Trick or Treat (1986)
Published · Updated

Not to be confused with the far better film “Trick R Treat,” this heavy metal horror film may not be the best VHS tape on the shelf, but it sings with 80s charm – a throwback to a time when horror didn’t take itself so seriously. And in addition to a decent soundtrack, there are also a couple cool cameos of a young Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osborne.
Trick or Treat (1986)
Episode 88, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Today’s film was another request by a loyal listener, Nick. Nick, thank you for 1986’s Trick or Treat, the most ineptly titled movie. Well, maybe not the most ineptly titled
Craig: movie, but it’s pretty darn close.
Todd: This movie has so little to do with Halloween. In fact, Halloween’s, like, in there, but it’s almost shoehorned in. Yeah. It has nothing to do with Halloween, this movie, or drinking or treating, really, any any variation thereof. What this movie is is a heavy metal horror film, which is actually a fascinating, subgenre to me even though I haven’t seen too many of them. They always hold such promise because heavy metal and horror, they just they go so well together, and I love both of them so much. And then also, in order to see a heavy metal horror movie, you basically have to jump back to the eighties, which is, again, another era that I absolutely love. So the idea of diving into this 1986 heavy metal horror film was pretty exciting for me. I have to say it started out pretty good too, but, was a little boring. Maybe I was just a little let down by the end. I don’t know. How how did you feel about it, Craig?
Craig: Oh, yeah. That’s funny. I I really felt the same way. Like, it it was it was pretty Todd, and it it had some promise and then I felt like it kinda just fell apart in the 3rd act. Like, the 3rd act was really just kind of goofy and stupid. I don’t know. Overall yeah. I mean, here we are jumping to our overall conclusions right here at the beginning, but, you know, it’s it’s it wasn’t bad. I I I I remember seeing this movie when I was a kid. You did? Yeah. I saw it. I remember seeing it on the the video shelves, and maybe part of the reason I liked it was because the the main kid and this this guy, Mark Price, who plays Eddie in the movie, was on Family Ties. Oh, yeah. Skippy. He was yeah. He was he was Skippy from Family Ties, and and and I loved that. Oh, gosh. I loved that show. You know, that was one of the shows that my family watched. Like, we would sit down and watch that show together, and and I remember that guy. And and in that moo or in that show, excuse me, he was, you know, kind of this nerdy, nice guy. And that that carries over a little bit into this movie, but I think that may have been why I was initially interested in it. And and, you know, I I knew going in that I had seen it before, but I didn’t remember anything about it. I think that another 15 years from now, I’ll feel the same way. You know, I I saw it. I don’t remember anything about it, but, you know, that’s fine. I don’t know. You know, it’s it’s an interesting movie. You know, we’ve done Trick or Treat as opposed to this one, Trick or Treat. Trick or treat, the anthology film.
Todd: I was gonna say, heaven’s sakes, people don’t confuse the 2.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Trick or Treat is, one of my favorite Halloween anthology movies, and and this one doesn’t live up to that standard, in my opinion. But I didn’t think it was bad. It was a good effort, and it was an interest it’s an interesting concept. Just you’re right. I think in in the 3rd act, it kind of falls apart.
Todd: Yeah. And it starts off with great promise. And, actually, I was really into it for the first, I don’t know, probably half an hour, if not more. Again, you got some heavy metal music playing in the background. It’s got this very eighties feel. The camera’s sweeping through a kid’s bedroom, which could be any kid’s bedroom, at this time. And, he’s clearly into heavy metal, and he’s got like anthrax posters and Iron Maiden albums. And, you know, it’s we’re in the record era
Craig: right here. Right?
Todd: Yeah. It it it’s cool. And and I mean, I I actually kinda related to that a little bit. And and it pans down to this guy who’s, there’s a little bit of voice over as he is writing, and you realize that he is penning a little bit of a fan letter to one of his idols. And his idol is this big, heavy metal singer named Sammy Kerr.
Clip: It’s me again. Ragman. Well, the song remains the same. Total conflict. Them against us. I can’t believe they cancelled your halloween concert. It’s like you say, rock’s chosen warriors will rule the apocalypse. Airheads and brain deads are everywhere. Who needs them?
Todd: And actually, this confused me because the copy that Craig and I saw, or at least the copy that I saw, the title of the movie was listed as Ragman. Was it on your version?
Craig: I don’t know if it was listed as Ragman, but it Ragman popped up like a like a title. Yeah. Like a title card. I noticed that too. So yeah. Yeah.
Todd: The movie must have originally been called Ragman. I actually didn’t see evidence of that anywhere else, but Ragman came up as the title card. So I really feel like trick or treat was tacked on at the end to try to sell it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because like we said
Craig: Oh, yeah. Very little
Todd: to do with Halloween. It’s not a Halloween movie. But, you know, this kid is so totally relatable from the very beginning because he’s a bit of an outcast, as you can tell. Maybe one of those kids, especially at this time period, who was teased a lot at school. Well, we get a whole litany of of these instances where he’s teased. It it’s almost like a montage of every eighties joke you can pull on somebody, snapping his towel in the locker room, you know, getting the books knocked out of his hand and things like that. But he’s writing to this musician, and and he’s actually he’s kind of in this mindset where he’s writing to him and he’s saying Todd understands me like you do. Like, not in a creepy way, but just in a way that people this age tend to identify and idolize famous figures.
Craig: Yep.
Todd: Sure. And so I don’t know. I could just I could just kind of instantly, I really got a beat on this character, and I didn’t think he was so cardboard cut out. I just thought that the fact that it’s focusing on his, interest in the music, and his obsession with music as a teenager was just very realistic. And I really like that about this movie. And the movie, for, you know, for all of its faults, it really does keep that theme going, and I like that. You know? So he’s writing to his musician, and it turns out that this musician actually was an alumnus of this high school that he went to. So even though he didn’t know him, apparently, this guy’s a little older, he’s got kind of a personal a reason for a personal connection with him. And and that was kind of an interesting an interesting thing too.
