Rocktober Blood

Rocktober Blood (1984) 1/ 5

Dir. Beverly Sebastian

Written by Beverly Sebastian, Ferd Sebastian

Starring Donna Scoggins, Tray Loren, Nigel Benjamin, Cana Cockrell, Sorcery (band)

So far, my expeditions into the brave new world of the Metalsploitation subgenre have been stupid fun. And I mean “stupid” in both the vernacular sense as a colloquial substitute for “very” (as in, “Yo, Tommy, that, uh, chick back there was stupid hawt”) and in its most perfect, pristine, literal sense (as in “Yo, Tommy, uh, you fuckin’ stupid chucklehead”). Which is appropriate, because metal itself is both stupid and fun, and when you add that kind of stupid fun to crappy low-budget horror flicks, which are also stupid fun, the odds go up that at the very least, one of these two great flavors is going to get the job done for you. At worst, you get something like SHOCK ‘EM DEAD, which is shot on video and objectively terrible in every way, but at least earnestly idiotic enough to entertain. At best, you get something like ROCK N ROLL NIGHTMARE which is either an unparralleled masterpiece of outsider art, or is possibly just outsider like a fox (in fairness, it’s more Cockrocksploitation than Metalsploitation, but its heart is in the right place). Either way, you get some metal, some monsters, probably some tits in there. Surely a satisfying --if not particularly healthy-- meal for the soul of the 14-year-old boy in all of us. I mean, how can you go wrong with that formula, right?

Unfortunately ROCKTOBER BLOOD (despite it’s delightful title, which I may well steal next year) proves exactly how you can go wrong with it, being not really quite terrible enough to be consistently funny, but still way too terrible to be enjoyed unironically. Mostly it commits the one truly deadly sin a horror movie or a metal band can perpetrate: it’s boring.

The opening offers some hope, though. The first line of dialogue, in the first second, is “K Billy, time to rock n’ roll!” which is a sentiment which every movie should aspire to, and also the exact sentence the world needs whenever Billy Corgan starts to talk about politics.* 5 seconds into the movie, we have our first metal song, featuring a hideous phaser effect over a respectable chugging riff and a pleasingly boneheaded stadium-ready drum-pounding. This is our introduction to the band Headmistress, and their lead singer Billy (Tray Loren, GATORBAIT II: CAJUN JUSTICE**), who are in the studio recording their soon-to-be hit single I’m Back as the movie begins. In a touch of gritty realism, Headmistress is played by the real-life LA cock rock troubadours Sorcery*** (Brian Trenchard-Smith’s STUNT ROCK), who also perform most of the songs on the soundtrack (though the vocals here are by Nigel Benjamin, who for whatever reason appears not as Billy but as Chris, their manager).**** You’ll be amazed to hear this, but apparently Shazam doesn’t have the lyrics to Sorcery’s I’m Back, so as my little gift to mankind, here they are, transcribed as accurately as possible with the limited audio equipment as my disposal:

(imagine this in your best Rob Halford imitation)

I could be the best, could have had it made/  but cuz of you and all the rest, I wound up in the grave/ [Then’em must] Die [unintelligible] revenge I swore I’d take / now you’re time is running out it’s [cool that you’re in shape?] /

Chorus: When you least expect it, I will attack!/ There’ll be hell to pay / I’m back! (repeat)

Mystery will fill your mind as fear remains[?] your soul / Behind me lies the trail of blood, my wrath will take its toll /  If you leave me on this day, you’ll face a brutal night / And curse the day you saw my face, I’ll waste your foolish life!

Chorus,

bass solo, guitar solo.

(in a higher register)

If I try to run away you might feel safe inside  / lock your windows and your doors there’s just no place to hide / [Your destiny?] has come, I’ll send you straight to hell / The only sound will be the tolling of the bell!

Chorus

Breakdown: Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! Aaaaah---aaaaaaahhhhh, Aaaaahhhha--AAAAAAAhhh, uuuaaaaahhhhhhhahhhhhhhhh, AAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! (guitar) uuuuauaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I’m back!

