"Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" was an axiom coined by a 1977 Ian Dury single, and much of the rock music industry in its wake demonstrated this well, especially in the 1980s. Hard rock and hair metal bands traveled coast to coast on every continent in wave upon wave of in-your-face attitude. At the same time, home video's Format War was well underway between popular video recording devices such as Betamax and VHS. As the '80s continued, it became increasingly clear that VHS was the victor, and the result was a boom in VHS distribution.
It wasn't just major theatrical films receiving home distribution, either. Anybody with a consumer-grade video camera could ostensibly become a filmmaker, and a huge uptick of direct-to-home-video releases was the only conclusion to this paradigm. Smaller-time producers and studios could bypass theatrical releases and distribute their movies for VHS purchase and rental right away. It was only natural, then, that the VHS boom would collide with the leather, hair spray, and manic guitar solos found in the parallel rock scene.
The deluge of films around rock n' roll was carried primarily by aspiring filmmakers, and not all of their messages were ones of appreciation towards the music genre. Many figures who saw rock and metal as a corrupting influence also threw their hats into the ring, hoping to release a film to stem the tide of what they considered the destruction of the youth. Regardless of whether the message was positive or negative, the world received more than a few horror films centered around one of the era's most prominent musical fixtures. Even after VHS' demise, some filmmakers have dipped back into the well for their own creations.
For lovers of B-horror and '80s rock/metal alike, these films can entertain well beyond their budgetary limits.
Rocktober Blood (1984)
Created by filmmakers Beverly and Ferd Sebastian (who retired to Florida in 1993 to save Greyhounds and become an ordained minister, respectively), Rocktober Blood is a film centered on an undead rock singer's murder spree, and features the members of the band Sorcery both as actors and on the film's soundtrack. The plot starts off simple enough but gets oddly convoluted at the end presumably for the sake of having a twist.
Singer Billy Harper (Tray Loren) has a bit of a fall from grace one night while recording with his band, inexplicably killing the group's sound engineer and his assistant. Billy's backup singer girlfriend Lynn (Donna Scoggins) discovers his acts and is saved by security from her boyfriend's murderous impulses. She testifies against Billy, leading to his execution. However, Billy refuses to stay dead and returns from the grave, framing Lynn for various murders that he commits.
The costume our killer chooses honestly looks like something straight out of a Spirit Halloween store, and the twist is pretty weak and arbitrary, but the kills can be entertaining. For a film composed of members of a rock band, the acting surprisingly isn't atrocious either.
Strangely enough, talk of a sequel manifested into an IndieGoGo campaign to crowdfund it in 2016. The Sebastians also sought to remaster Rocktober Blood for DVD and blu-ray, promising to fans that unlike the pair's previous "remasters" (VHS tapes ripped onto DVD-Rs), these pressings would be done legitimately. Loren even offered to sign each copy of the remaster. When the Sebastians announced that the remaster's proceeds would go to Beverly's National Greyhound Foundation, fans assumed that they were helping out a good cause as well and went along willingly.
The discs didn't show for quite a while, prompting fans to request refunds. During this time, Loren stated on Rocktober Blood 2's Facebook page that there was a delay in shipping but he was working through things as quickly as possible. Fans did eventually get their orders shipped, though strangely it was from a location in Homosassa, Florida, where Loren ran a BBQ restaurant. The discs and the accompanying soundtrack were found to be direct rips of VHS and vinyl, and Loren's signature was signed on the dust jacket, slowly rubbing off over time instead of being placed on the case itself. It didn't end well for the prospects of Rocktober Blood 2, with enraged fans pouring their frustrations onto the film's Facebook page, as well as those of the Sebastians and Loren's BBQ place. The Sebastians later also tried to sell fans alleged screen-used props, but quick comparisons showed that the props were not even remotely the same when compared to how they looked in Rocktober Blood. The sequel never happened.
