Rock 'n Roll Nightmare (1987) from Tuna

"Phil can't be dead or anything ... he would have called!"

Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, aka The Edge of Hell, is a low budget Canadian horror offering written by and starring Jon-Mikl Thor, who claims in a DVD special introduction that it is a cult classic with a huge fan base. Comments at IMDb do tend to support this claim, but Thor glossed over the reason why his film is so beloved. All of the appreciative fans love the fact that it is so bad it is good

The apparent plot is as follows:

A family is devoured in their house by an oven creature. Ten years later, we follow a van on the highway for ten minutes of screen time to find out that a heavy metal 80s hair band called Tritonz has rented the oven creature's abode to rehearse and record their next album free of distractions. Well, free of most distractions. They do bring their girl friends with them. Hey, they're rock stars. The band's leader is named John Triton, who is played by none other than the film's author, Jon-Mikl Thor. No sooner do the rockers take up quarters in the house than they start to get killed off by hand puppets - beginning with any women that show their breasts. Whoa. Turns out the oven creature was actually an oven mitt.

I said "apparent" plot because we learn after seventy minutes of such goings-on that nothing we have seen was real, and that Triton/Thor is actually an archangel who is battling Satan, who in turn has craftily used all of his resources to take on the exact appearance of the plastic Satan which pops out at people from every carnival's ghost train.

Why was Triton looking for Satan at that location? Who would ever have expected Satan to live in a run-down farmhouse in the Toronto area? Only an archangel can sense these things

Unfortunately the $53,000 budget could not allow for an actual actor to wear the Satan costume, so Triton/Thor actually does battle with the Satan costume itself, all the while pretending that it is fighting back, in the manner of Bela Lugosi battling the rubber octopus in Bride of the Monster. I think you can spot the weaknesses of that plot without further evaluation from me. In case you choose to watch the film, you might notice that the poor writing is compounded by many other liabilities. Nobody in the film can act, the editing is not tight, the hand puppets are simply silly, there isn't nearly enough nudity, the heavy metal music is grating, and the gore is amateurish.
 

DVD INFO

  • Commentary from director John Fasano and "heavy metal icon" Jon-Mikl Thor
  • Revelations of a Rock 'n' Roll Warrior - The life of Jon-Mikl Thor
  • Creating a Child-Wolf - Behind the scenes make up featurette
  • Rock 'n' Shock Memories - Rare footage from set of Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare
  • Music videos
  • Liner notes by Ian Jane
  • New Video Introduction and Afterword by Jon-Mikl Thor!

NUDITY REPORT

Teresa Simpson and Jillian Peri show their breasts

Scoop's notes

 

"I'll see you again, Old Scratch."
 The final words of Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare

 

* Fans will be glad to know that Rock 'n Roll Nightmare finally has a sequel - a brand-new 2005 sequel. Jon Mikl Thor didn't write the sequel, but he produced it and acted in the title role. Oh, sure, you had to wait eighteen years until Triton could keep his word and see Old Scratch again, but I'm sure it must have been worth it to see The Intercessor: Another Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare. Actually, I'm just going to have to leave that as an assumption, since I have no intention of seeing the sequel. This one is rated 1.8 at IMDb, compared to 2.8 for the original. But I won't say I'm not curious.
* John Mikl Thor has IMDb credits in the 1986-1987 period, and then again between 2003 and 2005. Not one single credit in the fifteen years in between. Can it be any coincidence that the traditional battle time between Satan and a good angel is exactly fifteen Earth years? I think not.
* Ya gotta love a movie in which one of the lead characters is named Roger Eburt.
* And you thought the monsters in Alien were scary?

The Critics Vote ...

  • No major reviews online. Many of the "bad movie" sites created pages for this film. Check the IMDb listing for details.

 

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

  • A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
  • B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
  • C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
  • C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
  • C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
  • D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
  • E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
  • F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

 

Based on this description, this film is a C-, with the genre being "entertainingly bad movies." It is the Citizen Kane of Evil Oven Mitt movies. If the genre is horror, the score is farther along in the alphabet. In fact, I'm not certain it can be encompassed within the mere 26 letters of the English alphabet. How many letters do they have in Russian? It's down somewhere near я

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