Trick or Treat featuring Gene Simmons and Ozzie Osbourne

In the $5.88 DVD bin at Wal-Mart there are wonders. Such cinematic milestones as Ernest Goes to Camp and the Omega Doom/Blind Fury (I heartily recommend this one), but the other night something in there happened to catch my eye. I thought I saw a familiar face as I was walking by. When I looked, it was indeed Gene Simmons on the cover and he was joined by Ozzie Osbourne in front of a burning building with a giant red skull on top of it. I knew this had to be a quality film so, of course, I rushed to buy it.

To get it out of the way early, Gene is a disc jockey and has about three scenes in the movie and Ozzie is a televangelist and has exactly two speaking scenes, very brief.

This is an 80's style teen horror flick with the questionable title of Trick or Treat. I suppose that is since it takes place around and on Halloween. There is a scene where a girl comes to the door and keeps saying "Trick or Treat, smell my feet." (Though she does not continue the rhyme) If studio geniouses can rename PTA's Sydney to Hard Eight from a small bit of dialogue, then I guess there is precedent for this weak sounding name. After all, isn't The Evil Dead a much better title than Necronomicon or Book of the Dead?

The story, such as it is, is that Black Metal Rocker Sammie Curr is told that he cannot play at his former high school's Halloween celebration, so in a rage Curr performs a Satanic ceremony in a hotel, which subsequently burns and kills him, to place his spirit inside a record and then proceeds to wreak havoc on the school when a local metal head is given the album by Gene Simmons and plays it at his home. The album contains backwards masking which tells the metal head to kill his oppressors in the school, preppies of course. All this leads to the finale at the Halloween dance where the true genious of Curr's plan is revealed as he kills a variety of faculty and students in a Carrie style bloodbath and finally gets to perform for the students.

There are the required two brief breast shots which were a staple of all 80s horror films, but the one thing that this film teaches us is that the way to kill undead demon rockers is to lure them into sticking their hands into a toilet and flushing it until they are electorcuted.

I think this movie is supposed to be a comedy, I'm not sure.

How is it that the one guy slips on water and flies down a flight of stairs when there are no stairs around, and in fact, there is only a door outside near him at the time? Further review of the tape may be necessary.

I take offense at the metal head wearing an Alternative Tentacles logo t-shirt at one point in the film. AT produces punk albums, not metal. Punkers and metalheads do not mix.

Things we learn other than the toilet bit from the film:

Rock stars truly are Satanic devil worshippers, or at least this one was.

Toasters and Blenders can channel the evils of rock and roll, just like speakers and radios can, so you had better destroy them as well.

Call waiting makes people feel like big shots.

When you have feelings of rage that no one else will understand, write to your favorite Metal superstar.

Studio master's of records are heavy and can survive hotel fires when people cannot.

Gene Simmons cannot stay awake until midnight.

And they say movies ain't educational.