Craig: Yeah. I I did. I liked that about it, you know, because we I I don’t know. I guess I can’t speak for everybody, but I feel like it’s kind of a universal thing where when you’re young, you know, adolescent, high school, early college, you really identify, you know, with artists who are expressing things that that you wanna express. And for him, it’s like rebelling against the man, rebelling against the main stream, and he really, tags onto that. And and I get that too. It was certainly not heavy metal for me. You know? For me, it was more like Todd Amos, you know, indigo girls kind of stuff. But, I I I I get that, you know, that that feeling of kinship, with artists, especially at that young age. And you talked about he does get bullied. And there is a mon I mean, it’s it’s literally a montage of him getting bullied by these jocks. And it’s funny because Todd, these people would probably be prosecuted. Oh, yeah. Like like like the the world was, and it’s so weird because we lived through it, you know? Yeah. We were there when this stuff was really happening. And and fortunately, you know, I I never suffered it. But, you know, I saw it. You know, this this kid, you know, it’s it’s just kind of typical bullying, you know, like, he’s kind of the heavy metal fan, and he’s getting bullied by these jocks or whatever. But there’s one scene where he’s getting bullied, in the locker room, and he’s in a towel, and and they push him out into the gymnasium where girls are are playing volleyball. And and they push him out in there, and he’s totally nude, and girls are taking pictures of him and stuff. And I’m like, oh my gosh. This is this is so ’80s. Like, see, like, seriously Todd. Like, that would be Yeah. A crime. Like, like, people would get in big trouble for this. But you youngins who listen to our podcast, we live that, folks. You know, like, it was a it was a different world. And and that that type of bullying, you know, was just kinda like, oh, boys will be boys.
Todd: Yeah. We were expected to shake it off and walk back home through the snow. You know?
Craig: Yeah. Exactly. And and not that that’s a good thing or it I I you know, I’m not saying, oh, you you know, we were way tougher back in those days. No. You know, that was scarring and damaging back then Todd. We just didn’t pay as much attention, I guess. But, yeah, it it makes him a a really relatable character, and and so from the beginning, you’re on his side, you know? Even though I didn’t really relate to him with his whole music fascination with this particular genre or whatever, he’s still a relatable character because you feel for him. He’s he’s just this nice, normal kid who’s trying to make his way through high school and adolescence, and he’s got a crush on a girl. You know, there’s Leslie, this girl that he’s got a crush on, and he wants to impress her. And she’s there when he’s humiliated, but later on, she approaches him and she gives him the Polaroid that was taken of him when he was nude. And it’s not like today where it’s the Internet Todd it’s there forever. You know? Like, she’s like, here’s your humiliation. You know? Sorry. Give it
Todd: back to you.
Craig: But yeah. Right. Right. But, yeah, I I like that too.
Todd: And, you know, I wasn’t this kid by any stretch. I I think probably all of us feel like we were bullied at some point unless we were the bullies. You know, almost everybody, whether you really were bullied a lot or whether you were bullied a little, either, like you said, you saw some of this happening around you or it happened to you once or twice. I was definitely, you know, I was I was bullied a little more in middle school than I was in high school considerably. But the thing that I kind of related to was in, I think it was 4th or 5th grade, a kid who was this kid, alright, who was this kid fully in, like, 4th or 5th Craig, turned to me just one day, and he was always pretty nice to me. He turned to me one day, and he hands me this tape, but he slipped it kind of, like, under the desk as he was handing it to me, kind of looking left and right in the middle class, like he was, you know, giving me some, like, drugs or something. And and he hands me this tape, and and he says, here, I really think you’ll like this. And I looked at it, and it was Alice Cooper. Right? And it was, Alice Cooper’s Mhmm. Album, Raise Your Fist and Yell. Of course, he you know, it was a tape, and it wasn’t the legit tape. It was a tape he copied. So it had, you know Sure. Sprawled on it, Alice Cooper. And I took it home and I listened to it, and I listened to it secretly in my bedroom because I was pretty sure I mean, my parents never really came out and expressed an opinion one way or the other, but I just knew because I knew Alice Cooper. We all knew of him at this time.
Craig: Right.
Todd: This would not be something that they would want me listening to. And I just so I I I listened to that thing every night for quite a while after it gave it to me, and I really dug it. And it started a lifelong fanship of mine, actually, for Alice Cooper. And the funny thing is is, like, I have no idea why this kid thought I would like this. Like, I I would have given no indication. I barely knew him, but, I don’t know. He kinda gave me a gift that day, and it just shows what you were saying about how we do. Like music can be really powerful, especially to us at this age, and somehow it can touch us. And it it really can be an escape. It just serves so many different functions. And for this kid, this guy, he looks up to him. This music is all his life. And so when he’s watching television and there’s a news report about this guy on TV. He’s watching it casually while he’s eating cornflakes or something in the morning, and you’re seeing he’s essentially like an Alice Cooper character. This is the bad boy rocker. Yeah. He’s got a snake around his neck, which he did. Then he, like, bites the head off the snake as, like, dumping the blood all over him, which never ever happened in Iraq concert, but people like to think it did, and there were always stories going around
Craig: about it.
Todd: You know, it it really took me back. And, and then at the end, this woman, mentions that
Clip: Locally, he was the center of a raging controversy just last week when the town council denied him permission to appear at Lakeridge High’s Halloween party festival next Saturday. A graduate of Lakeridge High, it was Curtis to return to his alma mater, a move that was extremely popular with the students. The town council, however, blocked the attempt, citing obscenity and violence in Curt’s music. Again, rock star Sammy Kerr, victim of a hotel fire, dead at age 38.
Todd: And this kid just, wow. He’s like completely devastated. I mean, he’s so devastated. He goes to his room Yeah. And he starts tearing it up. And again, man, this is just I mean, it’s so honest.
Craig: You know? I really felt for him. You are absolutely. And I remember that about adolescence and and, you know, your teen years where you’re so connected to these people that you almost feel like they’re a part of your life. As an adult, I remember hearing about Michael Jackson dying
Todd: Me too.
