Tagline: "What are you afraid of? It's only Rock 'N Roll ..."
What The Tagline Should Be: "Like Cheesy 80's Hair Metal? You're Darn Skippy!"
Synopsis:
Choosing "Trick Or Treat" was not a difficult procedure. It was in the $5.88 DVD bin at Wal-Mart. It listed Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne as the stars, yet the pictures of them on the cover are obviously not from the film. Honestly, the movie was filmed in 1986 and the picture of Ozzy is from his "No More Tears" album (1991). The picture of Gene is even worse and looks like something out of a Rogaine catalog. On the back cover is a picture of the most lousy looking monster I have ever seen. Truly, this was a good time to be had.
What can I say about this film? It is ridiculous. It is utterly and completely ridiculous. That being said, it was everything I expected it to be and I was thoroughly pleased. The effects are dreadful and the acting is pitiful. Regardless of what the cover touts, the star of this film is neither Osbourne (total screen time: three minutes) nor Simmons (total screen time: six minutes) but Marc Price, best known as Skippy from television's "Family Ties." If you can get past the idiocy of Skippy as a dangerous loner, then you are supposed to believe the frighteningly pathetic sounds of heavy metal band Fastway are channeling the Devil, himself. (Now, as a Christian, I must say that I have a much healthier respect for the Adversary and hope he is able to express his nefariousness on a much grander scale. That being said, he's defeated anyway.) One must wonder who Satan's Minister Of Information is. His minions are always depicted as painfully inadequate.
Story Overview:
... from "The Movie Cliché Files": An outcast has no friends, save for one gentleman slightly geekier than himself. The outcast is picked on and beaten upon by jocks. The outcast is befriended by a beautiful, sympathetic girl. The beautiful, sympathetic girl invites the outcast to a gathering only to have the jocks intercept the outcast and make a fool of him. The outcast naturally assumes the beautiful, sympathetic girl was in on the plan. The outcast plots his revenge.
Think "Carrie," only different ...
That brief excerpt from "The Movie Cliché Files" pretty much sums up the bulk of "Trick Or Treat." Earlier in the film we find that Skippy's hero, Sammi Curr (think of W.A.S.P.'s Blackie Lawless coming out of Alice Cooper's anal cavity), has met his end in a hotel fire. Skippy drops in on radio DJ Nuke (Simmons), who seems reasonably creeped out by Skippy's reaction. Nonetheless, Nuke goes against his better judgment and gives Skip the only existing copy of Curr's last album to cherish! Well, it's the only existing copy except for the taped copy Nuke is going to play at midnight on Halloween ... from there we fall into the above mentioned plot crutch, only to find Skippy falling under the spell of Curr's evil spirit. How does Curr's spirit come to him? It comes to him when he plays his album backwards, of course! Naturally, the music is indistinguishable whether played frontwards or backwards. Did I mention Sammi's ghost comes through the television set and strangles televangelists through the screen? Did I mention that he becomes a fog, comes through some headphones, undresses a girl, and becomes a goblin? Does any of this make sense? I assure you the plot is as asinine and choppy as it sounds. After a prom scene which features Curr's triumphant return to the school he was once banned from, he proceeds to shoot pyrotechnics of doom from his guitar until finally outwitted by Skippy. Since Sammi can only appear where his hideous Monsters Of Rock soundtrack is playing, Skippy and his lady friend finally succeed in shutting down Nuke's midnight performance ... and trap Sammi in the back of a police car where they drown him to death ... again.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I ruin the ending for you? Overall, this is an excellent bad film ... It's been a long time since I've laughed this hard.
Top Five Things To Look For:
Amazing Disappearing/Reappearing Bra Straps
Peek-A-Boo Boom Mike
Midget Ash
Car Jacked Up
The Never-ending Can Of Pepsi
Line Of The Film:
"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?" --Televangelist Aaron Gilstrom reading lyrics from the album "Do It Like A Dog." What does it mean to me? I have no bloody idea.
Objectionable Material:
The film, dealing with the subject of Satanic heavy metal, is of course littered with pentagrams and other symbols of outcast Devil worship. Although implied, there are no serious scenes of blatant Satanic imagery or substance. Even so, it may still provide a measure of discomfort for some. There is a moderate amount of cursing throughout the film, although it is not pervasive. The most objectionable material found is the nudity. We have pretty explicit "Skippy-in-the-lockerroom" nudity at around the five minute mark. We have basic "teenage-girls-at-a-pool-party" nudity at the fifteen minute mark. Last, but certainly not least, we have some gritty "sex-with-a-green-fog" nudity at the forty minute mark. It is certainly a strong R rating.
Shriek Siren:
Elise Richards
Ms. Richards plays generic valley girl Geenie Wooster. How generic, you ask? Ms. Richards' only other acting job was in the seldom scene "Valet Girls," playing the equally generic Cindy. You might call her a has-been. You might call her a never-was. Nonetheless, she explodes onto the scene here in "Trick Or Treat," cementing her role in B-movie history forever. First, she gives the main character the proverbial "Why do you have to be so darn creepy?" speech. Seriously, it needed to be asked. Secondly, she loses her clothing in short order with some sexually promiscuous fog which turns into a lecherous goblin. She doesn't stick around long after that. All in all, she bares a striking resemblance to a young Lori Loughlin, which in this cesspool of eighties big hair is more than enough than secure her as our Siren.
Moral Of The Story:
You should make friends with the creepy outcasts in your school. If you don't, they might summon the ghosts of crappy hair metal bands to kill you.
