Tear down the walls! 66 Crush!
Fall of 1986. Rob Saunders and I were out running around town on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and saw that Trick or Treat was playing at the Suffolk Plaza Theater in downtown Suffolk. We got there just in time to see the previews and such before the movie started. I knew the guy who was the weekend manager and he gave us free popcorn and drinks which was very cool.
The only thing I really knew about this movie was that it was a horror flick and that it had a heavy metal soundtrack. That was enough for me to want to see it. So the movie starts and I see Skippy Handelman from Family Ties as “the metalhead”. OK, not very fitting but whatever. I was tripping out in the movie because of the various posters and albums he had. Great stuff! Lizzy Borden!
Gene Simmons played a good role as a DJ who gets killed by Sammi Curr. Ozzy played a TV preacher and gets killed too. I really do love this movie. The guy who played Sammi Curr, Tony Fields, died on my birthday in 1995. Up until recently most websites said it was complications due to AIDS, but now I see on the IMDB site that it’s listed as “cancer secondary to the AIDS virus”. The dude was a Solid Gold dancer before doing this movie. Apparently he was in the Thriller video and Lionel Richie’s Running With The Night. So yeah, AIDS most likely. Whatever, he did a fine job in this movie.
Sure, the acting is pretty bad but the story line always hit home for me a little bit. Being practically the only metalhead in my school for a few years, I suffered some of the same silly taunting from the jocks and preppies like Eddie Weinbauer (Skippy!) did in the movie. Unfortunately I didn’t have a dead rock star to conjure up and reak my revenge during a school dance. hahahaha…lucky bastards!
Oh…the soundtrack. Fastway. Not their greatest effort but listenable just the same.
I bought it on DVD a few years back but it is not a quality version. I’ll have to check to see if a better version was ever put out. One can only hope. I think I’ll watch this movie again tonight. It’s been about a year or so.
Written by The Metal Files
March 9, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Posted in 1986
Tagged with family ties, fast eddie clarke, fastway, gene simmons, heavy metal, kiss, lizzy borden, mark price, motorhead, north carolina, ozzy, pentagram, portsmouth catholic high school, skippy handelman, suffolk, the metal files, tony fields, va, www.themetalfiles.com
5 Responses
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The Metal Files 
I like this movie too. I have the DVD as well. I don’t think a better version has been released. I was just asking Bill Lindsey of Impaler about his band’s album appearing in this movie when I interviewed him the other week. Looking at all the metal posters, albums and cassettes in this film is fun as well.
Metal Mark
March 11, 2009 at 7:42 am
Ya know dude I dont think I have ever watched this movie in whole. I’ve only seen bits and pieces. I dont know why it never struck a chord with me and I was pretty much in the same boat as you in school……well I had a few metalhead friends but not many at good ole NSA. Im also, as you well know, a HUGE horror fan so why I never took the time to watch this is beyond me. Looks like Im gonna have to track this down.
Coffindan
March 12, 2009 at 6:51 am
I found it new for $5 a few years back. I’m sure copies are plentyful.
Sean
March 12, 2009 at 6:58 am
dude, you know way too much about solid gold dancers (somehow i am not surprised)…i always thought that the tunes shoulda rocked way more, since sammi comes out like a tuffguy and then prances – but hey, it was better than nothing in terms of heavy soundtrackness (i was never into fastway in the first place)…have not seen this in years…poor skippy getting ragged on at school…thank god i had pinheads like coffindan to talk tunes with, although i had my doubts about his sanity when he took the ‘tommy lee is better than nicko’ stand on sporty drumness…if i’da had a lunchroom fork it might have gotten pokey in that hallway…
kelz
March 12, 2009 at 8:23 am
I wrote a few articles about this film, the last one being for Metal Maniacs. It’s so God-awful after the first hour, which perfectly captures what metalheads’ lives were generally like in the eighties, but this film is always dear to my heart.
rayvanhornjr
March 19, 2009 at 7:30 pm