Craig: On the radio. Yeah. And I I remember hearing about, when Prince died and, you know, there are tons of others, you know? Even as an adult, it has an impact on you. You feel like these, you know, they’re part of your lives. You don’t know them. I saw Prince. Like, I’ll just go ahead and brag. I I I did see Prince in concert, but I I never saw, Michael Jackson or or any of these people. And but you lose them and it impacts you. And mourning is not necessarily the right Todd, but this is the person that he felt a personal connection Todd, the one person he felt a personal connection Todd. You know, he’s writing him letters and it seems like he’s been writing him letters for a long time and signing off Ragman. Like, it seems like I’m sure it’s, you know, entirely one-sided, but he felt like this guy was Kindred. Yeah. It it it really messes him up. And when he sees that that TV, news report, and I I’ve gotta say, like, when they’re doing the news report and they have this woman on the news show, who’s like this conservative lady, talking about why he couldn’t be there and why they blocked him and whatnot. And her name was missus Sylvia Cavell. But I saw her and I recognized her, I’m like, Who is that? And I looked her up on IMDB, her name’s Alice Nunn, and she was Large Marge. Really? I couldn’t believe that I didn’t recognize her immediately. Like, how do you miss Large Marge from Pee wee’s Big Adventure? I was
Todd: Oh my gosh.
Craig: It excited me. Sorry. Fanboy a little bit.
Todd: Well, there are other people in this. I mean, there’s Gene Simmons is in this briefly.
Craig: Yeah. He
Todd: plays the radio DJ who and, you know, honestly, like, I knew Gene Simmons was in this. I honestly had to look up which one he played because without his makeup, Gene Simmons is nothing to me. Right? But but he
Craig: was Right. And I I forgot, yeah, and I forgot that at one point, Gene Simmons was a good looking guy. Like, I think of it now as being kind of this bloated, loud mouth. That’s true. He looks
Todd: a lot better in the
Craig: Yeah. In this movie, he plays Nuke, the radio DJ who I guess is a friend of Eddie’s, the the main kid, and and they kind of share this little morning moment together. But Nuke reveals that somehow he’s gotten his hands on this, studio print of Sammy Kerr’s last album that had that what hasn’t been released yet or wasn’t released before his death, and he gives it to Eddie, and and that’s kinda the impetus for what goes on moving forward.
Todd: He said, I’m gonna play this on Halloween night at midnight on the station, but I already made a tape of it, so you can take the record. I know what she means to you. The girl gives him that Polaroid back and invites him
Craig: to work. Right. Yeah. Which I even in the moment, you know, like, it’s not a big deal, but I thought it was kinda funny, like, the the DJ gives him this, record, and he’s like, oh, you know, this is his unreleased album. And and then Eddie goes home and doesn’t listen to it right away. Like, that bothered me so much. Like, oh, I’ll listen to it later. You know? Like, here’s my hero. I have this occasion.
Todd: Said no teenager ever about
Craig: Oh, god. I thought that was so funny. No. Yeah. If if it had been me and I had gotten, you know, like, this puts it away for a little while and goes to a pool party instead.
Todd: And he’s he’s odd man out at this pool party. I guess it’s being held at the high school pool or something after hours or so. I don’t know. Some indoor pool. And, he gets bullied again. Somebody throws a weight on his back and throws him into the pool, and then that same girl, what her name is Leslie Leslie. Rescues him and pulls him out. And he’s just pissed because he feels like Leslie just lured him there to be bullied even though she rescued him.
Clip: What? Let’s all with Eddie because that’s real fun, Puts assholes. I’m sorry. I’m gonna nail every one of those bastards. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I’m gonna nail them.
Todd: This relationship between the 2 of them, it doesn’t really develop all that. It’s not a prominent aspect of the movie. It just kind of they become partners sort of by the end of it as they’re thrown into the moment. And I kinda liked that about this movie too. You know, it was a little different from a lot of the other, eighties movies that we review where it’s like, girl looks at boy across the room, and instantly there’s a connection between them, or, you know, the opposite. Guy likes nerdy guy likes this, hot attractive girl, but she’s with the cool guy, and she’s basically unreachable. And then either she can maintain continues to be unreachable, and it turns out she’s not worth it anyway because the more homely looking girl that ends up looking beautiful once she takes her glasses off, is the one he ends
Craig: up with.
Todd: Or, she does something, you know, like lures the guy into some shady thing and like Teen Wolf, you know, and and it’s basically kind of a jerk to him. So, it was kinda neat in this case that she didn’t really get any of that. She seems to have a genuine interest in him, but it’s not really overblown in any particular direction, which, again, I I don’t know. I just by this point, I was really into this movie, and I was really kinda going with it, and I didn’t feel as cliche as I tend to feel about these kind of movies sometimes.
Craig: Yeah. I I I felt the the same way about the relationship between the guy and the girl. In a different movie and if it hadn’t been played the way that it was played, I I would have felt like it was a little stupid because you didn’t really get any reason for why this popular girl was interested in this, you know, fringe guy. But it’s like the movie doesn’t even really make any kind of big deal about it, so you just go with it. And, like, the way that she interacts with him, it just feels kinda natural. And he is, you know, he’s an average looking guy, but not a bad looking guy, and and you could see why a girl would be interested in him. So while in a different movie, it could have seemed very forced, it didn’t hear, and I I thought that was good.
Todd: Yeah. It was really good. So this is when he goes back and plays his record, which is was it like songs in the key of death or something like that?
Craig: I don’t remember.
Todd: And as he’s playing it, he’s kind of, slipping into, you know, kind of his state and imagining things, and he starts hearing those voices that, you realize pretty quickly are the sounds of, you know, voices being played backwards. As I guess maybe we do need to explain this, because our audience could be kinda young. This was another huge controversy at the time, was that groups would deliberately put backward messages into their records.
Craig: Yeah. Subliminal messaging.