“We’re gonna shift this on platinum,” says one of the onlookers. “When you’re hot, you’re hot!” someone else agrees. The fact that Shazam doesn’t have the lyrics proves that this did not come to pass, but frankly put this is a pretty magical song, so much so that you’ll actually be glad to hear it when it comes around again and is sung in its entirely for a second time at the movie’s end, which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the exact moment it gets good again. But I’m Back isn’t just a smokin’ hot hair metal anthem. You’re never going to believe this, but those lyrics are also vaguely foreshadowing the horror to come.

Singer Billy looks and sounds a lot like Jason Mewes with a brown perm and a headband, so in other words a sex god of the highest order. But our protagonist will be one of the onlookers, Lynn (Donna Scoggins, ROCKTOBER BLOOD), a backing vocalist for the band, who appears to have agreed to fuck Billy in exchange for his writing a song for her to sing, a promise he has semi-reneged on, despite her incessant whining about it (he points out that he did write a song for her called Rainbow Eyes, but she scoffs that she only gets to sing harmony on it). If this seems unnecessarily sordid to you, hey, I didn’t write the plot to ROCKTOBER BLOOD, I’m just reporting what I see. Billy is immediately established as a rock n roll douchebag of the highest order, but I have to say, Lynn doesn’t seem a lot better with her entitled whining. Lean in, girl. Write your own fucking song.

Anyway, with their soon-to-be-platinum hit finished, Billy struts out of the studio to fuck a mountain of groupies (“You jerk. I hope you catch every disease known to man,” Lynn says, resignedly). Back at the studio, Lynn spends about 10 seconds trying unsuccessfully to record her one-line backing part to Rainbow Eyes, but when the engineer admits he can’t make her sound any better “at this time of night” (?) she immediately gives up. “I think I’ll go take a jacuzzi,” she muses. Unfortunately this doesn’t mean the movie is going to be a daring heist film about whirlpool baths, she just means that she’s gonna walk upstairs, get completely naked, sit down in the hot tub, stand back up, towel off, put her clothes back on, and walk downstairs again. Unfortunately she’s chosen the exact wrong time to do this, because it turns out that Billy has inexplicably returned to the studio with murder on his mind. By the time Lynn shows up, he’s already viciously slasher’d the engineer and impaled his assistant on one of the racks they use to store tape reels (this is the kind of thing you don’t have to worry about now that everything’s digital. Man, those old studios were deathtraps). Billy’s about to do the same to Lynn, who does absolutely nothing in her own defense, when a nightwatchman stumbles in on the scene. “You’re, y’r arrested,” he mumbles. “C’mre you little fucker,” Billy rejoins “I’ma kill your ass.” The guard drops his flashlight and flees, with Billy in hot pursuit.

SMASH CUT: “Two years later.”

Setting: some kind of metal mime show/ masked breakdance art exhibition. There’s a lone guy on a small raised stage wearing torn jeans and a long-haired demon mask, doing a half-dance half-mimed routine, while maybe 20 glamorous white people awkwardly dance around him. A sleazy dude in a suit with a magnificent jheri-curled mullet walks through the crowd with a cameraman.

SLEAZY DUDE: “Listen, Mel, babe. Let’s get in, get out, quick as we possibly can. I don’t wanna fuck around with this show. I want to get drunk, and I wanna get laid. In that order. You got it? K?”

MEL:“Got it”

SLEAZY DUDE: “OK? You with me?”

MEL “Yeah.”

SLEAZY DUDE “You with me Mel?”

MEL: “All the way.”

SLEAZY DUDE: “All right.”

MEL “OK.”

SLEAZY DUDE: “Let’s set up by this coffin, kids love all this death crap.”

Then he does cocaine.

