Nothing much ever happens in the sleepy little town of Mill Basin, a fact that its teenage inhabitants lament on a regular basis. So there is considerable excitement among the younger set at the news that their town will host not one but four live shows by the heavy metal band "Black Roses", as they kick off their first nationwide tour.
The town's conservative parents, on the other hand, are deeply perturbed at the band's reputation for rebellious, anti-establishment lyrics. They strongly resist allowing the event to go ahead, but eventually their concerns are mollified by the band's initially low-key appearance and by the town's mayor assuming that the band is harmless.
Only one person, high school teacher Matthew Moorhouse, suspects that the band's agenda is more nefarious than it seems, but even he does not suspect the truth: Black Roses are literal demons from hell, and these shows are a test case for their plan to transform America's youth into an army of unholy abominations!
Black Roses clearly trades on the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980s, where people genuinely worried that listening to heavy metal would lead to Satanism, and that playing Dungeons & Dragons would teach you 'real magic'. It is tempting to laugh at the naivety of such nonsense, but as a society we continue to demonise that which we do not understand, making all kinds of baseless accusations against it, such as with the current war on trans rights.
Now by 1988 the 'Satanic Panic' was actually more or less over, in part because heavy metal had changed through the decade and the likes of Guns 'n' Roses were superseding bands like Iron Maiden as the face of the genre. Still, it was probably still recent enough to resonate, and I don't think the film-makers in any way bought into the idea, themselves. If they did, they wouldn't use so many real life heavy metal musicians in the cast and soundtrack, nor would the tone of the film be one of goofy, corny excess.
Because make no mistake, this is is not in any way a scary movie, nor does it make any attempt to be. It's very much focused on delivering lots of hard rock on the soundtrack while throwing some goofy monster action and a few bosoms up on the screen. It's pretty much tailor made for teenage boys of the era. Or it would be, if it was better executed.
One of the movie's biggest flaws is its mostly puppet-based demons and mutations. They generally look like under-nourished muppets, and the lack of sophistication in them is transparent from the limited views we get of them. When one attacks Mike in his home, for instance, we pretty much only ever see its head. The rest of it is always out of shot, likely because it didn't exist; there's just someone crawling around behind the kitchen counter, waving the head and one claw in the air above them.
This is a bit of a shame, because the band's make-up in the opening scene actually looks pretty cool (if lacking in flexibility). I do wonder if this sequence might have had a formative experience on a young Mr Lordi.
hard rock hallelujah
The lack of motion of the monsters contributes to the overall weakness of the action scenes. Mike's face-off with the 'big bad' is hilariously stilted and awkward, with it being clear that the supposedly terrifying demon (which is actually someone in a suit, at least, unlike many of the others) is not actually capable of doing very much except standing in one place and menacingly waving its arms about.
It's all thoroughly naff, and while ultimately, I had a decent time watching Black Roses, I was very much laughing at the film, not with it. If you are a fan of 'so bad its good' movies, it may appeal. Though honestly on that front it is not a patch on the director's earlier offering Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, which is gloriously terrible and which also actually had one interesting idea to go with all the cheese.
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