Todd: Yeah. The idea would be that you could understand that you’re you know, even though you couldn’t understand it consciously, that your brain could somehow hear these these backward messages, pick them out, and decode them, and and they would have an effect on your subconscious brain. And, there was at least one group, I think it was Judas Priest, was actually taken to court over the the allegation that a backward message on one of their albums caused somebody to kill somebody or commit suicide or something. And, I mean, that’s all total BS right now, but these messages were put on albums. They did exist, and for us at the time, especially as kids, there was a certain mystique to them. And and so, again, inserting that mystique, this is the first I the first time I’ve really ever seen a horror movie play with this notion too.
Craig: Well, but in in real life, when when we were young, you know, we heard about these things and I don’t know. I had a record player when I was young, but I guess I wasn’t listening to heavy metal, so I did wasn’t into that. But, like, you could spin, you you know, with your your finger, you could spin the record backwards and and hear these backward messages. But even in our day, it wasn’t so, like, completely obvious. Like, it was it was actually subliminal. Like, in this movie, it’s like, you could, obviously, this is a backwards recording. Like, that’s what it sounds like. Yeah. I feel like it sounds like It’s a
Todd: whole section. Yeah.
Craig: You know? Like, you’re right. Like, obviously, you’re supposed to play this backwards, which he does. And that was kinda what was funny to me. Like, you know, he’s having problems with these bullies or whatever, and so he plays the the record backwards. And I couldn’t even tell exactly what it said. Maybe you can help me out, but I feel like it said something like, let the big fish help himself or let the big fish hang himself or something like that.
Clip: Let the big fish himself. You’re the bait. The bait is you.
Craig: He gets from that very short message that he’s supposed to somehow allow these bullies to kind of do themselves in, and that’s what he does. There’s a big montage where he’s in the cafeteria, the main kid, and he flips the main bully’s tray up onto his shirt or whatever. And and the main bully, his name is Tim Haney, and he’s played by Doug Savant, who I would never have recognized at all, but he’s still a working actor. I I knew him. He was one of the main characters on Desperate Housewives, but I would have never recognized him because he’s so young in this. And there’s this whole montage. It’s and it’s hilarious. Like, a hilarious montage where they’re running through the high school. The the bully’s chasing this kid, and, they run through the music room and through the library. And, like, it it’s really funny. But then the bully somehow, the main guy, Eddie, tricks them into thinking that he ran into the teacher’s lounge, and they grab a, fire extinguisher and shoot the fire extinguisher into the teacher’s lounge, think he he’s in there, but really it’s all the teachers in there. And and it’s funny, you know, on IMDB, the movie is categorized as thriller, horror, comedy. And and there are moments like this where it is kinda funny, and there are jokes throughout. If it was really attempting to be a horror comedy, I think it fell a little flat because it really wasn’t all that funny. Like, I could I could see the attempts where it was where it was trying to be funny, and it was. It was amusing, but really not necessarily all that funny. But what I did find funny was that once he starts playing this record backwards, it gives him that initial message first, but then he keeps playing it backwards, and it keeps giving him new messages. Yeah. And not only does it give him new messages, but he’s able to talk to it, like, directly. Like, it it it’s basically, like, he’s working a Ouija board.
Todd: Yeah. Exactly. Really? Exactly. And I thought that was so cool. Like, I’ve never seen that concept before. Really creepy, I thought, actually. You know, because Yeah. I mean, you got this mystical record, which you can control, but what’s it capable of? You know, it’s sending you messages. What’s going on here? Again, very much like a Ouija board. And, again, I could only I can only make out a little bits of what it was saying, which, again, I thought was a good choice. I’m telling you, I’m so into the movie at this point, and it sends him to the machine shop. I think it just tells him to go to the machine shop, basically, at the school. Yeah. And when he goes there, sure enough, like, the bullies are there. They have kind of a battle, kind of a fight, and it looks like Tim has him cornered, and something happens electrically. I don’t know if if Tim slipped or something like that or if it was supposed to be something mysterious and mystical, but he falls down onto one of the machines. His his tie gets caught, in one of the spinning. I guess it’s like a lathe or something and yanks his head down onto this machine. At the same time, another the end of the lathe that starts coming towards him, the part with the spike on it, that kind of spears or holds the item in place, and it’s coming right towards his eye. And and everyone’s just watching this happen, including Eddie. And you’re kind of wondering if Eddie is just gonna let this happen, and we’re about to see the the first kill of the movie. But then Eddie, totally in character, reaches up next to the at the power switch and completely cuts the power off just in time, which is enough to scare these bullies, and they run out. So he’s won his his kind of his first victory over these folks at this point. And you know what I liked about this whole Ouija board album thing? And I guess maybe I’m just reading this this film like literature. But, again, you know, he’s forming a companionship with this album, which is something that in a way we do. You know? An album becomes kind of a friend that we turn to sometimes when we’re feeling a certain way or we wanna get a certain Todd. And kind of a very literal way, this guy is, you know, forming a companionship with this album. Is this too much?
Craig: No. It’s just it’s just taking me back to my oh, Todd. I hope my mom’s not listening, but, like, it it takes me back to my college days when you would put on a particular album when you’re ready for sexy time.
Todd: That’s right. Well, you don’t still do that? I don’t want
Craig: that. Yeah. No. Like Yeah. Let let’s let’s just let’s move on. You brought it up, not me. I did like that and I liked the whole concept of him spinning it back, rolling the record player the wrong way and communicating in that way. It got a little cheesy for me then when he started recording the album on to cassette. And then he could just listen to the cassette, and the cassette could talk to him. Like, I I understand why they did that because they needed it to be portable. You know, like, they they they needed him to be able to communicate with this ghost rocker wherever he might be or or needed, the the ghost rocker to be able to do stuff in other places. But the idea of him, oh, well, I’ll just record it on cassette, and then he can talk to me wherever I go. Like, a little cheesy. Well, it
Todd: loses the whole mystique of the record being played backwards because we never Right. A tape Todd doesn’t work that way.
