Trick or Treat

1986's TRICK OR TREAT has a lot of fun with all the brouhaha that surrounded rock music in the 1980s.  Namely, all the church groups and concerned parents who were obsessed with finding hidden messages within.  Playing records backwards to discover that, yes pastor, that long haired rock hero is saying Satan is good.  That's what they wanted to hear, anyway.  I'm sure more than one artist was toying with the public, utilizing "backmasking" to taunt the emerging Religious Right and other authority figures.  The whole devil worship thing was largely a gimmick for most bands.

Actor Charles Martin Smith (AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THE UNTOUCHABLES) makes his directorial debut with this heavy metal horror flick that mostly delivers on its premise.  Eddie (Marc Price) is a high school outcast who goes by "Ragman" and worships metal acts like Motley Crue and Megadeth.  His fave is Sammi Curr (Tony Fields), a brash performer who is an alumnus of Eddie's school and was supposed to play the upcoming Halloween dance but his behavior got him banned. Then he gets himself killed in a hotel fire.  Crushed, Eddie goes to his pal Nuke (Gene Simmons), a local DJ and former classmate of Curr's.  It just so happens that Nuke has the vinyl of Sammi's final, unreleased album.  

Eddie excitedly drops the tone arm on the acetate.  And yup, he starts playing it backwards to see if there are any hidden messages.  There certainly are: Sammi himself speaks.  From beyond the grave.  Instructing him to get back at those preppie bullies who regularly humiliate him.  Empowering, satisfying (the chase ending with the fire extinguisher is a great scene), but soon it's clear the Ghost of Curr has some pretty evil notions.  Will Eddie become possessed? Can he stop the path of death to come?

The screenplay by Joel Soisson, Michael S. Murphey, and Rhet Topham tips its hat to several movies, including CARRIE and CHRISTINE, favorably.  There are some wise digs at rock and roll lifestyles and the record biz.  Plenty of laughs.  I'm not sure how many metal horror flicks there are out there but this has to be one of the best.  Some good tension and sufficient menace from Fields.  Good atmosphere. Not really scary, other than the scenes where perfectly good stereo components are smashed. 

You wouldn't expect Price, best known for playing Skippy on Family Ties and Smith (who has a brief cameo as a teacher), with his patented nerd persona to be involved in a movie like this but hooray for Hollywood.

TRICK OR TREAT, lamely titled, is vintage DEG shlock, photographed by none other than Robert Elswit.  Fastway contributes kickass songs.  Ozzy Osbourne plays a religious figure rallying on TV about the dangers of rock music.  Unfortunately, the finale fizzles, but at least it includes a Pinto station wagon driving itself in reverse.