Trick or treat

Trick or treat, 1986

Starring:Marc Price, Lisa Orgolini, Doug Savant, Tony Fields

Musician appearances:Gene Simmons as a dj, Ozzy as a tv preacher

The Plot:A teenage metal fan named Eddie Weinbauer (Price) is picked on by jocks at his school. He gets upset after his idol metal star Sammi Curr dies, but Eddie brings back Curr by playing his records backwards. Curr initially helps Eddie get revenge on the jocks, but then he gets out of control.

The good-Marc Price does a good job as playing the misfit while still seeming grounded enough to be a real kid. Gene Simmons is believable as dj "Nuke" in his small role. Eddie's room is great in the opening shots with all of the great classic mid-80's metal posters, but it's very sad when he rips them down. The soundtrack by Fastway is great and put to good use in the movie unlike some soundtracks that get lost in the action. I think the film is overall very respectful to metal fans. Wayne's World and Airheads show metal fans as a bit dim while Rock Star had it's main character totally getting out of metal. Eddie gets obsessive with metal, but he comes back to earth yet never gets out of metal. It would have been very easy for this film to end with a scene of Eddie swearing off metal, but it didn't. We are left to believe he still loves it although his priorities may change some. I think anyone who was a metal fan can relate to Eddie. I also like that quite a bit of it was filmed in North Carolina as so many rock films feel the need to be in California. Even films like Wayne's World and Rock Star are supposed to be set in other places, but the stars weren't there because they just had crews filming a few location shots while the stars were filmed out in LA. So many metal fans grew up in nowhere away from big cities and that's another thing that makes it easy to identify with Eddie.

The bad- I only have a few things and they would be more under the heading of weak instead of bad. Some of the special effects are weak, but it's low budget and 20 years ago. The ending is also a bit far fetched.

The ugly- I guess the demon in the scene in the backseat of the car is the worst thing that this film did. It's a low budget film and most of the effects were acceptable for that level, but this part was really lame and the camera stays on it too long so we see how cheap it really is.

Final word: This is a horror film first and foremost and I love horror films. I have probably seen this movie 25 times at least and still enjoy it. It's an enjoyable film that combines love of metal, horror, idividuality, the downfalls of idol worship and there are even a few funny parts mixed in as well (mostly delivered by Eddie's friend Roger). It cost me $5.50 at Wal-mart. Some people whine that the dvd has Ozzy and Gene Simmons on the cover and lists them as the stars yet they both only have small parts. However if you read the case or just pop over to IMDB then you would know Ozzy and Gene are not the stars. Marc Price was probably best known for playing Skippy on Family Ties. Actor Charles Martin Smith made his directorial debut here and he has a cameo as the school principal. He is probably best known as Terry the toad from American Graffiti and he was no stranger to music related films because he played a member of Buddy Holly's band in the excellent Buddy Holly story.

Grade:B

Movie week is almost over, but I hope to have one more item about Spinal Tap on Saturday.