The mime dancing appears to be part of what the Sleazy Dude (who’s named “Rick Righteous,” and works for an outfit he calls “MVTV”) (David Mables, ROCKTOBER BLOOD) calls the “Rocktober Blood ‘84 Tour,” which is described as “an incredible party” despite all visual evidence to the contrary. It seems this marks the one-year anniversary of Billy’s execution for “as most of you remember,” the mass murder of “25 rock and rollers, and his close friend and engineer, Kevin Eddy, not to mention the near-fatal stabbing of Lynn Starling.” (apparently they didn’t pin the murder of Kevin’s impaled assistant on Billy, you know how things go in the legal system today, fucking lawyers. Maybe they couldn’t rule out the possibility of it being an unrelated accident). But despite the trauma of her “near-fatal stabbing” (he slightly cut her boob while menacing her) Lynn is doing great. In fact, Billy’s unseen mass murder of 25 rock and rollers and subsequent off-camera capture turned out to be a great career move for her, because she’s now fronting the band he left behind! She’s “been in hiding” for some of this time, but has recently returned to take the act public. “I just wasn’t ready before,” she tells Rick Righteous. “Well, whatever. You look great, Lynn.” He reassures her.

You’d think it would be kinda traumatic to come back and sing the songs written by the guy who lied to her and then tried to kill her and also killed 25 rock and rollers off-screen, especially performing with his band, especially since apparently she was the only witness (guess he must have killed that security guard too. Or maybe he was one of the “rock and rollers?”) and Billy maintained his innocence all the way to the gallows. But she explains, “Billy was a really talented musician. He just went berserk.” Oh, OK then.

Lynn and Headmistress kick off Rocktober Blood ‘84 Tour with a rollicking rendition of Rainbow Eyes to much swaying by an appreciative audience of 80s'd-out white people. (Rainbow Eyes, you recall, is the song that Billy wrote for her. Hey, it really does sound like shit without that harmony part. Guy really knew what he was talking about when it came to arrangements. Too bad he just went berserk.) Lynn herself is wearing what appears to be a deflated orange life raft for a top, and sports a glittered-up afro ostentatious enough to make Phil Spector blush. Seriously Lynn, Sun Ra called, he said you might want to tone it down a little. What’s weird is they don’t actually play the song live; Lynn just kind of wanders around chatting people up while a recorded version plays in the background. Seems like a strange way to get back in the rock and roll game, but who am I to tell Headmistress their business, I guess. And anyway, it means we’re treated to some absolutely scintillating small talk as she makes the rounds. Band Manager Chris (Nigel Benjamin, who apparently fronted the band Mott The Hoople for a brief period in the mid-70’s, when they were touring simply as “Mott”) explains to a clearly drunk Rick Righteous that he got “Tony doing the lights” and that it’s been really hard work and he hopes he can get a couple weekends off or something.

Anyway, obviously things are going well here. With Billy executed for his crimes against rock and rollers and the band a huge success without even the need to appear live to play their songs, the world is at Lynn’s feet. But while she’s walking behind the scenes in a sinister ill-lit hallway away from all the glitz and glamour while scary music plays, she’s accosted by a knife-wielding assailant wearing a black cloak and demon mask. Fortunately she’s a metal chick and this kind of thing happens all the time, so she just huffs, “you scared the shit out me, Frankie!” (Whoever Frankie is, he must really be an asshole if she immediately assumes that his idea of humor would be to dress up in a mask and pull a knife on the traumatized victim of an attempted murder). But this is not Frankie. That possibility does not occur to her even after he stabs a knife into the wall right next to her head and pins her down. “Frankie, stop, I don’t think you’re so funny,” she says, annoyed. She’s clearly not getting the message, so her attacker just pulls his mask off and HOLY SHIT HOW CAN THIS BE!?!? It’s Billy! “Hello Rainbow Eyes. I’m back!” he says, laughing maniacally and brandishing his knife.

