ROCKULA (1990)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Dean Cameron plays a 400 year old friendly wimpy vampire who relives a curse every 22 years on Halloween night when he loses the girl of his dreams to a rhinestone-peg-legged pirate wielding a giant hambone. I wish I was making this shit up. Anyway he forms a band to impress the latest reincarnation of his girl and we all die a little inside watching it.

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

• Remember Dean Cameron? No? That’s perfectly alright.
• Toni Basil, Thomas Dubly Dolby and Bo Diddley? Should be interesting. However, we’re not doing too good with the Basil in our Schlock lately so I shouldn’t get my hopes up. That should totally be our motto.
• Shit. I just found out the director also made Ghoulies. We’re fucking doomed for the next 88 minutes.
• Toni Basil was actually very attractive. I only really know her from the annoying “Mickey” music video.
• Friends of Dean Cameron’s vampire Ralph just explained the whole backstory/curse involving Ralph falling in love with a Mona and losing her to a pirate and this repeats itself every 22 years. They are explaining this to him as if he doesn’t already know it. But I appreciate the exposition. (side note: you maybe see these “friends” once more in the whole film and then never again. Ponderous)
• Ralph also talks to himself through mirrors (Odd that it’s a vampire talking to himself using a mirror). It’s like a split personality always mocking and intimidating Ralph and making him feel inferior. Probably not a stretch for Dean Cameron.
• If you thought Dean Cameron’s eyebrows were distracting wait until you see him with vampire incisors.
• Hey Tony Cox! Playing a character named Big Al. Ha! (side note: We never see Tony Cox in this film ever again. He may have just wandered onto the set one afternoon and they went with it)
• Random music montage video with a song sung by Mona. The edits show black and white flashbacks or flash forwards of Ralph and Mona interacting romantically. And also pirates. This is all out of place. Is Ralph dreaming? But why is he dreaming of her singing?
• Sun block protects vampires? Oh it’s this kind of shitty horror-comedy.
• How is it that his friends know that he’s a vampire but they don’t care? Is it that commonplace to have vampires around?
• I actually think Thomas Dubly Dolby should be the vampire in this movie. His car is an old car that looks like what Dracula would drive in a Hanna-Barbera style cartoon.
• So Ralph starts a band with his bartender friend and Bo Diddley within a few days time and already have a gig. Did he have all these songs written or was that achieved in the few hours also? Or is it just this one autobiographical song about being a teenage vampire and the rest of the song are covers?
• Man this “Rockula” song is so dumb.
• It’s just a one-song-kinda-gig huh?
• So far I’ve heard a few instances of cartoon sound effects like its a Looney Tunes cartoon. Why? To try to make this unfunny movie funnier? Speaking of cartoons, I much rather watch this:

• Remember the awkward rap scene in Revenge of the Nerds II? I just witnessed something more awkward. A song called “He’s the DJ, I’m the Vampire.” Man, how did rap ever survive the early 90s?
• Excuse me, your name is ROCKula not RAPula!
• Did Ralph just make the “it’s raining cats and dogs and I just stepped in a poodle” joke? And Mona actually laughed at it. I want to slap this movie hard.
• The songs Mona sing or duet on are so far the most tolerable. Like not getting your eyes poked by a red-hot poker kinda tolerable.
• I’m struggling with the concept of Ralph being a vampire. He’s not blood thirsty (in fact he stated he hates the sight of blood and he drinks blood delivered by the Red Cross) and so far hasn’t hurt anyone so the only reason he’s a vampire is to make him immortal for the sake of him having this curse and reliving the consequences with his girlfriend Mona. But why not make him more vampiric for the sake of the horror theme. There’s literally nothing horror related at all.
• Wait, the music video we just watched was in the film’s reality and was filmed and released in a matter of a couple of days? This film really doesn’t give a rats ass about space and time does it?
• Nice Death Records call out.
• I was kinda liking Thomas Dubly Dolby in this film until he made all those terrible vampire puns.