Craig: He makes a copy of the cassette, and he gives it to the bully. And and it’s like a peace offering. Like, he tapes it to the bully’s locker and is like, oh, here’s a peace offering. Listen to my cassette or whatever, and and the bully just takes the cassette. That really leads to what I think is probably my favorite scene from the movie just because it is so eighties and so cheesy. You see the bully, Tim, whatever his name is, in the car with a girl who we’ve seen before who’s also been mean to our protagonist And, like, they’re making out and getting hot and heavy or whatever, and and then the bully’s like, I gotta pee or whatever. So he gets out and and goes, like, peeing outside the car. But the girl is bored in the car, so she puts on headphones with this little, you know, tape deck, and she starts listening to that tape. And it’s oh my gosh. It’s so funny. Like, this ghostly mist comes out of the earphones. These old earphones that we used to wear in the eighties and and, like, starts, like, molesting. And it’s like this animated green smoke that, like, it’s kind of in the form of hands and, like, you can see the hands, like, like, caressing her boobies. And then she starts she starts to take she takes off she doesn’t start to. She takes off her shirt and, like, boobs. Finally, in the Sadie’s movie, here we get some boobs. And, then, like, you see the ghostly mist, like, lady mist, like, going down into her panties, and she’s, like, taking off her romper. Yeah. But it’s like she’s hypnotized, and she doesn’t even know what’s going on. Oh my god. And it was so funny. Like, she’s totally getting off. Like, she is, like, getting off hardcore. And, she opens her eyes and there’s, like, this giant, weird demon. And it’s so funny because what was hilarious to me was, like, the mist had been, like, messing around in her downstairs area. And then she opens her eyes, and it’s this giant demon, and it has this
Todd: The enormous
Craig: giant tongue. Oh, man. It’s so funny. Yeah. And then, you know, that’s it. You see you see, like, one second of this giant demon, and then she screams. And Tim, the bully, runs back, and the the car is all filled with smoke. And she I thought she was dead, but it turns out she’s not Todd, but like her ears are all melted off where the headphones were and stuff. And, oh, Todd. It just it just talking about it now, it’s so much more fun to talk about it than it was to watch it, because because then because then we get Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osbourne.
Todd: Yeah. Well, the movie keeps putting in these, like, it’s like they have to constantly remind you of the of the danger of heavy metal music and the controversies that were existing at the day. Like, hey, this is what the movie is about. Remember? So So we’re constantly seeing these TV clips at convenient times, and there’s a clip playing on TV, and it’s in somebody’s house or something. I don’t know. And it’s this woman speaking with Ozzy Osbourne, and Ozzy Osbourne is playing a preacher in this.
Clip: Those rockers really have a strange sense of humor, don’t they? I don’t even think it’s a sense of humor. I think they’re just out and out sick people. I mean, and that phone will make everyone else around them who who listened to their music as sick as they are.
Todd: It’s kinda funny to see Ozzy Osbourne, who is much more lucid in this Yeah. In this show. I mean, he was way more lucid back then than he is now. I think there were times in which the promotion for this movie really played up, Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne having roles in it, but, really, they just have these tiny little cameos. You know, if you don’t know who they are,
Craig: you wouldn’t know they were there. It would just fly by, but, he he’s playing this preacher, and he’s talking about the dangers of heavy metal music, and he recites these lyrics.
Clip: I’ll give you an example. I have one of the lyrics that you will Alright. Tell me what you honestly think you’re thinking about. Go right ahead. Gonna drive my long steel missile down on your love channel. Deep, deep, you’ll beg for more. Raising hell and serpent’s score. Feel me. Feel me. Now what does that mean to you? To me, it means nothing but a sexual act.
Craig: You and I and anybody our age knows that there was a time when heavy metal music in particular really was under scrutiny, and and they were saying that it caused people to do terrible things. And, I think it was I I can’t think of his name, but the lead singer of Twisted Sister, do you remember his name?
Todd: Dee Snider.
Craig: Yeah. Dee Snider, like, had to testify, I think, to, like, Congress. Yeah. Yeah. And and and and it was really funny to watch when we were growing up because here’s Dee Snider, Twisted Sister, who was, you know, this crazy rocker, but he got in front of congress, and he was so eloquent in in defending art and and music, and, like, I just remember as a kid thinking that was so cool. You know? Here’s this guy who wears makeup and has, you know, this perm hairstyle, and he’s wearing these hot pants and whatever in his videos. And then he gets in front of Congress, and he’s totally eloquent in defending art. And, like, that just made heavy metal and and and music in general just so much cooler to me. You know? Like, these these aren’t ignorant people. These aren’t stupid people. They’re they’re they’re artists, and they’re they’re doing what they do. So, you know, I appreciated that about this movie too.
Todd: Yeah. You know, it’s that’s, Marilyn Manson, same thing, you know, right after when he kinda got blamed a little bit for the Columbine shootings, you know, much later. It’s same deal. He probably had the the smartest things to say about about everybody’s reaction, about the causes for that, you know, that anybody did. And and, you know, but you you kind of learn as you get older that the musicians were actually the dorks in high school. I mean, they were not. They were the non jocks. They were the guys who probably felt like outcasts, who had nothing better to do with their time, weren’t getting girls, so they were at home with their guitars practicing 247. That’s how they got Todd. And then they turn into these, you know, larger than life idols, but they usually have backgrounds of complete dorkiness, and and they were the intellectuals perhaps who were had a lot of time for introspection because they were not getting the girls back in those days. Yeah. And and they even have a scene in here of this musician on on it, again, on the TV screen, Sammy Kerr testifying in front of congress. Right? Or, again, he’s also saying, you know, what the movie probably wants to say. Not much, but just, oh, this is free
Craig: speech. Right. You you Blah blah. Like, it’s not like this it’s not like this movie is pushing some good message or anything. But No. Right. But those of us who lived through it, you know, we get those references. But it’s it’s funny, you know, like so I guess after this girl gets hurt and and and the bully comes to the kid’s house and, like, calls him out, and you can tell that, you know, now this kid somehow, I guess, is kind of imbued with these supernatural powers, I guess. Like, they they they don’t they don’t touch on this very much. Like, the bully comes over and, like, confronts Eddie, and, Eddie can, like, make I don’t know. Like, the the fire in the jack o’lanterns, like, one of the one of the one of the only Halloween references. Like, the fire in the jack o’-lanterns can, like, flare up when Eddie’s upset or whatever. But when Eddie finds out that this girl has been hurt, another scene that I thought was so funny was, like, he has this really sincere breakup with the cassette. I think
Clip: we should end it. I don’t wanna do anymore. No wins. No false metal. No. No. That’s it. It’s over now.
