ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE (1987)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE stars out with demons invading an old farmhouse and killing everyone there. Some days later, a heavy metal rock band named Triton-- named after lead singer John Triton (real heavy-metaller Jon-Mikl Thor)-- comes to stay at the farmhouse with the intention of getting away from civilization and making a recording of their next album. It's never clear who rented them the place given that the owners are all dead, but maybe the demons had a part interest in a realty company.

For most of this excruciatingly slow film, the rockers wander around the grounds, uttering banalities and intermittently getting knocked off by demons. None of the deaths are well done or imaginative, though the denouement does hold a minor surprise. When Beelzebub, a badly animated demon, approaches Triton to destroy the last of the victims, the singer suddenly manifests a killer musculature and a wealth of supernatural powers. The demon-lord then learns that none of the rockers were real, and that Triton is actually an angel sent to castigate the fiends for their evil deeds.

Dozens of cheap "demon house" films have appeared on video shelves, all ostensibly take place in Judeo-Christian universes where for no particular reason demons have utterly free reign. NIGHTMARE at least swims against that stultifying current. However, the screenplay-- written by Thor himself, who also produced-- is an incoherent mess, totally unable to give its one good idea any resonance.

The climactic fight between Triton and the demon just barely moves the goofy flick into the domain of the combative, though the battle features one of the silliest effects this side of Ed Wood, as Beelzebub (also called "Old Scratch") tries to defeat the angel by hurling rubber starfish to stick to his big ol' pecs. It's the only scene that deserves the phrase "so bad it's good," but NIGHTMARE isn't worth sitting through for just that one scene.