• Wait so Ralph is a vampire pretending to be human but singing all these songs about being a vampire and fronting a band called Rockula. He’s now panicking that Stanley (Dubly Dolby) now knows that he’s a vampire. Why are you singing about being a vampire if you want it to be such a secret dumbass? Plus your teeth kinda give you away anyway.
• Stanley pissed off Mona by playing his tacky coffin/funeral commercial and he blamed Ralph and called him a “Fiend” which had an echo effect when he said it. The only thing I thought about was “Science!” “Good heavens Miss Sakamoto, you’re beautiful!”
• Hey Bull Hurley from Over The Top is in this!! If that’s not piquing your interest in seeing this than nothing will.
• Now Toni Basil has a song and dance number. This movie is practically a musical in that the songs are integral to the scene and plot. However, the songs suck and so does the plot.
• Both Ralph and Mona seem just as confused as me as to why his mom is singing and dancing in front of them.
• Looking Toni Basil up, I just learned she’s now 71 years old. I had no idea she was already in her late 30s when she did “Mickey” and nearly 50 when she made this film. She looks fantastic.
• Ralph just turned into the most ludicrously large bat to convince Mona he’s a vampire and about the curse. He looks like one of the Garbage Pail Kids.
• There’s 20 minutes left in this film. I really with there was just 10.
• Big twist! The psychic/gypsy that is aiding Stanley in his quest to kill Ralph is actually Toni Basil. But of course this is to help Ralph defeat the curse because Stanley is an idiot. Or so I think. I think I’m the only one who’s giving this plot any real thought anyway.
• Now on stage are three little girls dressed in communion dresses singing a song called “United State of Beat.” Huh?
• I guess this movie was made for kids. It’s way too lame and way too clean.
• Except for when Stanley, armed with a ham bone (something about the curse—don’t worry about it) knocks out Toni Basil by hitting her on the head and Ralph says “that was my mother you just boned.” Some points for that one.
• And then a penis joke. I thought this was made for kids!
• So now the mirror personality Ralph annoyed that Ralph left him, broke the mirror and jumped out dressed as Elvis. I’m DONE!

Scare Level: There is NOTHING scary about this movie. NOTHING!

Gore Level: NONE!

Nudity Level: ZILCH!

Best Kill: My admiration of cinema.

Best Scene: UGH. Gun to my head, Toni Basil’s song and dance (on mute). At least she’s something attractive to watch. However, we are now 0-2 for Toni Basil movies and I will avoid her other movies like the plague now.

Worst Scene: Gun to my head. (I wish) The rap song sequence. It’s so embarrassing to our culture as a whole. It’s almost like they wanted to destroy a whole genre of music with that song. It’s practically a hate-crime. It starts off with the lyrics: “There was this girl named Mina, she wanted my weina. She was singing backup for Ike and Tina.” 

How ’bout the Tunes: Anything Ralph sings is hell on earth. However, anything Mona sings is at least not the sound of a thousand cats being sucked into a wood chipper. 

Band Rating: I’m on the fence about giving Rockula a Shit Sandwich. His music is a crime against humanity. Mona and Toni Basil had decent stuff, but I’m rating the band Rockula and they should get a Shit Sandwich. But how can I give blues legend Bo Diddley a Shit Sandwich score? But with the songs that Rockula performed they definitely deserve a Shit Sandwich. Sorry Bo.

Overall: I will admit that back in the late 80s, early 90s, Dean Cameron was someone I liked. His goofy teen rebelliousness was enduring for the time. Chainsaw in Summer School, The Pizza Delivery Guy in Men at Work and even Ski School was fun back then. I wish I could know what pre-teen me would’ve thought about Rockula back in 1990. Me, now would hope that I thought it was complete and utter shit back then but I’ve liked weirder and worse crap then so who knows. However, I’m relieved I missed out on it all these years. But no thanks to Schlocktoberfest, I finally know what putrid and awful mess this movie is. This movie fails in every attempt to entertain. It’s acting, singing, dancing and humor are all sub-par. I don’t know where this movie came from but it needs to be reburied. What really bothers me though is that while it tried to be campy but it also failed in having a decent soundtrack with not one, not two but three acclaimed musicians acting in this turd. You mean to tell me that both Basil and Dubly Dolby couldn’t write a decent pop song to go with this movie? That’s the real shame in Rockula.

Score: 2 Ham Bones (out of 10)