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Rocksploitation Horror Of The 80s: Big Hair Gone Bad

The 1980s, and time of big hair rock music and bad b-movie horror. The two were destined to be brought to together in an unholy alliance of rocksploitation horror. Throughout the decade film-makers exploited the huge popularity of heavy metal, from demonic soundtracks and demented cameo appearances by rising rock stars, to full blown rock themed schlock horror. Heavy metal in particular lending itself perfectly to strange straight-to-video movies, filling the top shelves and bargain bins of the video stores on every street corner throughout the 80s hey days of video rental.

Here we present some of the best and mostly the very worst of those 80s rocksploitation horror hey days. From big budget classics to forgotten low-budget nonsense, we've picked a movie for each year of the decade. Covering the full breadth of the now obscure movie genre.  
Terror On Tour (1980): From the director of women behinds bars Nazi sexploitation cult classic Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS (1975), comes the first offering on our decadent decade count down. An utterly awful throw-away piece of straight-to-video slasher nonsense, that starts bad and spirals down into the pits of cheesy rock hell from there. Telling the story (for what it's worth) of a cut-price Kiss rip-off band called The Clowns, who are playing a week long set of gigs, where a series of grisly murders occur. The Clowns were actually played by a real band, called The Names, who harked from Rockford, Illinois. And as far as I can tell only ever released one single.

One of the actors in the movie Larry Thomas, actually went so far as to apologise for his part in the movie on IMDb. Saying, "I hope whoever has to see me in this film will understand my horror that it still exists." For those poor unfortunates that have bothered to sit through Terror On Tour, without fail rate it as the worst movie they have ever had to misfortune to witness. And it's very likely that if the movie wasn't so rare and obscure, it would easily rank as one of the worst movies of all time. Fortunately during the rest of the decade, film-makers jumping on the rocksploitation horror bandwagon would do a better job than the farce that is Terror On Tour. Then again, a toddler with a camera and face paint could do better.
Heavy Metal (1981): An animated spin-off of the infamous Heavy Metal magazine. A collection of short stories lifted from the pages of the magazine about sci-fi, fantasy, eroticism and horror. Like the magazine, the anthology of stories feature plenty of graphic violence, sex and nudity. Pure titillation for adolescent metal-heads. The movie did the rounds of the Midnight movie circuit during the early and mid-80s. The soundtrack album released alongside the movie featured such 1970s and 80s rock luminaries as Sammy Hagar, Blue Öyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick and Nazareth. The movie had everything any lank haired, spotty, AC/DC T-shirt wearing, Dungeon & Dragons playing, teenage outcast could wet dream for.

Almost 20 years later, a straight-to-video sequel was released, Heavy Metal 2000. After the release of 2000, a third film has been in various stages of development since. With reports ranging from David Fincher, James Cameron, Zack Snyder, and Guillermo del Toro all being rumoured to direct segments. Then in 2011, Robert Rodriguez announced that he had purchased the film rights to Heavy Metal.
Pink Floyd The Wall (1982): Okay, so not exactly rocksploitation horror, but 1982 was a surprisingly lean year for the genre. Though it does centre around the spiral into madness of a rock star called Pink, played by Bob Geldof, so it could be called a rocksploitation psychological horror (of sorts). The surreal rock opera based on Pink Floyd's 1979 concept album of the same name, is a dark examination of child trauma, abandonment and personal isolation. Lyricist Roger Waters based the character of Pink on both his own personal experiences, and those of ex-band member Syd Barrett. All making for a deeply depressing movie with a killer prog rock soundtrack.

In addition to the live-action the film contains fifteen minutes of elaborate animation sequences by the political cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe. Including the iconic marching hammers and the teacher stuffing school kids into a meat grinder. Which featured in the music video for the song Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), the most well known song from the album. The song reached number one in the charts in 17 countries across the world.
Blödaren (1983): (AKA The Bleeder) The first ever slasher film released in Sweden, and the first ever Swedish produced horror film. The film never had an international release, and as such has gained a minor cult status outside of Sweden, and is considered a cheesy cult classic in its home country. The plot revolves around a female rock band called the Rock Cats. A bunch of teased, leather and leopard print spandex wearing rock chicks.The band are touring across the country, playing awful glam rock to audiences of a dozen people. Travelling between gigs their mini-bus breaks down on a secluded road, leaving them stranded in the near an abandoned village. Soon they become the play things of The Bleeder, a creepy tongue wagging weirdo who pushes a baby's pram through the woods.

A slasher film with no slashing involved, as The Bleeder strangles the air-heads to death. So what we have here a Swedish slasher film, with no gore, no nudity, not a lot going for it at all actually. Apparently the director's other job was an editor of a rock magazine, and many of the actors involved were involved in the Swedish rock music scene, The Bleeder himself being the drummer in a band called Attack.
Monster Dog (1984): (AKA Leviatán, The Bite and Los Perros de la Muerte) An Italian werewolf horror film, starring shock rock icon Alice Cooper. The movie begins with the shooting of Vince Raven's (Cooper) new music video, for his song Identity Crisis. Vince and the crew head to his old home, to shoot a new video, where locals are being attacked by a wild pack of dogs, lead by the Monster Dog. Actually the two unreleased Alice Cooper songs is all you'll hear from the man himself, as they dubbed over his voice for the rest of the film. What follows is below par werewolf b-movie, in which Alice Copper's appearance is the only redeeming feature. Rumour has it that Alice Cooper was told that the film was being produced for the Filipino distribution market only. But it was never released over there, and instead made its way onto many a video store shelf in the United States and parts of Europe two years after it was initially released in Italy.

