Trick or Treat Movie Review

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Trick or Treat is not a good horror film, not good by any means. Yet, where it fails on a horror level it ultimately succeeds as a time capsule capturing a brief musical era. In the same way Saturday Night Fever perfectly captures the height of disco fever, and Dig presumably captures a rock revival, Trick or Treat captures the height of heavy metal fervor. During the late 80s hair bands ruled. This was the era of KISS, Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest and numerous other head-banging entities. This was when metal was still cool and rebellious.

This was before grunge made metal a laughingstock just a few years later. Being a heavy metal aficionado, I thoroughly enjoyed this film on that level. The plot is simple and stupid. Skippy from Family Ties is one of heavy metal's is enfranchised youths (apparently the only person in his school who likes metal). He's from a broken home and is full of rage (although we never buy his angst for one second, I mean, it's Skippy for Christ sake!). Skippy worships Sammi Curr. His devotion is reflected in his bedroom where we see a virtual shrine to his rock God.

Pathetic Skippy is in the middle of composing a letter to Sammi when he hears the shocking news Sammi Curr has died! When Skippy goes to his local radio station in tears, Gene Simmons (from KISS), a Howard Stern type DJ, gives Skippy the ultimate gift, the only copy of Sammi's new album, the original album pressing. Now, I'm pretty certain that CDs came out like a year later so this film immediately looks dated.

Anyway, Skippy soon learns that by playing the album backwards he's able to talk to Sammi. By time it's too late, Skippy unleashes Sammi through this strange album pressing. Sammi begins attacking people (he's full of rage, you see). Somewhere in this film there's a humorous scene of Ozzy Osbourne, playing a preacher decrying heavy metal. Anyway, the rest of the film takes on a Carrie-esce kind of feel at the school prom. Like I said, a really stupid horror film but a great heavy metal time capsule.

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