Black Roses (1988)
Seemingly as long as popular music has existed, there have been concerned parents standing in its way, demanding to know its intentions with their children. John Fasano's Black Roses takes the well-known trope of parents protecting their kids from evil music to the extreme. Instead of most movies where the story unravels and shows that the parents were overreacting and their kids will be okay, this film takes the completely opposite stance.
A small town known as Mill Basin is visited by a metal band known as the Black Roses, which the town's youth has a natural curiosity about. As excitement builds around the band, the town's parents and mayor along with protagonist Matthew Moorhouse (John Martin) investigate the music group to ensure there's no danger. To their surprise, the band comes off very mild-mannered during performances, and the suspicions are allayed for all except Matthew, who still thinks there's something sinister going on. It turns out he's right, as once the parents and authorities are gone, the band begins playing much more aggressive music and reveals themselves to be demons in disguise. The town's teens begin to become corrupted, committing a slew of killings. Matthew discovers the band's hypnotic powers and sets out to stop the band's next performance, which will undoubtedly cause mass-scale carnage.
The film's story is pretty cut and dry and plays out at face value. On the upside though, its soundtrack features the likes of Tempest, Lizzy Borden, Hallow's Eve, King Kobra, and David Michael-Phillips. Plus, the visual effects are really worth an eye here, as they fluctuate between solid and abjectly hilarious (one particular "skeleton" transformation scene comes to mind), leaving one to wonder what exactly happened during production for this to be the case. Per Fangoria, veteran effects artist Dick Smith (The Exorcist) recommended the film's duo of SFX artists (Richard Platt and Michael Maddi), but he couldn't likely have anticipated the film's end product.
Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)
Masters of licensing their image for decades, worldwide rock band Kiss entrusted producer Gordon Hessler (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) to direct a TV movie that the painted rockers would star in themselves. Hanna-Barbera Productions would produce the film, with distribution being handled by Warner Bros. With such big studio names attached to the project and the star power of one of the world's premier rock bands on-screen, the film was sure to be a success despite its television constraints... Right?
Not quite. The story didn't make much sense at all, the members of Kiss weren't exactly top-notch actors, and some of the special effects look like they were ripped from 1966's Space Ghost.
At Six Flags Magic Mountain, Kiss is set to perform before an adoring crowd. The theme park's animatronic engineer Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe) decides that his animatronic creations shouldn't be upstaged, but is soon fired for disregarding the safety of his assistant and guests at the park after trapping them in dangerous machinery. He swears revenge against the park and against Kiss (though they really didn't do anything wrong), and creates an army of robotic monkeys and mechanical copies of the band. Deveraux steals Kiss' talismans (the source of their powers) and sends the robotic doppelgangers out to perform in the band's stead and cause a riot. The rockers are faced with a race against time to prevent Devereaux's plan from taking place.
Buckle up, folks, this one's about as goofy as it can get. That being said, like a few of the films on this list, the soundtrack holds up.
Trick or Treat (1986)
On the topic of Kiss, Gene Simmons is in this flick as well, along with metal icon Ozzy Osbourne. Directed by Charles Martin Smith (Air Bud), Trick or Treat doesn't have the most inventive title, but actually does pretty well as a horror-comedy and even saw a theatrical release before hitting movie store shelves in VHS form.
The story is centered around a teenager named Eddie (Marc Price) who idolizes rock star Sammi Curr (Tony Fields), and is devastated to learn his hero has died in a hotel fire. To make Eddie feel better, disc jockey Nuke (Simmons) provides him with a copy of Curr's unreleased album, planning to play it at midnight on Halloween over the radio as a tribute. After falling asleep listening to the record, Eddie begins having strange dreams of Curr's death, and the lyrics of the music seem to stick in the wrong way. Playing the record backward, Eddie is shocked to learn his idol is speaking to him through the record. Curr offers to help Eddie with getting revenge on his school bullies, but the spirit begins to go to greater and greater lengths, leading up to a desire to kill.