Craig: We we can’t do this anymore. I’m done. Wait. I’m sorry. But then, like all of the equipment starts to freak out and there’s all these really cool eighties electrical effects and, the the dead rocker, Sammy Kerr, actually appears in his bedroom and and it’s it’s basically, you know, it’s like any kind of possessed object kind of movie where like, oh, you did my bidding for a while, but now I’m in control, and now you have to do this. And and then it, you know, the the last part of the movie ends up with Eddie kind of trying to stop what he has already set into motion.
Todd: Yeah. He makes the rocker go away by killing his own stereo.
Craig: Right. He just batches
Todd: it with a with a with a bat. And this is where the movie started to get a little muddled for me because, alright, we kinda know what’s going on. We kinda know what we’re up against. But now it’s becoming a little unclear, like alright. So like you said earlier, it seemed to be hinting that Eddie was getting some powers. I was getting kind of a 976 evil vibe from it. Like, maybe he was, you know, gonna be formed and consumed by him or possessed by him or something, but that never really happens. This rocker again materializes, but then he he goes away. You know, I thought, okay, we’re bringing this guy into the world. Now he’s manifested. It’s kind of like Freddy Krueger kind of thing. He’s gonna run around and start taking care of things. But that doesn’t really happen so much either. He still seems very much connected to this record or the stereo. And so when Eddie, likes, you know, smashes a stereo and stuff like that, it seems like the problem is solved. But he realizes, you know, that as much as he breaks his record, he’s got a tape out there still. And so, like, he’s he calls up, Roger, his friend, who we’ve neglected to mention, but he’s his dorky his even dorkier friend, and tells Roger that he needs to go and get this tape. And Roger’s like, what do you you know, what’s this all about? And it was kinda ridiculous. You know, what’s the big deal? He’s like, just go and get this tape. And I’m like, what what why is he sending Roger? What’s going on? And so Roger breaks into Tim’s car in Tim’s driveway in the middle of the day with a coat hanger.
Craig: In, like, like, with, like, a ski mask. Yeah. Like, he’s not he’s he’s not literally wearing a ski mask, but it it’s like he dressed up like what a thug should look like to break into a car. Like, if you’re gonna break into a car, like Do it at night, at least. Dress up. Right?
Todd: When those things are actually affecting.
Craig: And again, it’s it’s yeah. It’s trying to go for the humor because he doesn’t even have to break in. Like, he’s trying to fidget with the lock with a coat hanger or something. And then he realizes that the car isn’t even locked. Oh, no. He just gets in there and takes the tape.
Todd: And the tape is still there.
Craig: The tape is
Todd: This this Yeah. Horrible tape that Tim knows is bad because it’s melted his girlfriend’s ears off. It’s just casually in the front seat in a Walkman.
Craig: It’s it’s silly. I don’t know. You know, as silly as it is, it it didn’t bother me. It wasn’t so stupid that I was rolling my eyes. It was just kinda like I get what they’re going for. They’re going for the comedy here. It’s not really all that funny, but I get it. You know, like, it’s it’s fine. Roger gets the tape. And Roger, it’s so funny that you said we’ve neglected to mention him. It’s because he’s totally unimportant. Like, as as I was watching it and I was taking my notes, there were all of these scenes where Eddie was talking to his dorky friend, and I just was like, we don’t need to talk about this because it’s totally inconsequential. But, I looked on IMDB, and the guy who plays Roger, gosh, I don’t even know what his name is, this was his only acting credit. But then he went on this guy to be, like, a writer and producer for the X Files, and, like, he’s got an amazing resume, this this dorky friend who breaks into, the car. But he gets he gets the tape, and and Eddie told him to destroy it, but he doesn’t. And instead, he plays it. And then the dead rocker appears to him and tells him, you’ve gotta play my tape at the Halloween dance or I’ll kill you. And so Roger, the dork, takes the tape to the Halloween dance and, eventually plays it, I guess. And you know, yeah, go ahead.
Todd: There’s this fantastic special effect. I thought it was really Todd, and for especially for the eighties, like, I I’m not even sure how they did it, but, when, the rocker appears to him and says this to him, I think the screen comes on behind him, the TV, and there’s that woman again speaking about the evils of rock, and he reaches his arm in to the screen and pulls her out by the neck. And as he pulls her out, she becomes this, like, charred little body. It looks like a charred baby or something that he drops on the floor. And then there’s, like, a scene there’s, like, another scene where, Eddie calls Roger and says, you destroyed the tape. Right? And Roger’s like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So then Eddie moves on to his next thing, and in the meantime, there’s this another shot of Roger at home vacuuming up the charred corpse.
Craig: It was hilarious. It was really funny. Hilarious.
Todd: That worked for me. That was
Craig: hilarious. Oh, god. Yeah. I thought that was so funny. And then so Leslie calls Eddie from the dance, I guess, to to see where he is, and he’s at home because he’s grounded or whatever. But he hears in the background this music playing. So he jumps in his car, and then the evil, rocker possesses his car. It’s it’s really kind of a cool concept. I just didn’t feel like it was really executed that well. Like, it was the concept that because because the rocker, you know, is a musician, anything that could transmit music or radio waves, he’s able to kind of
Todd: Possess. Yeah.