As usual, Lynn does absolutely nothing to help herself, and a few minutes later when manager Chris shows up, she’s sitting on the floor crying, Billy nowhere in sight. Chris patronizingly mansplains to her that “You know damn well people don’t come back from the dead,” and she halfheartedly tries to argue, but doesn’t really push the point even when Chris walks out and punches the real Frankie in the face (she didn’t mention Frankie, so Chris must have come to the same conclusion she did about his sense of humor). Frankie doesn’t really protest or anything so he must have known he had it coming one way or another. Fuckin’ Frankie, what an asshole.

This is the start of a disturbing trend, because you’ll notice that nothing actually happened. That’s gonna be pretty much the rest of the movie, right there. Lynn goes places and walks around while tense music plays, and there will be an evil laugh or she’ll catch a glimpse of Billy, and we’ll be treated to minutes on end of Billy slowly walking around in severely underlit hallways, and then she’ll have a long conversation about it with people who don’t believe her. But nothing much actually happens, other than extended aerobics sequences and more all-nude speed hot-tubbing, which really seems to be her thing.

While vacationing with two friends in a remote cabin, Billy offs one of them (in a hot tub! Jeez, was this movie underwritten by Jacuzzi?) but her manager patronizingly assures her that there’s nothing to worry about, what’s-her-name probably just went home from this remote location with no car and without telling us. Everyone is so unnecessarily skeptical despite the otherwise inexplicable disappearance that it almost seems like a gaslighting conspiracy plot or something, but don’t worry, they’re just morons. Eventually, through the medium of incessant whining, she’s able to convince them that someone is after her, even if everyone keeps reminding her that it can’t be Billy, because Billy’s dead (they seem to disagree on exactly how long ago, though. The head of security exclaims that Billy’s been dead for two years, which would place his death on the night of the opening scene. Rick Righteous, however, seems to think that he died a year ago, after a lengthy trial process and a surprisingly short stay on Death Row. Truly, truth is in the eye of the beholder.)

Frustrated by their dismissive attitude, Lynn decides that she needs to dig up Billy’s grave, just to be sure. Or, rather, in classic Lynn fashion, she decides someone else needs to dig up his grave. “I won’t believe he’s dead til I see his body. I WANT IT. DUG. UP.” she says, in her best “I’d like to speak to your manager” voice. “Some security you are. You Suck,” she says to the genial mustache (Ben Sebastian, director of special effects) who argues that grave robbing is outside the scope of his job description. Boy, this chick turned into Axl Rose real fast. As dull and drab as the movie is, its biggest problem is that Lynn is not a character you would ever want to spend much time with. We ought to be siding with her --she is really being stalked, after all, and no one will believe her!-- but she’s irritatingly passive about her problems, demanding everyone else fix this for her and being a total bitch to any harried underling who doesn't immediately acquiesce (“You’d better shut up, or I’m gonna fire you right here, now, on the spot!” she shouts at her apparent friend/[employee in some unspecified job]). I think the most active thing she does in the whole movie is run ahead of a pursuing Billy and then leap out to stab him with a knife -- but it just turns out to be Chris coming to check on her. And she’s even so ineffective at stabbing that he’s laughing about it the next scene, he didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything. Jesus fucking Christ, Rainbow Eyes.

Eventually, she and her friend Honey Bear (--yes, that’s the character’s actual name-- she’s played by Cana Cokrell, who IMDB claims was in a movie called LAST DETOUR in 1994, but there seems to be no corroborating evidence that any such movie ever existed) decide to actually get to the bottom of this and exhume Billy’s body. As they open the coffin lid, we catch a glimpse of the departed rocker, and OMIGOD Billy suddenly opens his eyes!!! He IS a ghost and… oh, wait, she just hallucinated that, he’s definitely dead, there are even snakes slithering through his skull (which is already metal as fuck even before you start to think how fucking’ metal it is that they must have put snakes in his casket before burying him! Also: looks like he elected to keep the headband on in death, just as he did in life).

Not sure what those things in his eye-holes are. Cue-balls?

