Trick or Treat (1986)

***Well done mid-80's teen/horror with a rockin' soundtrack***

"Trick or Treat" (1986) is a coming-of-age horror flick that mixes elements of "Christine" (1983), "Carrie" (1976) and the first two Freddy Krueger movies, but it strangely never attained the popularity of those films, which explains why there wasn’t a sequel. Like "Christine" and "Carrie," the plot revolves around a semi-outcast in high school being persecuted by the popular crowd and the compulsion to get revenge. In this case, metalhead Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price) enlists the aid of a dead satanic rock star, Sammi Curr, through the backmasking on a special edition of one of Curr's albums.

Gene Simmons of KISS appears as a DJ for a few minutes and Ozzy Osbourne has two ironic scenes as a conservative preacher denouncing rock/metal for a total of a minute.

Lisa Orgolini (Leslie) and Elise Richards (Genie) are both beautiful and stand out as the two main girls in the story, although they shoulda done more with both.

The songs on the soundtrack are by Fastway and are reminiscent of mid-80's bands like Motley Crue, AC/DC, KISS and the pop-side of Priest. They're simple-yet-catchy hair metal ditties with the corresponding hanging chords and anthemic choruses. Fastway’s fourth album TRICK OR TREAT featured these songs and was released just after the movie. Here’s a little history on it: singer David King decided to leave the band after the failure of their third album, which was very different from the first two, being keyboard-drenched AOR. Then the opportunity to do the soundtrack for "Trick or Treat" was presented to guitarist/main-man Fast Eddie Clarke in 1985 (he was the original guitarist for Motorhead). Eddie promptly contacted David King to give him the news and asked if he'd do this album before leaving the band and he agreed.

Somehow the catchy simplistic style of this album worked and it unexpectedly became Fastway’s best-selling release. Unfortunately, they were basically screwed over and didn't reap much financial reward so King was intent on leaving for other musical pastures. Eddie's new version(s) of Fastway never recovered their initial momentum. What a shame. They coulda been a contenda if King hadn’t bailed.

BOTTOM LINE: While "Trick or Treat" may not technically be as good as "Christine" or "Carrie," it's actually better in some ways and is more rewatchable. The villain, the quasi-resurrected Sammi Curr, is great; he looks and behaves like a mixture of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Blackie Lawless, Nikki Sixx and Dee Snyder (I’d include KD, but he basically just ripped off Gene). Too bad the movie didn't become a franchise because Sammi Curr has the ee-vil charisma to give Freddy Krueger a run for his money. While the set-up of the story is compelling, the second half fumbles a bit and meanders, but this is made up by the rockin' mid-80's soundtrack, the quality protagonist, the kick-axx villain, the two girls and the cameos by Gene & Ozzy.

The film runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot in Wilmington, NC.

GRADE: B+/A-