Stunt Rock (1980)

Daredevil Grant Page is asked to come to Los Angeles to do stunt work in a crime drama featuring Dutch actress Monique van de Ven. While there, he gets in contact with a cousin who plays the Prince of Darkness (Curtis Hyde) as part of a theatrical heavy metal band called Sorcery. Along the way he meets a journalist assigned to cover him (Margaret Gerard).

The journalist quickly develops a crush on Page, and is thrilled with her introduction to both the stuntman and rock and roll lifestyles. Meanwhile, van de Ven just wishes to be able to do her own stunts on the show, something here agent (Don Blackburn) constantly tries to thwart. In the end, she finally gets her wish, and Page performs one night with the band. In between we get to see a number of his stunts, including some from previous movies in which he worked with director Brian Trenchard-Smith.

A lot of people like this movie, and I can understand the reason why. Rock and roll and stunts. What could be better? Well, a better band, for starters. Originally Van Halen had been tapped for the role, and I could just imagine how much better the movie would have been with a 1979-era Van Halen soundtrack. As it is, Sorcery could almost have been the source material for Spinal Tap. While some of the theatrics are entertaining enough, listening to lyrics like "Number of the beast / Prepare for Satan's feast" make the music critic in me just want to bang my head - and I mean against something solid, not in the way the band would like me to. Even worse is when Gerard is introduced to them, doing a God-awful song called "Woman", going through all the moves they would for a live performance in the studio. Sure, I guess showing them working on overdubbing would have been boring, but it just took me right out of the film.

The other problem is that there are not enough stunts. I could put up with the band performances if there had just been a bit more of Page doing his thing. A good portion of the stunts are from other films he did previous to this. The new ones - the cliff dive and the high wire walk, for instance - are amazing. I guess I was expecting something more along the line of Gone in 60 Seconds, which this film references and even includes a scene from.

Brian Trenchard-Smith has said he thinks this is his worst film he has made. Well, I've looked at some of his filmography, and I would say that would probably go to some of the Christian propaganda films later in his career, but I just can't bring myself to enjoy this like some would. Between Gerard's acting and Sorcery's horrible music, it would be impossible to sit through without Page. And, even though he says he's a terrible actor, his easy-going attitude and love of his craft allow him to stand out above anyone else here.

Stunt Rock (1980)
Duration: 90 minutes
Starring: Grant Page, Monique van de Ven, Margaret Gerard, Sorcery
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more