MovieChat Forums > Trick or Treat (1986) Discussion > More rewatchable than "Christine" and th...

More rewatchable than "Christine" and the original "Carrie"

posted 4 years ago by Wuchak (8112)
4 replies | jump to latest

"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. If interested, check out this informative interview with “Fast” Eddie Clarke: https://www.teethofthedivine.com/featured/interview-with-fastway/

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.

[–] SandyR (7350) 2 years ago

It's ok. They should have gotten a different band to do the music.

[–] Wuchak (8112) 2 years ago

Nah, it was Fastway's best selling album for a reason.

Some people criticized that the movie needed a heavier, more aggressive band to go with the ee-vil Sammi Curr imagery, like a thrash/death band (e.g. Possessed), but the flick was made in 1985 when thrash was just starting to rise in popularity and death metal was barely emerging. So the best bet for producers was to go with a mid-80's hair metal soundtrack, which was the most popular style at the time, e.g. Motley Crue, Ratt, Twisted Sister, KISS, W.A.S.P., Scorpions, etc. -- all of whom were hugely popular in 1985.

[–] SandyR (7350) 2 years ago

Yeah, who's Fastway again? The singer from W.A.S.P. was supposed to play the rock singer. It would have been better to have W.A.S.P. do the soundtrack.

[–] Wuchak (8112) 2 years ago

I heard Blackie Lawless was going to get the role of Sammi Curr, until the director told him they got Fastway to do the soundtrack and Blackie would have to lip-sync their songs for the film. He was understandably offended since W.A.S.P. had a couple of popular albums out by that point and he naturally preferred to lip-sync his own songs. Most likely the producers enlisted Fastway simply because it was cheaper.

While W.A.S.P. songs would've certainly worked for the movie -- e.g. "Sleeping in the Fire," "Hellion," "Animal," "Tormentor" and "Cries in the Night" -- Fastway's TRICK OR TREAT album is just as good and arguably better. It may consist of simple 80's hard rock ditties (like W.A.S.P. albums, just less quasi-dark), but it's catchy and stands with the best hair metal albums of the mid-80s, speaking as someone who prefers the heavier side of metal.

As far as who Fastway is, you're no doubt joking with me, but for those who genuinely don't know: They were an up-and-coming Zeppelin-esque band in 1983-84 with a couple of hits until fumbling the ball with the keyboard-saturated AOR of their third album in 1985 (which I doubt Fast Eddie Clarke had much to do with, as far as writing goes). Its failure convinced the singer to leave for better prospects, until the opportunity to do the soundtrack for this movie lured him back.

As noted in my opening post, it was their best-selling album, but they weren't reaping much of a financial reward so David King departed for good and the band never recovered their initial momentum even though they released four more studio albums with a couple other singers. Fast Eddie died in early 2018 at the age of 67 and Fastway basically died with him.