Craig: And so he possesses Eddie’s car, and there’s this whole car. Yeah. It’s it’s not even a chase because nobody’s chasing him, but the car is driving around. It’s excuse me. It seems like, the it’s it’s intentionally trying to kill Eddie, and it goes, you know, through you know, it goes under things, so the whole top of the car gets sliced off. And, Eddie is only able to stop it right before it goes off the straw bridge and I got I don’t know. Like, the the whole last act of the movie was so madcap that I mean, I I get what they were trying to do, but the movie is, like, an hour and 45 minutes long. And at this point, there were still, like, 40 minutes left. And I was, like, what are we gonna do for 40 minutes? Yeah.
Clip: And it it is it’s just a
Craig: lot of Eddie who eventually hooks up with Leslie at the dance. It’s just a lot of them kind of running around and this this ghost rocker kind of chase them around through electronics. And it’s not bad. I just feel like it it just went on for a really long time.
Todd: Yeah. That was the part of which I just, I got really bored, honestly. Like, I mean, bored is yeah. You know, the way you can be bored of a movie where there’s a lot of going on, you’re just kinda tired of it, and you’re you don’t really it’s just so much happening, and nothing’s really moving forward. You know? They’re just running from
Craig: one
Todd: place to the next. And this guy can materialize all these speakers. And at one point, you’re just like, get get out of the room and get away from all these speakers. You know? Right. And and it loses its consistency. Like, well, why is he able to materialize through these speakers and not these? I mean, they’re not playing the tape anymore. So, you know, it seemed to be connected to the tape and the music at first and the stereo that was playing it, but now it seems like almost any speaker he can come through now. And he materializes, and he’s able to do stuff, but then they’re able to, like, cut the power or something occasionally, which, like, which, like, sucks him back in temporarily. So then there’s like power is kinda connected to it. It’s kind of the electrical transmission aspect of it, I suppose. It’s all real muddled.
Craig: And it’s hard to talk about in sequence because it doesn’t the sequence doesn’t really matter. Like, there there’s a cool scene where at the Halloween dance, they the principal or some teacher or something introduces the band that’s supposed to play, but then all of the equipment starts to get, like, electrified and, like, Sammy Kerr, the dead rocker, like, appears, like, out of the speaker or something. And, like, there there’s a whole musical. Like, he plays a whole song. Yeah. There’s a whole number, and he plays a whole song, and, like, everybody’s totally into it. And the guy that plays the rocker, his name is Tony Fields, and I don’t know much about I I totally recognize him, but I’m not even sure from what. Like, he was in A Chorus Line, the movie of A Chorus Line, and he was also, one of the zombies, in Thriller, the video. So this guy’s a dancer. He was and you can tell he’s a dancer, like, when he’s performing. Like, he’s doing all these crazy spins. Like, he seems much more like a dancer that you know, the eighties rockers were all about flare and show, and and that that’s great. But, I mean, this guy’s, like, pure wedding and, like, throwing his hair back. And so that and then, like so he’s performing, you know, for this, Halloween dance, and then he starts vaporizing people with electrical bolts from his guitar. That’s right. And at
Todd: first, they don’t see the care. Like, everybody’s kinda shocked, but then they all move back up to the front of the stage so the next guy can get zapped. And the special effects were actually pretty good. I was not expecting a movie like this to have these kind of special effects. I have to hand it to him.
Craig: Not bad.
Todd: No. I’ve seen so much worse, so much worse than these movies.
Craig: Right. Yeah. I the but the whole I mean, it was very eighties. You know, the whole Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Electric currency and electric bolts and stuff. Like, very eighties. You know? Not something that you would probably see today, but, for the time, certainly not bad. And then it just goes into what literally is, like, probably a 20, 30 minute chase scene of this rocker just kind of randomly chasing them throughout Todd. Eddie and Leslie? Is that her name? Yeah. And and, like, he chases them all over town and he vaporizes a cop and then he they end up back at Eddie’s house and, like, they get cornered in Eddie’s bathroom and, like, then there’s this whole thing where, like, somehow Sammy Kerr, the rocker’s hand gets in the toilet. And, like, it’s, like, agonizing pain for him. Like, I I I guess we were supposed to understand that water hurts him for some reason. Maybe because of electricity.
Todd: That was the only thing I was thinking.
Craig: Yeah. Like, he gets his hand in the toilet. He’s like, ah. Like like, he’s freaking out. And then, like, Leslie, like, flushes the toilet and he, like, almost, like, his hand gets sucked back in, and he’s still, like, freaking out. Oh, gosh. The the I I it was at that point where I I hate to use the term because it’s it’s so overused, but, like, jumping the shark. Like Yeah. Seriously? Like, the toilet. The toilet. I love
Todd: the toilet physics in movies too where, like, like, toilets have these, like, this enormous suction power. You know? You get your hand in there. Somebody flushes it. You’re in danger of losing an arm. You know?
Craig: Oh, man. And and all this time, I’m thinking, okay, so so Eddie has destroyed the original record. He’s destroyed the tapes that they’ve used. But I remembered from the very beginning that Gene Simmons said, I’m gonna play his record at, midnight on Halloween. And finally Eddie remembers that. And, so he tries to call the radio station, but he can’t get a hold of the guy. And so then he and Leslie start running towards the radio station. But we’re hearing on the radio station, oh, Todd. And we’ve missed so many things, like when Eddie first explains to Leslie what’s going on.
Clip: I wanna know the whole story. Alright. Okay. Go ahead. Look. You’ve heard of raising spirits from the dead by incantations. Right? That’s
Craig: That’s right.
Clip: And she
Craig: was like, yeah. I guess. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s a thing you do. And then when, they they finally, he he tries to get a hold of the radio and and he can’t, but then we hear the radio broadcast.
Clip: We have got a treat for you. A world premiere, the only Sammy Kerr album never released. So here we go. In the true spirit of Halloween, the eve of the dead, we’re gonna play this first cut backwards.
Todd: What? Why would you do that?
Craig: Like, oh, you’ve never you’ve never heard this before. It’s a brand new release, but we’re gonna play the first track backwards.