So, uh, Billy is definitely dead, and Lynn apparently is a big hallucinating baby, just like everyone in her life has been telling her. Give her credit for consistency, though. She claimed she wouldn’t believe he was dead til she saw his body, but seeing it really does convince her. She’s ready to put the whole thing behind her and chalk it up to being a hysterical woman and go play her big show. Which, coincidentally enough, is actually later that same night (I guess it must get dark pretty early around here, because it was already pitch black when they arrived at the cemetery and I bet it takes at least a half hour for three people with shovels to exhume a grave.)

OK, so Billy’s definitely dead, and apparently Lynn really is prone to Billy-related hallucinations. But wait, who murdered that one lady a while back? This lingering question arises again almost immediately, because while Lynn and Manager Chris are sipping Champagne in the back of a limo on their way to the big gig (guess they left Honey Bear back at the cemetery? Hope she lived nearby), some blonde chick is in Lynn’s dressing room, fluffing her big glittery afro wig before the show (wait, is that Honey Bear? How’d she beat them home?!). Suddenly, a man barges in and OMIGOD IT’S BILLY!! How is this possible, for a second time!? Not only did we just see his rotted corpse, but it wasn’t wearing his current ensemble, which appears to be pinstriped golf pants with a black t-shirt emblazoned with cheerful silver musical notes, inexplicably topped off with a Paul McCartney wig!

“Who’re you?” Asks Blondie, (who was apparently hired sometime more recently than Billy’s tenure with the band). “Death,” he says, matter-of-factly, before grabbing a convenient hot iron and burning her neck with it. Which does indeed appear to result in death.

Well fuck it, now I don’t know what to think. What’s the deal here, is he some kinda, I dunno, evil twin? Because I can’t think of any other explana…(SPOILERS FOLLOW) oh, ok, that’s exactly what he is. Turns out that Billy had a secret identical brother (they keep saying “brother,” not twin) named John, who was the real rock and roll genius behind the band.***** He wrote the songs, but it was Billy who achieved stardom by performing them. So, I guess in revenge, it was John who murdered all those rock and rollers and also Kevin and his assistant and more recently two other women that no one seems to notice are missing, and let Billy take the fall for it. Man, Billy really should have mentioned all this before they sent him to his death, like during the trial or something would have been a good time, for example. But maybe he couldn’t resist a legacy this metal, even at the cost of his own life.

John explains this to Lynn as he confronts her backstage before the show --neatly clarifying everything for everyone except Lynn, who continues to call him “Billy” for the remainder of the movie-- and follows it with an extremely sluggish chase through the apparently deserted behind-the-scenes area. As usual, Lynn barely makes an effort to save herself, and ends up cornered again. That’s when John explains his true motivation. See, you’d think he’d be grateful for Lynn’s help; after all, her fingering Billy let him get away with everything. All John has to do is sneak off, and he’s off scot free. But John, unlike Billy, is a true artist. He’s been following Headmistress on tour not because he wants to stalk Lynn, but because he wants to see how his music is being performanced. And he is not happy.

“You put on a lousy show. What are you trying to do to me? Why don’t you sing my music right?!” He says.

“You’re sick, Billy! Let me help you!” Lynn offers, still not quite grasping the whole “John” concept, and ill-advisedly disregarding his constructive artistic criticism (to be fair, we haven’t actually seen her perform yet, so there’s no way to know if he’s correct or not. But if she’s as efficient a performer as she is a hot-tubber, I’m sure she nails it.)

Fortunately, unlike fucking whiny Lynn, John is a man of action, and presents a solution to this whole “you suck at rock and roll” issue. “We’re gonna put on the ultimate Rocktober Blood and gore show,” he says. And to be honest, he does offer a pretty fuckin’ rad plan for the show, but wouldn’t you know it, negative Nancy here doesn’t like it, just because it involves chaining her to a casket while a masked John performs, with her on-stage murder as the grand finale!

