Rocktober Blood

 This really looks like it was Frankensteined together with an act or two missing due to lack of budget. Something about twin brothers, the wrong brother executed for the slaying of Lynn's (Donna Scoggin) friends and music associates, because she thought Billy was responsible when it was actually John. John's music was stolen by Billy so he got his revenge. Lynn, unfortunately, is a product of John's mania. Meanwhile, there is a lot of rock music, Lynn is considered crazy by those still alive who question her claims Billy is terrorizing her, and yet despite being hunted by John decides she'll continue performing for an audience Rainbow Eyes after the coffin holding her captive is opened. During the final performance, John uses a type of spear to just kill people on stage (?!) while the crowd (perhaps believing it was all staged) cheers.

This movie looks like the horror/slasher parts were just attachments to the rock music...the music seemed most important. Scoggins, as the slasher survivor/lead, surprisingly got naked quite a bit...I guess I wasn't expecting her to have two strips, once getting into a hot tub, the other a bathtub at her summer abode (this looked like a music producer's home). She seemed to have two duties...consistently run from/ be terrified of Loren and get naked.

Okay, so the music. I have a weakness and that is hair metal. I get whisked away back to when I was ten or eleven, scanning my cousin's rock cassette collection, recording them on blank cassettes, popping them in my boombox at home, while sliding on my little earphones, rocking out while staring at the ceiling on Friday nights. I totally get when I read reviews on Letterboxd from 25 year olds that this music just ain't their bag. I get it. I guess I'm just that middle aged Gen Xer who gets carried back to the kid in 1989, jamming to high-pitched vocals as guitars shriek and drums boom. I will say that the ozone is sure glad that hair metal hairspray got the John Harper treatment thanks to Nirvana.

The look of the film. So to close, I couldn't help but think Corman lent his camera and some footage to Beverly Sebastian, since her film looks as if it was shot in 1963 by Coppola, Hill, Hellman, and Nicholson. Despite really looking haggard and worse for wear, I'm glad I got to see it thanks to Shudder.

*Oh, the slasher violence was okay. The stabbings on stage to the stomach of Lynn's girlfriends, and a beheading, were effective. But everything else was meh to me. There was one awkward drowning victim who seemed to come to life only to be beaten and left for dead.