udar55 John Triton (Jon Mikl Thor, who also scripted) and his band Triton rent a secluded farm house that has a 24 track recording studio built in the barn so the group can prepare for a tour and get down ten minutes of new material. What they don't know is that this place just happens to be a portal to hell and soon folks are getting offed faster that Eddie Van Halen's fingers on the guitar. BLACK ROSES director John Fasano proved himself heavy metal horror ready with this debut feature. Well, he proved he could make a film in focus and throw a few monsters around. This starts out as a standard horror yarn but takes a decidedly odd twist at the end. The film is pretty rough around the edges (I had to listen to the audio commentary to figure out what the final two scenes were about), but if you have an itch for big hair and Beelzebub, it will fit the bill. The film appears to have some sort of cult following, most likely due to hipsters digging the totally 80s look and the toned Thor, who really is the poster boy for 80s muscle bound metal.

Coventry Undoubtedly one of the most pointless and annoying trends in the world of 80's cinema were the horror/hard rock music hybrids. Presumably inspired by the success of "Heavy Metal" (1981), the eighties spawned a whole series of movies in which untalented and ridiculous looking rock band members suddenly found themselves trapped in all sorts of horrific situations like zombie infested little towns, cannibalistic mountain families, demoniacally possessed farmhouses etc… "Rock & Roll Nightmare" is just one of them, but there's also "Blood Tracks", "Terror on Tour", "Black Roses", "Rocktober Blood" and "Hard Rock Zombies". The problem with these movies, however, is that they are terrible for all the obvious reasons. The already thin and derivative story lines are too frequently interrupted to show integral clips of atrocious rock songs, the players are goofy looking amateur musicians without any form of acting skills, budgetary restrictions left right and center, incredibly cheesy special effects and zero amount of suspense. This particular dud, written as well as produced and starring the unimaginably pompous Jon Mikl Thor, plays in an entirely separate league of awful, though. The pre-credits opening sequence is the best part of the whole film, but it promptly goes downhill from there onwards. One windy morning at a secluded countryside farm, a mother calls her husband and young son down for breakfast but she senses there's a sinister presence floating around her kitchen. Only a few moments later the father and son discover the heavily burned and mutilated woman inside the oven. Albeit pretty cheesy and totally random, this intro falsely raises the impression of being the start of a good old-fashioned 80's horror gem, but you seriously shouldn't get your hopes up. The exaggeratedly overlong and boring sequence showing only a white van driving up to the farm already makes it pretty clear that Jon Mikl Thor didn't have much of a story to tell. This is the sort of scene that you use to display the credits, but they already did that prior, so the van's journey actually qualifies as padding footage and we're barely five minutes into the film. Thor is the lead singer/songwriter of a band called The Tritons, and he ordered his fellow band members and their girlfriends to the remote farmhouse – which has a completely operational recording studio set up in the barn – to rehearse and record a new album as well as practice their podium act. Triton's posse exists of a bunch of imbeciles, including a nerdy producer, a drummer with a horrendously fake Australian accent and a couple of very much in love newlyweds (very rock & roll, you guys!). Luckily for everybody, it only takes a couple of stupid rocks songs before the demonic forces get fed up with the band's presence and start taking over their personalities. "Rock & Roll Nightmare" is a boring and soporific ordeal with absolutely nothing recommendable in it. Over 75% of the film is irrelevant and shameless padding footage, mainly extravagant stage acts and gratuitous soft-core sex sequences, and the actual "evil forces" plot is underdeveloped. The special effects are pitiable, with cute one-eyed demon monsters that look more like cartoon characters and a disappointing lack of bloodshed. Director John Fasano often attempts to imitate the classic "The Evil Dead", especially through hectic camera motions up the stairs and uncanny sound effects, but actually this turkey doesn't even deserve to mentioned in one and the same sentence with Sam Raimi's classic. Joh Mikl Thor and his rock buddies are imbeciles with hideous outfits and embarrassing hairstyles, and their movie should disappear into oblivion. Apparently there's also a belated sequel called "Intercessor: Another Rock & Roll Nightmare"… Excuse me for not ever going to watch that.

jonathan-577 I had my movie geek friends over for beer and they were like, Jon-Mikl Thor? Whodat? I said "huh"? They emailed our friend who writes a bad movie zine and she hasn't seen it either. This freaks me out. The Intercessor's light is dimming. We must all join hands and shout it to the world. So I made them watch it, and it rocked the house! Seeing it again I realized this is bad in a bad, bad way: these people are not conscious of the crime they are committing, and that is what makes it rock so hard. Thor says that in the end he was supposed to be up on a big hydraulic platform with lightning and sh*t fighting the Alien but they couldn't afford it, so that phenomenal Platonic dialogue at the end is actually a golden Stonehenge moment. Nothing beats the fake Australian for me, although when the idiot hoser landlord turns and goes "heh heh you'll see" it does momentarily steal the movie. What exactly is Thor talking to his friends about in the van that inspires him to those strange gestures? And really, did we really need the camera to pan down to Thor's ass in the shower scene? It was totally uncalled for, especially since he was already winning the Battle of the Boobs. Did he throw in the "Scarborough chapter of the Tritonz Fan Club" as a sop to Gerald Pratley?! Finally, be advised that my girlfriend got me the soundtrack for Christmas...and THERE IS ACTUALLY A TRACK CALLED "I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN, OLD SCRATCH."

movieman_kev There are movies that exist out there that are so awful, so bad, that they're good "Filthy McNasty", "Class of Nuke em High" the first Troll film, and on and on. This putrid little horror cheapie that is Rock N Roll Nightmare is definitely NOT on of those. This Jon Mikl Thor starring piece of crap is so bad that I revs past bad, soars past 'so bad, it's good' and takes a firm nosedive into 'so bad that it's freaking terrible' territory. No redeeming value whatsoever. My 2 year old niece can do better than this celluloid waste. I kept hearing about how the last 10 minutes made sitting through the rest of the film worthwhile. Well no and no. Thor tells a foam latex devil puppet that he had tricked him, gets pelted with clay starfish, and that's pretty much it. Yeah that was so worth sitting through boring minutes of nothing but a car driving down the road, so worth watching people wash dishes, and endless scenes of filler and padding. I love heavy metal, i love low-budget horror flicks, so one would think i'd love a combination of the two...right?? WRONG. Do yourself a favor, bub, go rent "Trick or Treat", "Rocktober Blood" or pretty much any metal/horror hybrid and leave this one in the dust bin where it belongs. Followed by a sequel!!!! That I hear is even worse (is that even possible) DVD Extras: Commentary by Director John Fasano and actor Jon-Mike Thor (the latter also provides a video intro & afterwards); 15 minute interview with Thor; 13 minute behind the scenes make-up featurette; 21 minutes of rare footage from the set; and two music videos Eye Candy: Both Jillian Peri and Teresa Simpson get topless My Grade: F