ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Billy “Eye” Harper is on the edge of Rock Stardom when he suddenly turns psychopath and kills his engineers and whoever else is in the studio. He’s caught, tried and executed and two years later is seemingly back from the dead to enact revenge of his girlfriend and her friends, who have eclipsed Billy as rock stars.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• “A film by the Sebastian’s”? You know the Sebastians right? The same Sebastian’s who made all those other classic movies.
• Starring Cana Cockrell!
• Director of Photography: Ferd Sebastian. Hey Ferd I know what we’re going to do today.
• Just based on the first song played over the credits I want the soundtrack immediately.
• This record studio has a jacuzzi in it?! How many diseases are brewing in that pool? At least we see some T&A though.
• We’re ten minutes in and there’s already 2 deaths! This movie ain’t messing around.
• This girl, Lynn, is so dumb that she doesn’t get the hint that the guy who cavalierly told her that the other girl who was impaled on a post was “hanging around in the other room” was the guy who killed her.
• Hahaha. A meek cop sees Billy nearly killing Lynn and he says “you’re arrested” in such a scared tone. Hilarious.
• Rick Righteous is this reporters name. Should be Ricktober Blood! And he works for MVTV. I want my MVTV!
• Billy the killer in the beginning of the movie we were told was caught, convicted and executed for his killing spree. Lynn was tricked by a masked man to meet someone upstairs and when she goes up is confronted by the masked fella who taunts her and reveals himself to be Billy. Has this film spoiled its own killer’s reveal in the first act? This is either genius or incredibly stupid. My question is if Billy was executed how is he back? Unless Lynn is cuckoo. Or it’s a twin brother.
• Man I wish the female workout clothes from the 80s makes a comeback.
• “I want your hot steamy pussy blood all over my dick!” Could be the quote of the month right there.
• A phone that’s off the hook does not ring.
• Another Jacuzzi?! Maybe that’s how all the girls do their best thinking.
• Billy waited under the water in the jacuzzi until Donna walked over to turn the jets off. What if she never bothered to do that? What a dumb place to hide.
• This is the second time we’re seeing Lynn naked. No complaints just letting you guys know.
• See! Lynn’s annoyed that Donna turned the jets off in the jacuzzi. So if she had listened, Billy would’ve chosen the absolute worst place to hide for Donna.
• Kudos for the slow hacking off of Donna’s arm. Billy swung the hatchet down about 7-8 times as Donna cried in vain. Kinda gruesome.
• I love how in slasher flicks the main victim who knows he/she is being stalked or threatened still takes time out to leisurely take a long relaxing bath or something while the killer watches them. If I was Lynn is get the hell out of Dodge or at the very least hire a bodyguard.

• Why is the fuse box on the outside of the house? Does that make any sense?
• Hey Lynn, Billy just chased you around the yard and is still terrorizing you, do you maybe want to think about possibly calling the cops or something. Just a thought.
• Wait, is Lynn really going to dig up Billy’s grave for proof that he’s the killer or not? That’s bonkers.
• Why was Lynn even at Billy’s funeral? He tried to kill her. Am I alone in thinking that’s odd? Execution, sure, you want to see the bastard die but to watch him get buried in the ground with a ceremony—not so much. Unless his execution was at the gravesite then that makes more sense.
• Hahaha. The skeleton of Billy in the coffin has a red headband on. THAT’S SO METAL!
• Nice. Billy kills Lynn’s friend with a hot clothes iron to the neck. Very inventive.
• Ha! The killer is a twin brother. Lucky guess.
• Even after confessing to Lynn that he’s John the brother and correcting her twice, she’s still calling him Billy. Man, Lynn is not the sharpest tool in the shed is she?
• I will admit that the songs in his flick are fucking awesome.
• Wouldn’t the band think something’s not right when Lynn isn’t showing up and some other random singer in a Halloween mask (that suspiciously sounds like Billy) comes out to sing? I’m sure they’re high on junk but still.
• OK. Billy/John is killing girls on stage (they are like prop girls, chained to the stage for added horror-theme affect for the show) with his mic stand and pulling out guts and throwing them to the audience. To the unknowing audience this just seems like shock-rock and all for a gag but wouldn’t the band or the stage-hands know that this is not what was planned? At the very least they can look puzzled.
• So when Billy/John takes off the mask the band look confused but the drummer annoying says, “Just play ‘I’m Back!'” and they press on. Who listens to the drummer anyway?
• This is the best concert ever! Damn, why can’t more metal shows be like this?
• Basically the last 15 minutes have been a full blown concert with three complete songs. It’s incredible.
• As Billy/John sing the final notes to his song, Lynn’s boyfriend electrocutes him with a guitar. John finishes the song as he fries and the screen freeze frames as the credits roll. This movie is a bona fide classic for me now.

Scare Volume: Billy is an intimidating psycho killer and can easily rival most cinematic serial killers. He’s way creepier than Billy in Silent Night, Deadly Night (what’s with the name Billy anyway?). I wasn’t shaking in my Doc Martens or anything but this movie was better than most when it comes to adequate creepy atmosphere and decent scary characters.

Gore Volume: Billy is no slouch in the maiming department and even does stuff that I haven’t seen before.

Nudity Volume: We see Donna Scoggins, who plays Lynn, naked, front and back, twice!

Best Kill: Never saw a victim dispatched with a clothes iron before. Especially to the throat!

Best Scene: I would have to go with the awesome live concert finale. Very little edit cuts from the stage, great soundtrack and performance and a silly and dumb final death scene. That scene was tough to beat. Check out the clip below.

Worst Scene: The movie kinda dragged a bit in the middle and the scene when Billy chases Lynn around the log cabin house and plays cat-and-mouse with her was weak. But overall this movie could’ve been way worse.

How ’bout the Tunes: Friggin’ stellar! There’s really just one band which was fronted by Billy until he went haywire and then it became Lynn’s band. They play a few songs, a few a couple of times and the final concert has 3 songs played in their entirety. Here’s the three best songs:

Band Rating: It says something that when after I watched the movie, the very next day I downloaded the soundtrack and have already listened to it a few times. It’s cheeseball early 80s metal and it’s awesome. 11!

Overall: I am shocked! SHOCKED that ROCKTOBER BLOOD was as good as it was and that we’re opening Schlocktoberfest with a bang! There’s probably no reason to continue on. At first Billy looks nothing what you’d think a metal rocker from the early 80s would look like and once I saw him on screen I was apprehensive but the music more than made up for that. And once the killing and maiming and intimidating from Billy started I completely bought it, hook, line and sinker. Lynn is a total moron but she makes up for it in looks and her stage persona. It’s decently paced, not too many really dumb moments that make you roll your eyes and just pure horror cheesy fun. I highly recommend this and hope it gets a decent DVD or Blu-Ray release in the near future. Like I said a few times, I already downloaded the soundtrack because it was so good and that too, should be reason enough to check this out.

Score: 9 Headband Wearing Corpses (out of 10)