Trick or Treat (1986) (1986)

October 27, 2024 3:25 PM

[Trailer] A bullied teenage boy is devastated after the death of his heavy metal idol, Sammi Curr. But as Halloween night approaches, he discovers that he may be the only one who can stop Sammi from making a Satanic comeback from beyond the grave. --IMDb

Directed by Charles Martin Smith from a screenplay by Rhet Topham, Michael S. Murphey, and Joel Soisson. Starring Marc Price, Tony Fields, and Lisa Orgolini.

71% / 63% on RottenTomatoes.

posted by johnofjack (7 comments total)

Not many streaming options for this; a co-worker lent the blu-ray to my partner. I went into this expecting a cult/80s horror film and in that regard I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it.

Oh yeah: and cameos/bit parts by Gene Simmons (playing a DJ) and Ozzy Osbourne (playing a religious figure criticizing rock music).
posted by johnofjack at 3:27 PM on October 27

I remember the first time I watched this and was like "Wait....is that...SKIPPY!' And yep it's Skippy from Family Ties AKA Marc Price.
posted by miss-lapin at 6:40 PM on October 27 [1 favorite]

The Fastway soundtrack was total meathead shit but I loved it as a kid

Title track
posted by ginger.beef at 7:40 PM on October 27

I wasn't familiar with Fastway and each song kept reminding me of one song or another by Quiet Riot, which was both amusing and distracting. Totally a me problem, though, not a problem with the film itself. And I'm not sure if either band ever acknowledged an influence in either direction, or if it was just a "cultural zeitgeist" sort of thing where they had the same influences and ended up taking them in the same direction.
posted by johnofjack at 6:05 AM on October 28

This just got re-released on super deluxe 3 disc 4K set from Synapse. The special editions sold out in a nanosecond, but they will likely have standard editions soon.

This is directed by Charles Martin Smith, the guy who played the federal accountant in The Untouchables and later directed Air Bud.

And the lead singer of Fastway? Dave King, later of Flogging Molly.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:49 AM on October 28 [1 favorite]

Flag this if it's offputtingly tangential, but how do you post YT links to ensure the selected clip works? I've noticed other MeFites will post clips that work or don't work (unless you click the accompanying link, which takes you out of the site to YT) and mostly I'd like to avoid that.

the Fastway comparison to Quiet Riot is apt. I think the music is designed for a young teenage brain and you simply age out of appreciating it in any form other than guilty nostalgia
posted by ginger.beef at 6:54 AM on October 28 [1 favorite]

I could be wrong but I think there's nothing you can do about that with the YT links. MeFi is set to automatically set up YT links as an embed/popup, but people who post things to YT have the option of not allowing embeds on other sites. When they select that, the MeFi embed/popup thing won't work and a person has to click into the link and actually go to the YouTube site or app.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:57 AM on October 28 [3 favorites]