ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE
God bless that Jon-Mikl Thor

  Some sick-fuck part of myself could not help but to rent this the moment my eye happened across it, for one simple reason: it stars the incomparable Jon-Mikl Thor!!!

You might not remember Thor, and if not, you surely can't be blamed for it.  Once the frontman of little-known hard rock act called, uh, Thor (which kept its fans amused during live shows by breaking blocks on Thor's chest), he tried his hand at a few flicks in the genre.  The other that I've seen in Zombie Nightmare, which is without a doubt one of the worst movies I've ever seen, certainly the worst movie about zombies that I've ever seen.  Can Rock-N-Roll Nightmare possibly compare?

Well, I wasn't disappointed.  Two minutes in, and I'd already received more amusement than I got from the entirety of Zombie Nightmare, even though it's all for the wrong reasons.  Dialogue that can't be heard over the score, an incredibly hokey pops-out-of-the-oven monster-skeleton (on which the camera lingers like eyes on a train wreck)...I was howling, I tells ya!

Then we get to the opening credits, which boast of a "Special Appearance By Rusty Hamilton" (who the hell is Rusty Hamilton?) and credits the music to The Tritonz.  Whether this is a reference to mermen or the good ol' diabolus in musica, I have no idea.  And THEN, we get a draaaaawn-out sequence of a van driving across the country, the kind of thing you'd expect to see DURING the credits, not after them.

This van contains the rock band Triton, headed up by John Triton (Thor, who's a lousy blonde, and also wrote the script).  There's also the drummer (sporting an Aussie accent at least as bad as Keanu's English in Bram Stoker's Dracula...and if you think this accent is bad, wait for the scene where he "does" Arnold Schwarzennegger in the mirror; he's a [presumed] Canadian pretending to be an Australian pretending to be an Austrian), bassist Roger Eburt (get it?  Roger Eburt?), keyboardist, and guitarist, and girlfriends for everyone.  They're headed out to a barn-turned-recording-studio near Toronto (Pig, Gore-Met, how many barns are there near Toronto?) so they can rehearse and crank out 10 minutes of new material in the next month so they can keep their advance.  "Why Toronto?" the Aussie asks, not unreasonably. "'Cuz Toronto's where it's happening, man!  The music, the film industry, the arts..."  Something tells me that Thor's a local.  (note for non-Canadians - do you have one city in your country which seems completely unaware of there being an entire country, nay, planet around it? Bingo.) (I kid alt.horror's resident Torontonians, but c'mon, deny it)

These rehearsal sessions which take place in this barn come complete with lighting FX and cheesy rock-video stage moves, and things go along like this in standard fashion (with excruciating songs like "You Give Me Energy", punctuated by surprisingly good lead guitar playing) until a sock puppet vomits into somebody's drink.  Then people start turning into demons, and the rest writes itself.  Until the ending where Satan shows up, I don't think anyone saw what was coming there. (No, I'm not kidding.  I'm not talking about when Satan shows up, I'm talking about what happens right after.)

The plot's everything you'd expect up until that wacky ending, even bringing in four groupie chicks who arrive in the middle of the night and gleefully set out to wake up their rock heroes. (this seems like a lousy way to introduce oneself)  Disappointingly, they make their exit without shedding of their blood, or clothing.  Pity.  Two other women in the film make their departures just standing there slack-jawed while something menacing approaches them.  Of course, there's no phone, and the dialogue has some real howlers, like "Foolish mortal!  I have trifled with you long enough!  Prepare to die!" and "Everybody's run off trying to scratch the seven-year-itch!" (I don't think Thor is entirely sure of just what is meant by the "seven-year-itch")

But I'll hand this to good ol' Jon-Mikl; if I ever write a script which I fully intend to star in, I'm going to follow Thor's example and write in a completely needless scene in which I'm required to shower with a hot naked chick.  (we see WAY too much of Thor's tongue in this scene, and too much of his pec-cleavage in the rest of the movie)

This movie is for Thor the kind of bizarre ego-stroke we can only dream Kevin Costner might give us; that is, one in which he doesn't look like he's trying to be embarrassed by it; Thor revels in it unabashed.  Oh, there's those pecs and those rock-star moves, but there are also numerous scenes where he rebuffs the affections of his lover because dammit, he's all business!  Even Satan groans orgasmically when Thor flexes his mostly naked body.  His last scene has him wearing nothing but a codpiece, boots, wristbands, and a cape, while Satan throws starfish at him (!) and the two square off in a lengthy "battle" which consists of the two of them locking hands to wrists and going around in circles.

Also known as The Edge Of Hell, and directed by John Fasano, who just can't get away from the rock/horror genre, it seems.  Zombie Nightmare was 100% bad; oh, so is this, no doubt about it, but it's a lot more fun.  It's a bad movie of truly Ed Woodian proportions; it's rare to see anything quite like that, and that's something special, I guess.

Oh yeah - in my Zombie Nightmare review, I noted how Thor looks an awful lot like a cross between Thor (the Norse hammer-swinger) and he of the chimpanzee-like grin, Eddie Van Halen.  Well here with his big blonde poofder hairdo, he looks like David Lee Roth.  Draw your own conclusions; I'm afraid to draw my own.

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