This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 3: Spooky Fun Night
Heavy Metal Horror From Hell!
Black Roses (1988)
Black Roses is
great campy horror movie fun. Wikipedia lists the genre as Metalsploitation,
which it absolutely is, but I prefer calling it Heavy Metal Horror. The plot is
right out of an out of touch, uptight parent’s nightmare. You might think that
this movie was made to let parents of the 1980’s know that they were right
along: heavy metal music is from Hell and turning your kids against you.
The Black Roses, a hair metal band popular with teens but
feared by parents, is starting their first ever world tour in the sleepy town
of Mill Basin. It’s not clear if this town is in the United States or Canada; a
town meeting displays the flags of both nations. The Black Roses have never
played outside of the studio so their shows in Mill Basin are a very big deal
for the teens of the town that idolize the band. A brawl breaks out in the
school parking lot when one teen takes another’s Black Roses record. He punches
out one kid, then picks another up and throws him on the pavement like it’s a
WWE match. Why begin the tour in such a quiet, nowhere town? The lead singer,
Damien, explains in a surprisingly casual conversation with Mr. Moorhouse,
the high school English teacher, that the band’s plan is to start small, work
out the kinks in their show, and then play Madison Square Garden.
Parents are
in an uproar because of the band’s antisocial lyrics and use of evil images
(namely a drawing of a skull that you might find in the Halloween decorations
at your grocery store). The adults in town attend the first show and the Black
Roses play a soft new wave song that puts the parents at ease. After the
parents leave, the real show begins. In a flash the band’s costumes change from
suits to leather galore and the music gets heavy.
The special effects are low budget and cheesy but so is
everything else. In the most memorable scene, Vincent Pastore is sucked into a
stereo speaker by a gross insect like monster when he tries to turn off his
son’s Black Roses record. As the band plays their shows over several nights,
the teens of the town become more and more corrupted. When Mr. Moorhouse is
driving through town there are teens making out in the streets, teens robbing
an old woman, and a group of teens kicking someone on the ground just because.
And all of these corrupt teens are wearing leather. Mr. Moorhouse buys dynamite
from…someone to blow up the band and save the town. Some of the teens at the
concert turn into monsters, others poof into skeletons, and others just seems
to be having a good time. Nothing in this movie makes sense and that is what makes it
enjoyable.
Yes, Black Roses
is campy and ridiculous. Yes, Black Roses
is so-bad-it’s-good. The dialogue is stock and performances range from mediocre
to acceptable. Despite it all, this movie never stops being fun. Black Roses is a movie to put on and
have a horror themed good time. This is technically a horror movie but there is
nothing very scary about it. If you like Mystery Science Theater 3000, you’ll
have a good time watching Black Roses
(just pretend Crow and Tom Servo are with you). It’s hard to say how seriously
the filmmakers took the material, but whatever their intention, the result is
undeniably bad and undeniably entertaining. Since its release Black Roses has become a cult classic.
No comments:
Post a Comment