Review of Trick or Treat (2014) by Steve M — 18 Oct 2006

Trick or Treat.

Starring: Marc Price, Tony Fields, Lisa Orgolini, Doug Savant, and Ozzie Osbourne.

Director: Charles Martin Smith.

After his favorite Satan-worshipping heavy metal star, Sammi Curr (Fields), dies in a mysterious hotel fire, high-schooler Eddie (Price) is deeply depressed. That is until he gets a copy of Sammi Curr's final, unreleased album and plays it backwards. Then he learns that Sammi intends to sacrifice the whole world to Satan, and that it's up to Eddie to stop him.

There was a time when many Americans took the whole backmasked Satanic messages in rock music seriously. Such lunatics were led by extreme censorship advocate Tipper Gore--yes, the wife of the oh-so-liberal-and-open-minded Al Gore. (If you think what we have no is bad, just imagine what it would would have been to have a President who is so spineless that he doesn't have his wife committed when she is running screaming about the eeeeevils of rock music, and acting so crazy she made Pat Robertson look sane and reasonable?

"Trick or Treat" is a product of that time, and it's not a very good one, mostly because the movie can't make up its mind where it stands. It clearly makes fun of crazy dipsticks like Tipper Gore--Osbourne plays a "rock music is of the devil!" Christian preacher--but it also features as its main storyline a kid who needs to stop an undead, Satan-worshipping rock star from unleashing Hell on Earth. So... what is it? Was Tipper and her fellow crazed censorship advocates right, or do they deserve the scorn and redicule that was heaped upon them? Maybe the movie is neutral to this question as far as the real world goes, but the Osbourne character annoyed me, because it seemed to work contrary to the rest of story... which shows that the good Reverend Moonbat is [i]right[/i]! (And I am writing this as a guy who was a music critic at the time Tipper was at her loudest, shrillest, and nuttiest... and who didn't vote for Bill Clinton partially due to the bag that came along with his VP.).

Maybe I was just thinking too hard. Maybe this is just a silly '80s horror movie with all the violence, boobs, and spandex that implies. If viewed with the brain in neutral, it's about average. But if even the slightest bit of consideration of the plot and how its elements go together is given, the film falls apart. Plus, as a product of its time, it is incredibly dated, and I wonder if anyone under 35 would even find the supposed funny bits amusing.

Although... if I had know then what I know now--that Tipper's crazed crusade to force everyone to never listen to anything but Lawrence Welk and thus might have killed the rap industry in its infancy--maybe I would have mocked her a little less.