Todd: It’s so stupid. Plus, I mean, if you really wanna nitpick alright. So that means that somebody else has played this backwards before because he’s he’s we find out that the DJ is not even in the booth. He’s recorded his whole show for the night, and it’s playing on his reel to reel. So he had to play it backwards. But does that mean that when he taped it first before he handed the record to him, he taped the first track backwards? Because if you’ve got a tape
Craig: Yeah. You can’t play the tape backwards.
Todd: It doesn’t make sense logically. It doesn’t make sense technically.
Craig: Right. Right.
Todd: Yep.
Craig: And then right. And then Chase, Chase, Chase, they they end up at the radio station, and and Eddie tells Leslie, like, you stand out here, and I’m gonna go do something else. And if I’m not back in a 100 seconds, then run-in and destroy the tape or something and Eddie takes this little, like, I don’t know this eighties cassette player and throws it in the back of the cop car that they’ve stolen. And, Eddie, like, is driving the cop car, like, trying to taunt this tape recorder. And and he’s like, oh, I guess rock’s chosen warrior is nothing but a effing wimp poser, and that finally taunts Sammy, the rockers. Like, it taunts him out, and he comes out, and he’s in the back he’s in the back of the car. And then Eddie drives the car off of, I guess, the drawbridge that we saw before that he almost went into. But, like, he drives It’s at least a 1 or 2 story drop into this river. Yeah. And I guess because it’s water, it kills the evil rocker. But Eddie’s okay. Like, he he surfaces like, oh, thank goodness. He’s fine. He just kinda yells out. Yeah. And then we see Leslie who has already broken the tape in the radio station, and she’s just, like, standing there waiting. And Eddie shows up. I guess he walked back from the miles away that he’d driven. And they make out, and the end.
Todd: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was I was ready for that by this point. It was just, like, get me to the final curtain. I know they’re gonna kiss. Just let them kiss, and let’s let’s be done. You know, I did you play it through all the way? I was I I don’t know why, but I just felt like there was gonna be a scene at the end of the credits even though it was not at all common at this time for there to be something like that. And sure enough, there was. There was a really brief clip of, Ozzy Osbourne.
Craig: Osbourne.
Todd: The the movie, you know, like I said, it was, it really had me going there for a while. Really cool concept, really relatable character, very different, I thought. And again, I really haven’t seen anything quite like this where, you know, we’ve seen, like, possessed item things, but to to kind of make music itself and the album itself and the and the the guy behind the music, it kinda wraps it all up into 1 and throws it at this fanboy. You know, I I was really behind it until it just devolved into insanity at the end, and, it was pretty weak. I I was really disappointed.
Craig: Yeah. It got pretty stupid at the end, but if you are nostalgic for the eighties, watch this movie. I mean, sure. I mean, watch it. I mean, it’s it’s fun. It’s it’s totally a throwback, to the eighties and imperfect in every way, but but I didn’t not enjoy it. You know? Like, it it was
Clip: it was it was what it was. It was what it was.
Craig: It was a waste of time. I appreciate it. No. Not a waste of time. If you’re our age, you know, like, I feel like this is a movie for us. You know, I feel like if if some of our listeners, like, I’m thinking specifically of of Jordan, who has podcasted with us before? She would probably laugh her ass off at this movie and think it was so stupid And in many ways, it is. But if you grew up in the eighties, it’s definitely a throwback to that time, and and I appreciated that at least.
Todd: Oh, you know, and it’s kind of remarkable how this little unknown movie, you could play, you know, the 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon with it because of the people involved.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: Even the director you know, the director went on to direct, like, Air Bud.
Craig: Mhmm. And some movies like that A Dolphin’s Tale. Yeah. Yeah. And, well, and Glenn Morgan,
Todd: you know who you’re talking about, who played Roger. He wrote Final Destination. Final Destination 3, a ton of X Files episodes, you know, even 21 Jump Street. I mean, pretty pretty impressive resume for these folks, you know. It’s funny. Of course, maybe it’s telling that the things that they end up doing were not the things they did for this movie. Yeah. Oh, and
Craig: I just totally messed up. I the the guy that you were talking about didn’t direct Adolphin’s Tale. That was the director of this movie, Charles Martin Smith. And and he was also an actor. He was in American Graffiti, and he was in the Untouchables, very recognizable, face. And he directed the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is, like, my favorite television show ever. So, yeah, lots of, connections, if if you’re interested in looking into those things. I understand why it’s not more esteemed, and I understand why people probably have never heard of it because it’s not a great movie. It it’s really not, but I it’s it’s fun for what it is.
Todd: Honestly, for whatever reason, I don’t know if any of these heavy metal horror movies were ever very Todd. Or can you think of a single one of them that is notorious now that people look back on fondly?
Craig: No.
Todd: It just blows my mind.
Craig: You know, you and I watch these movies from the eighties all the time, and and we trash them when we review them. But I enjoy going back to them. You know, it’s it’s, it’s fun to go back to this type of movie and and you don’t see this type of stuff very much anymore. It’s all, superheroes and and sequels and prequels and everything so gritty and and and raw. And and you know, this is just, you know, it’s a fun throwback to, a different time when horror took itself a little less seriously, I think, and people were more willing to kind of, you know, try things outside of the box, and and I appreciate that. So I I appreciate this movie for that reason. It’s not a great movie, but it it was fun. It was fun to watch. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again, probably not, but, I I enjoyed it just for the nostalgia.
Todd: Yeah. And it’s well made. It really is a well made movie. I mean, it’s shot well. Like I said, the special effects for their time are pretty good. The acting solid. Yeah. You really can’t fault it. You know? It just it’s just Right. It’s just one of those movies. So yeah. No. For for I completely agree with you. Entertaining except for, like, the last 20 minutes.
Craig: Right.
Todd: Oh, well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes right next to all of your favorite heavy metal tunes. Look for us also on Google Play and Stitcher, and find us on Facebook where you can like our page, share it with a friend, and also comment on what you thought of this episode as well as anything you would like us to review in the future. Thank you again, Nick, very much for this, this suggestion.
Craig: Until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig,
Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.