This film is clearly inspired by the moral panic of "backmasking," in which American politicians grew worried that bands were hiding satanic or otherwise malicious messages in their recordings, decoded consciously by playing the music backward (bands accused of doing this, or in some cases doing it as a purposeful bit of provocation, were as varied as Led Zeppelin, Styx, Slayer, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, and Soundgarden). This caused a visible panic in many communities, once again believing that rock and metal music was causing their children to be led astray.
Though this film doesn't intend to make a statement one way or the other on the cultural panic that still persists in some respects today, it's a good time, and the cameos by Simmons and Ozzy are pluses without robbing the film of its spotlight.
Shock 'Em Dead (1991)
Technically, this film's release escaped the 1980s, but the movie itself is about as hair metal as it can get. It stars MMA commentator Stephen Quadros as a pizza place employee who dreams of being a rock god but is bereft of talent. He tries out for a band managed by Lindsay Roberts, played by former adult film actress Traci Lords in one of her first major roles after transitioning to Hollywood. Quadros' character Angel Martin is rebuffed due to his inability to play guitar, but he soon makes a deal to sell his soul to achieve the dream he so desperately wants. The film is also noted for featuring the final performance of Aldo Ray (The Secret of NIMH), who passed away the same year the film was released.
Quadros' character in particular is unlikeable from the get-go, a perverted peeping tom who clearly wants to be a rock star more for its perks than the music itself. When Angel gives up his soul to become an unparalleled guitarist (his guitar parts were performed by Nitro's Michael Angelo Batio), it quickly becomes apparent that Lindsay is the film's true protagonist, who must now deal with Angel's need to consume human souls to keep his otherworldly musical powers.
Lords was obviously the initial draw of the film (its marketing more or less confirms it), but she likely surprised more than a few watchers when she turned in the best performance of the film. Director Mark Freed was even approached a number of years ago to develop a sequel, though its current status is up in the air.
Slaughterhouse Rock (1987)
With so many rock stars being killed in the same places in horror movies, Slaughterhouse Rock dared to be different. Specifically, they killed their rock band on Alcatraz Island courtesy of a serial killer haunting its surface before becoming the notorious American prison site. Starring the Kickboxer film series' Nicholas Celozzi, Slaughterhouse Rock also employed the talents of Toni Basil (Easy Rider) and Hope Marie Carlton (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master).
This particular hard rock outing has more supernatural elements attached to it than most. The film's protagonist is a college student who has recurring nightmares of the Alcatraz killer, and is guided to the island in order to confront the killer's ghost and hopefully end his suffering. However, things spiral quickly out of control when his friends are stranded with him on the island and his brother is possessed by the malicious spirit.
Fortunately, the singer of a band known as Bodybag is here to help. The singer, Sammy Mitchell (Basil), seeks to aid our ailing protagonist by teaching him the ability to levitate and spiritually detach from his body. She also dances quite a bit, with her act being cut into the film at various intervals. The dancing might not help our endangered college kids much, but the other supernatural powers might come in handy when attempting to sever a decades-old curse.
Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare (1987)
Before John Fasano directed Black Roses, he made another little rock 'n' roll horror movie starring world champion bodybuilder and Thor frontman Jon Mikl Thor (I Am Thor). The man who billed himself as a legendary warrior of rock and metal music plays hair metal singer John Triton. Heading out into the Canadian countryside to record new music with his band Triton (seeing a theme here?), the band and their girlfriends are quickly set upon by a score of vicious demons.
Actually, it may be a bit of a stretch to call the demons "vicious," as they come off more like dime-store puppets with very limited movement. Though there's plenty to have a laugh about in Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, the film's monsters stand out as the most glaring. They murder and possess the inhabitants of the isolated farmhouse until only our musclebound protagonist is left standing. The lord of the demons makes himself known, and the film's final act reveals a hilarious twist ensuing in a battle between good and evil. Even if the fight is mostly Jon Mikl Thor wrestling with a Halloween store mannequin, the imagery of his expressions interlaid with his own music and high-reaching vocals is somehow both side-splitting and kind of epic in a deeply goofy way.