The Sixth Sense can toss my hairy, brown-eyed salad. The Usual Suspects can drown itself in a jail cell toilet bowl. Planet of the Apes can’t dodge the hurled heaps of fresh monkey poop it deserves fast enough. Strong words? Probably, since I absolutely love all three of those films, but there’s no denying that none comes close to matching the late-’80s Canadian cult metal “horror” classic, Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare, for the title of Greatest Movie Twist Ending of All Time.
Other assholes might spoil it for you, but I shall not. Instead, I will attempt to describe the epic lameness you must suffer through to reach the final nirvana of fucked-up awesomeness. Made for $90,000 Nightmare is a loopy vanity project starring screenwriter Jon Mikl Thor, a blond bodybuilder/heavy metal singer whose ambitions always seemed to dwarf his budgets and talents.
Thor (who memorably played the zombie in the MST3K-spoofed Zombie Nightmare) plays John Triton, lead singer of a metal band that has descended upon an abandoned Ontario farmhouse to practice before recording a new album and going on tour. It’s a long trip, and we get to see most of it, thanks to the nearly eight-minute driving sequence director John Fasano (Black Roses) had to insert for the film to reach feature-length.
With the band comes the groupies, girlfriends and requisite sleazy manager, all of whom are eventually killed by the hilariously tacky-looking puppet demons who call the farmhouse home. Soon (but not quite soon enough), only John is left, and the significance of his last name is revealed. I shan’t say more.
This ranks right up there with Manos: The Hands of Fate, Troll 2, The Room and Plan 9 from Outer Space as one of the most deliriously fantastic “bad” films of all time. As slow and poorly made as it is, it has a mesmerizing quality that allows you to happily travel along with it, all the way to the absurdly awesome end. —Allan Mott