Aside from the two unreleased Alice Cooper songs, the other two tracks in the movie were provided by the British prog rock duo The Alan Parsons Project.
Hard Rock Zombies (1985): Originally the movie was only conceived as "feature" to be shown within the 1985 comedy American Drive-In. However at some point during production there was a decision made to make it into a full blown real film. A seen to be believed piece of rocksploitation part horror come musical madness, featuring zombies, redneck Nazis, deformed midgets, fetishism, and Adolf Hitler and his girlfriend who turns into a werewolf, thrown in for good measure. Sound confusing? It gets worse! To call Hard Rock Zombies a musical is a stretch, but it does drop into random musical montage moments, that are filmed like they are music videos. Before it then returns to the utterly confusing action. Sure you could claim that they are playing it for laughs, but any laughs are thin on the ground. And those moments when you do, aren't the ones the film-makers intended you to laugh at. Hard Rock Zombies teeters on the edge of so-bad-its-good and just simply being b-movie badness.

The soundtrack was written by Paul Sabu, who also wrote songs for Trick Or Treat (1986), and the song Scream Until you Like It for Ghoulies II (1988), which was performed by infamous shock rockers W.A.S.P.
Trick Or Treat (1986): My personal favourite on the list, that features cameo appearances by rock gods Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy brief appearance as an anti-heavy metal music evangelical preacher, is just one of the best moments in all of rocksploitation horror. The movie tells the story of high school outcast and metal fan Eddie, who worships rock star Sammi Curr. Curr mysteriously dies in hotel fire, only to resurrected by Eddie, when he plays Curr's last ever recording backwards. Oh yes, Trick Or Treat plays on the whole heavy metal backmasking paranoia of the 1980s, and does it well. Not only one of the best rocksploitation movies of the 80s ever made, it's simply a perfect slice of dodgy 80s teen horror.

Most of songs in the movie are written and performed by the band Fastway which consisted of former Motorhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke, and Flogging Molly vocalist Dave King. The songs were co-composed by Christopher Young, who would go onto write soundtracks for classic 80s horror movies like the Hellraiser series, Nightmare On Elm Street 2 and The Fly II.
Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare (1987): (AKA The Edge Of Hell) An insane straight-to-video movie that just has to be seen. Written, produced and starring the self proclaimed "Legendary Rock Warrior" Jon Mikl Thor, who was the lead singer with the Canadian heavy metal band Thor. As well as being the first Canadian to win both Mr. Canada and Mr. USA body building titles. So with all that in mind what you get with Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare is a masterpiece of self indulgent madness, that was shot on a minuscule budget of around $50,000 in just 7 days. And unlike most of the low-budget rocksploitation on this list, this one does actually rock!!! And for all the wonderful over-the-top ridiculous reasons you would expect it to.

In a mysterious farmhouse turned recording studio, heavy metal band Triton come up against the ultimate evil, and must do battle with the Devil himself, in the deliciously bad final show-down of the movie. In the run up we get treated to every cringing cliché of low-budget horror and heavy metal music videos, all thrown in together. Whole songs played in full earnest rock glory, sex, nudity, insanely bad rubber monsters. Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare couldn't be any cheesier if it had tried. And it's all the better for it. All the best b-movies are made in full artistic earnestness, and this doesn't disappoint. Jon Mikl Thor inadvertently made a b-movie comedy classic, and should be applauded for it.
Black Roses (1988): An all out unabashed piece of rocksploitation, that has gained a cult following among heavy metal fans over the years. Pushing the notion that heavy metal is the Devil's music to the ultimate degree, by having a band (Black Roses) as a literal demonic band the possesses fans with its music. The band lead by charismatic and deeply cheesy lead singer Damian, brain-wash, possess and turn into demons the impressionable teenagers of small town America. He must be a demon, after all his mullet seems to appear and disappear during the movie. Apparently the actor was asked to re-shoot some scenes, after he'd cut his hair. The film-makers must have assumed no one would notice, in among all the bad acting and awful cheesy rock music. I can understand why many consider Black Roses such a classic slice of 80s cheese, that will only really be appreciated by those of us who were teenagers during those god awful years of big hair and bad movies.

The Black Roses songs were written and performed by members of King Kobra, who also had one of their own songs featured in the movie, written by King Kobra guitarist David Michael-Philips. Drummer and founding member of King Kobra,  Carmine Appice also appeared in the movie. The soundtrack also featured songs by Lizzy Borden, Tempest and Hallow's Eve.
Heavy Metal Massacre (1989): And finally, last and very much least, probably one of the worst and most obscure on the whole list. What can be said about Heavy Metal Massacre? An over-blown self-indulgent nightmare, that must have been made after a rock 'n' roll coke binge. There is no other explanation for this utter abomination. The ultimate in what-were-they-thinking movies, just cheap-rate the straight-to-video front cover says enough. With its pouting big hair metal reject clutching a chainsaw, looks about as menacing as... Well about as menacing as pouting big hair metal reject. 

Now I'll admit I've not seen this movie, I don't want to. I've seen clips and read reviews that have warned me not to waste precious time on it. Often I ignore such warnings, and dive straight in regardless. But in this case, I am heeding the warnings. And what bits I have managed to glean from the Weird Wide Web have made me feel as If I was looking into the world of a film-maker who should never been allowed in front of a camera. It was written and produced by said loser David DeFalco, who played the lead role under the name Bobbi Young. The supposed serial killer on the loose in a heavy metal club, looks like I could knock his bleach blond ass down with a feather. You have to wonder if he ever lived down this coke snorting ego trip.
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