At this point, the movie is 72 minutes long, and only the opening five minutes have been anything other than boring, incompetent bullshit. But fortunately, the movie is 87 minutes, because at exactly 72 minutes and no seconds, the show begins, and will continue unabated into the credits, essentially as a 15-minute music video. Which turns out to be by far the best artistic decision the movie makes. Obviously I disagree with John’s penchant for murdering rock and rollers, but you can’t argue with his prowess as a performer. The minute that opening guitar chord for his ultimate “Rocktober Blood and Gore Show” sounds, things improve tremendously. For starters, Lynn has no more dialogue, which is a big help, and the fact that she does nothing whatsoever to help herself can hardly be annoying by this point since it’s so consistent with the character as she’s been established so far. Instead, the movie elects to focus its final 15 minutes on the two things it’s been notably lacking for quite some time, which are metal and gore.

See, the “gore” part of the “Rocktober Blood and Gore” concept is that there are for some reason already a bunch of blondes chained up on stage, and John, strutting around singing, just casually knifes them up while performing and throws their entrails into the crowd. The audience loves it! And the band doesn’t really seem too bothered that a) they suddenly have a new singer wearing a mask and b) he’s chopping up live women on stage. They just keep rocking.

And that’s it! This is literally the end of the movie. Lynn comes out of the coffin and (after being unconvincingly told by a masked John, “don’t worry, [that guy who sounds like me and tried to kill you five minutes ago] is dead, I’ve taken care of everything! Come on, we got a show to put on!”) obligingly performs “Rainbow Eyes,” unfortunately definitively proving that John is, indeed, a way better performer. Not be be outdone, John, unable to contain himself, rips off his mask, revealing his true identity. The band seems mildly startled by this turn of events, but the drummer irritatedly just tells them to keep playing, so they do. While manager Chris and Mustache Guy consider what to do from stage left, John manages to belt out the lyrics to “I’m Back” one more time before the credits roll, so you can ponder those lyrics you first heard at the start of our long journey, contemplating their hidden meanings in the context of everything we’ve just seen. Oh my God, When you least expect it, I will attack! / There’ll be hell to pay / I’m back! Suddenly it all makes sense!

You’ll notice that this ending leaves everything curiously unresolved. Lynn doesn’t get her revenge or anything, she just halfheartedly stumbles around the stage until she can run away off-camera, and someone else ineffectively whacks John with an electric guitar. It seems like that’s gonna be the end of him, but he just keeps singing, and the movie ends with him defiantly grinning into the camera. I guess we’re supposed to be happy for him? He just murdered several women live on stage, but moral qualms aside, you can’t argue with success. It does make for a great show.

Unfortunately, while The Rocktober Blood and Gore ‘84 show is pretty good, the rest of ROCKTOBER BLOOD the movie is way too much of a painfully dull and poorly made sporadic slasher to really recommend. It’s funny for its nominal protagonist’s speed-hot-tubbing and for its genial z-movie amateurish strangeness, but other than that it’s pretty tough going. Understandably, it’s the only horror movie from writer/directors and married couple Beverly and Ferd [sic] Sebastian, who generally specialized in equally z-grade action fare like ‘GATOR BAIT and FLASH AND THE FIRECAT. This one does not exactly recommend the rest of their filmography, but although I cannot in good conscience tell you that ROCKTOBER BLOOD is worth your time (even if your time, like mine, is completely worthless) I cannot tell a lie, the last 15 minutes are kinda a hoot. If I really am damned to watch every metalsploitation movie ever made --and I am-- the last 15 minutes are a reminder that even at their very worst --and this is perilously close to the bottom of the barrel-- there’s still at least a germ of stupid fun in there. In this case, a lot more “You fuckin stupid chucklehead” than “that chick was stupid hawt,” but it’s still just barely there enough to give one hope.

And hey, some people have not only hope, but optimism which borders on madness. There’s currently an Indiegogo campaign to fund a sequel!

