Writers: Michael S. Murphey, Joel Soisson, Rhet Topham
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Sammi Curr…he’s a Rock and Roll Nightmare
It sounds crazy now, but in the 1980s there were people who really believed that ‘rock music’ – especially heavy metal – was a tool of Satan. Trick Or Treat takes the mick out of this belief by the simple technique of assuming it’s true.
Rock star Sammi Curr (Tony Fields) – ie ‘Curr, S’ – made a deal with the devil for 24 years of success. At the end of his term he burns to death in a fire. However he leaves a last record which is obtained by an obsessed fan: put upon college student Eddie (Marc Price).
When Eddie plays the record he realises that there is a message hidden backwards in the recording. Following the advice given in the backmasking allows him to turn the tables on his tormentors. But it doesn’t stop there – the backmasking provides new messages and eventually starts to converse with him (well, it makes a change from a Ouija Board!). The record grows in power until it summons a demonic Curr back from the dead to wreak Halloween havoc on the town.
Trick Or treat is labelled as a comedy-horror. I’m not sure I’d go that far – it has some funny moments and it’s tongue is obviously firmly in its cheek, but its not really an out and out comedy. It’s more a film to cheer on with friends and a few beers.
It’s decently made, albeit dated. Price does a good job as the twice-turned worm and the support cast back him up well, especially Fields who is appropriately over the top. And there’s a great thumping soundtrack.
Frightening the film isn’t. But it is fun. And it has to be watched if only for the wonderful cameo by Ozzy Osbourne as an ‘evangelist and moral crusader’!