are my understanding of and ability to articulate my tastes in those mediums have become ever more sophisticated as the years roll on, my critical vocabulary for music has remained firmly rooted in the same spot it's been since middle school. Somethings rock and others don't and I'll be damned if I can tell you why. The soundtrack for Rock n' Roll Nightmare, despite its fantastic title, simply doesn't rock (the one exception being the track that plays during the film's unforgettable climax). Which is a damn shame, because if ever there was a horror movie that could have been improved with a face-melting metal soundtrack, it's this one right here. I guess Manowar had better things to do circa 1987 than record a soundtrack for a shitty Canadian horror movie. Besides, since the primary driving force behind the soundtrack is the producer, writer, and star (the improbably named Jon Mikl Thor) I think it's safe to say that he wasn't about to farm out soundtrack duties to another heavy metal artist, no matter how much more qualified they might be.

The film doesn't waste much time. It opens with a farmhouse in rural Canada that is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere but is unfortunately right off a main road that is so busy you almost always see cars moving in the background when there's a wide shot of the house. The not-so-remote house is home to a small nameless family of three who get butchered in the pre-credits sequence by the creepy demons that live in their kitchen appliances. As it turns out this house is sat right on top of a rift to hell, and all manner of demons and monsters pop up there to prey on any mortals stupid enough the stumble in. This makes the farmhouse less than ideal for a residence but the perfect place to record a heavy metal album! A fact that was not lost on the realtor as they outfitted the place with a recording studio in the barn. Over the years they've played host to several famed headbangers, and their latest client is none other than Jon Triton and his band the Tritonz (the name of Jon Mikl Thor's real-life band).

The band is composed of the usual assortment of expendable meat that you would expect to see in a 1980s slasher film. In addition to lead singer Triton, there is Roger, Phil, Dee Dee, and an annoying Australian guy called Stig. There's also the band's nerdy manager Max who is among the first to get killed off by the unhallowed monsters living inside the house. Since this trip would be a bit of a sausage party if it was just the band proper, the guys have also brought along a few significant others. That god, because if this film stripped out all the cheesecake and sex scenes it wouldn't be able to fill a Saturday morning cartoon time slot, let alone get up to feature-length. None of these characters are memorable in any significant way, save for those that are memorable simply for how fucking annoying they are, like Stig. They exist solely to get murdered by monsters, and they fulfill their one purpose with remarkable gusto.

Fortunately, we have a nice variety of cool-looking monsters to do the killing. The monsters here range in threat levels from vicious beasts that can kill in an instant to adorable little ghoulies that can do nothing more offensive than spit in your drink. It's not like the spit is acidic or poisonous or anything, as the guy who drinks the tainted drink, is fine until an unrelated demon strikes him down a scene later. Indeed, the monster doing the spitting is so damn cute that it wouldn't look out of place in Fraggle Rock. The makeup that transforms cast members into demonic creatures is pretty damn cool looking, especially the nasty claws they sport. Far less impressive is the human-sized puppets, which all have a stiffness to them that makes them seem clumsy and obviously fake. None more so than the Beelzebub, the leader of the demons that appears during the film's climax, but we'll get to that in a minute.

For the most part, we're dealing with standard slasher movie stuff here. We have a bunch of dumb, horny bimbos and himbos who are always either wandering off alone, ignoring the fact that their friends are disappearing one-by-one, and finding excuses to undress and/or screw. The band and the groupies are picked off, one by one, until only the band's lead singer, Jon Triton himself, is left alive. He seems to be either completely ignorant of the fact that everyone is dead, or if he is aware utterly indifferent to the development.

At this point, if you wanted to write off Rock n' Roll Nightmare as a pointless horror film with little more to offer than a few goofy puppets, some decent gore, and a couple of naked ladies you would be fully within your right to do so. The first seventy minutes of this film is the very definition of nothing special, and I'd only really recommend any of it if you had never seen a 1980s horror movie before and had no other available. Hell, if I had not been told in advance that the film's absurd ending redeems the mediocre horror movie that precedes it, I'd probably have shut it off and done something more productive with my time. However, in the last fifteen minutes, once the last of John Triton's band-mates and groupies have been slaughtered, the film goes off the rails in a spectacular fashion. Beelzebub, the daemon that has been killing everyone, appears and comes to claim Triton's soul. However, the beast doesn't realize that he's walking into a trap. Triton is no mere mortal, but instead, he is an archangel called The Intercessor. None of the band or their groupies were real by the way, they were just shadows conjured up by Triton, stock characters he'd lifted from a later entry in the Friday the 13th series. The expendable meat was just there to draw out Beelzebub and provide cover for The Intercessor while he bided his time. Amusingly, as Triton explains all this the Father of Lies, he continually refers to him contemptuously as “bub” probably the most insulting name I've seen applied to Beelzebub.

Then, to the tune of an upbeat metal tract (incidentally the best song in the whole film), our headbanger turned Seraph does battle with a clumsy rubber puppet meant to represent Satan. Well, that is certainly a unique way to depict the ultimate battle of good and evil! In all seriousness though (or at least as serious as one can be about Rock n' Roll Nightmare) this scene is fucking awesome. At a stroke, Rock n' Roll Nightmare ceases to be a boring B-movie and instead becomes something truly special. This sequence, while absurd and delightful cannot compensate for the dull seventy minutes that precede it, but I'll be damned if it doesn't come close. If Rock n' Roll Nightmare had a stronger script, one that leaned into the cliched conventions of the slasher genre and subtly parodied them (though not too much that it gives the game away) then it could have been something amazing. As it stands it's a missed opportunity for greatness, but still a damn enjoyable bit of entertainment all the same.

Jon Mikl Thor, in addition to having a bizarre name, also has a bizarre screen presence. With long flowing locks of blond hair, and wearing a copious amount of makeup, his face resembles that of a rather ugly woman or a transsexual doing a modest job of passing. But his body is no lithe form of a Mick Jagger or Prince, but rather a herculean build that would make him better suited to starring in barbarian films. Indeed, in addition to rock star and actor, Thor's resume also includes competitive bodybuilder. His final form, when he transforms into The Intercessor only highlights this because his makeup is touched up and he's stripped down to a speedo. The close approximation of extremely masculine with extremely feminine is more unsettling than any of the goofy demons, skillfully executed gore, or adorable puppets that the film tries to pass off as genuine threats. He looks like the sort of monstrous figure you would see in transphobic propaganda, indeed he's a fair bit more disturbing than that because he seems completely serious.