 Appendix A: Culture inspired by ROCKTOBER BLOOD:

The original soundtrack, featuring Sorcery w/ Nigel Benjamin, plus two other bands

The album cover to the 1985 debut of German power-metal band Helloween, which
obviously uses the iconic ROCKTOBER BLOOD mask-and-cape combo.

No joke, this is not a still from the movie. This is a real-life
ROCKTOBER BLOOD cosplay, with actual adults.

Alternate perspectives:

“It's like an updated version of Phantom Of The Paradise, only Rocktober Blood is better. The movie has interesting characters, a rad soundtrack, witty one-liners, good gore effects, funny moments, scary moments, sexy moments and is artistically made, with very cool lighting effects, and a beautiful stage set during the concert scene. The concert scene is one of the best in film history too.” -- Billy Larouqe, HMS

“Wow, this was great! Thanks for sharing!” -- polite youtube viewer Elvys Pena.

*Let’s all pause and take a moment to reflect on how perfect this picture of him cuddling fwuffy kitties is, though.

**I appreciate the classy touch of using roman numerals on a sequel to GATORBAIT.

***Sorcery also scored a track in Eli Roth’s KNOCK KNOCK. Their wikipedia page and many other sources online also claim they have a track in “Quentin Tarantino’s GRINDHOUSE,” but a thorough check of the IMDB pages for DEATH PROOF, PLANET TERROR, and GRINDHOUSE finds no evidence of this. Which is a shame, since I was pretty excited to review two movies in a row (this and BLADE IN THE DARK) which both have crappy scores by artists who later ended up in GRINDHOUSE. But alas, I can neither confirm nor definitively deny that Tarantino is a Sorcery fan, although I’m sure he’s seen them in Brian Trenchard-Smith’s STUNT ROCK, so it would stand to reason.

**** Another interesting thing about Sorcery? Apparently they were known for incorporating magic into their act. Says Hollywood Superstar Brian Trenchard-Smith  (who directed them in the aptly titled STUNT ROCK in 1980): “They're so stunt-oriented. Sorcery's seven members created every bit of their act themselves delivering a multi-media assault on the senses that, for the first time, effectively blends rock music with intricate illusions". (Says one bit of IMDB trivia on STUNT ROCK: “This picture is a unique genre hybrid. It is a rock music concert film, an action movie and both a documentary and rockumentary.” Looks like I’ll have to watch it at some point, even if Brian Trenchard-Smith calls it his worst movie. Which is really saying something.)

***** Yes, that means Christopher Nolan did steal this exact moronic twist for THE PRESTIGE.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2015 CHECKLIST!

Play it Again, Samhain

TAGLINE	He’s Back From the Dead With A Message From Hell!
LITERARY ADAPTATION	No
SEQUEL	None… yet. http://www.thescreamcast.com/2016/03/10/indiegogo-campaign-for-rocktober-blood-2-to-launch-in-april-rocktober-blood-blu-ray-also-announced/
REMAKE	None
DEADLY IMPORT FROM:	USA
FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK	No
SLUMMING A-LISTER	None
BELOVED HORROR ICON	None.
NUDITY?	Yup
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	No.
GORE?	Very little, but there is a beheading at the end.
MULLETS?	Oh yeah.
MONSTER?	No
UNDEAD?	Billy seems to return as a ghost
POSSESSION?	No
CREEPY DOLLS?	No
EVIL CULT?	None
SLASHER/GIALLO?	Yes, technically a slasher, just barely
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	No
VOYEURISM?	Yes, Billy’s constantly spying on her

OBSCURITY LEVEL	Extremely high
MORAL OF THE STORY	Rock Gods may be murderous, lying assholes, but they know their business.
TITLE ACCURACY	People do keep saying “Rocktober Blood ‘84 Tour” (John adds Blood “and Gore”) but it’s never really clear what exactly that means. Many reviews online seem to incorrectly take this to mean the band itself is named Rocktober Blood.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE?	N/A

And juuuuust barely. Only the final 15 minutes saves it from being unwatchable.