BLACK ROSES
Propaganda or parody?
The box art for this movie raises mixed feelings. On one hand, you're thinking "Wow, that's some awesome goddamn box art!" I mean, it is, just have a look at it. But on the other hand, it puffs out at you in 3-D, and gimmicky boxes like that usually hide movies they're just trying to distract you from (like Dead Pit and The Visitors). Additionally, while the back of the box featured a cool-looking monster coming from the form of a naked woman, it made a point of saying "THE SPECIAL EFFECTS ARE FANTASTIC", which kind of sets off a red light in my head. Again, distraction from a work that is subpar as a whole. (besides, the first effect shot I saw - of a girl at a concert being zombie-fied - was so bad, I had to rewind and enjoy it again)
The opening scene - which I can't tell if it's supposed to be a dream sequence or exposition - features a band performing on stage to an adoring crowd. They play generic American 80's cheese-metal in the vein of Dokken, and they're all wearing monster makeup (and singing about how all this ain't an act). Then when the cops come to break up the show, the fans shamble out of the theater like zombies.
Cut to a small town called Mill Basin, where it's been announced that the titular band from the opening scene is going to start their first-ever national tour with a few shows. Exactly which nation this is, I'm not sure - the town hall meeting about fifteen minutes in features crossed American and Canadian flags behind the speaker's podium. What's that about? The gas pumps say "LITRES" and the price is listed as 46.9, so I can only assume that it's Canada. What Canadian town in its right mind would actually put an American flag in its town hall - as prominently as the Canadian flag? I'm confused.
Anyway, half the town is giddy (read: teenagers) and half the town is up in arms and trying to stop the concert (read: parents). Calgary went through this about a year ago when Marilyn Manson was scheduled to roll through town - eventually, the show was cancelled due to the owner of the venue backing out (and paying a hefty fee for it, if I'm not mistaken). Here, the show goes on - and when the band takes the stage, they're not in monster makeup, they look like your standard mid-80's pop-rock band, and the singer has the most impossibly feathered hair I've ever seen on a man. Thankfully, this is later revealed to be a wig. When they start to play, they sound like your standard mid-80's pop-rock band too, so the adults in the audience, convinced that there's nothing to worry about, leave in boredom.
And then the town goes to shit. Beatings, kids killing their parents, people getting sucked into speakers by lizard-snakes - for God's sakes, the kids have started smoking and aren't paying attention in school! Only one man has the sense and the courage to stop this band before all of Canada or whatever is consumed by the madness - a high school teacher who, rumor has it, is banging one of this students.
The music in this movie is terrible, and I don't just mean the super-cheesy songs (recorded by a studio conglomerate of people I don't know). Just dreadful. One thing I'd like to see is a horror movie about heavy metal that features good music, music that the metal fans in the audience can take seriously as something evil, or at least advocating evil. Sure, it's subjective, but I think we can all agree that the music of Slayer would be a more fitting accompaniment to the proceedings than the music of this studio mishmash. Need a more mainstream sound that was around in the year this movie was made (1988)? Well, there were a whole lot of thrash bands then; even music along the lines of Maiden, Priest or Sabbath would've been perfect. The Gate fucked this up, Trick Or Treat fucked this up, and Black Roses fucks this up too.
And what's with one scene where the teacher fights off a monster with a tennis racket? The monster manages to rip the catgut strings in the racket, but the frame itself is completely intact. Nevertheless, when the teacher notices that his racket is no longer useful for tennis, he discards it and proceeds to beat on the monster with his fists. I don't get it.
This movie features what might be the most gratuitous bit of nudity I've ever seen, beating out that in Terror On Alcatraz. The scene just shifts to the bass player's change room, where she pushes down her top to expose her breasts, and starts rubbing them. Then she pulls it back up and leaves. That's it, that's the whole scene. I'm not saying I didn't like it, I'm just saying it was gratuitous.
The ending is pretty out there, too. Basically, it boils down to an onstage fistfight between a man and a man in a rubber suit. It reaches its conclusion in a big fire set by the human; and only then does the band start playing. That just seemed odd to me - you'd figure on them starting to play if the monster-man set the fire, but they shouldn't have been counting on this...ah, what the hell am I looking for reason in this for? And just before the credits roll, we're given a voice-over that says "Evil." That's it. That's a pretty lame closing monologue.
On the plus side, while the creature effects are rather poor, the makeup is excellent. There's foxy chicks all over the place (particularly Karen Planden as the student everybody thinks the teacher is screwing), and Carmine Appice is in here somewhere, but I have no idea what he looks like and the closing credits weren't much help. I'm assuming that he played Black Roses' drummer, since that guy looked a little old to be in that band.
I'd love to see a horror movie about a band like Sentenced, who sings about suicide pretty much all the time, and have the band drive a whole town of kids to suicide. Or a horror movie about a band like Manowar, who causes the young 'uns to actually act like Conan the Barbarian. Or a horror movie about a band like GWAR, except for this tour, the giant maggot isn't an effect, and Gor-Gor is a real dinosaur, really biting off adoring fans' heads. (the cool thing about that would be that the fans would just keep coming, begging to be eaten/decapitated/sodomized by the band).
Filmed in Hamilton, Ontario and Westchester, New York. I can't tell if this is supposed to be an anti-metal propaganda flick, or an affectionate parody of the same. Give it a look if you're really curious and can't help yourself. Otherwise, move along.