BLACK ROSES (1988)

THIS TIME IT'S A HALLOWEEN MOVIE RECOMMENDATION BY ZIPPY THE CO-WORKER.  From the director of ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE and THE JITTERS John Fasano, comes this fun visit to hair metal 80's horror that's a yearly rewatch tradition by my co-worker Zippy.  Metal band Black Roses with frontman Damian (Sal Viviano -- also of THE JITTERS) seem to have the Devil as their manager.  They decide to play their first live show ever (!) outside the studio in a white-picket-fence community where the adults are conservative sticks-in-the-mud and the teenagers are all "yearning to be free" of the dull town.  John Martin plays their "with-it, hip and groovy" lit teacher who really connects with the "kids" and becomes what amount's to the movie's hero;  you can tell he's the hero because he has a Magnum P.I. mustache so how can he NOT be?!?! 

On the first night of Black Roses' performance, the uptight adults stay for about 3 minutes of the group's first song (an innocuous little ditty) and promptly leave.  Then Black Roses breaks out the metal.  Gee, those adults weren't TOO worried about the satanic music corrupting their kids, were they, if they only devoted about 3 minutes to it before deciding Black Roses were harmless!  One metal performance, however, turns the teens into demon-possessed killers.  Horror fans will find their hearts go pitter-pat with the inclusion of the late, great Julie Adams (from THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) in the cast.  There are goofy rubber monsters galore in this terrible but extremely entertaining little 80's horror flick which seems to say Tipper Gore was right!