El concierto de la muerte

For anyone who makes the mistake of sitting though this movie: I had just decided to become an actor and I knew very little about it. I was majoring in journalism in Junior college and took a theatre class to get a date with a girl I liked and got interested in acting. I drove a friend to the audition of Terror on Tour (originally called "Clowns") and the director (Don Edmunds) asked me to read. I told him I wasn't ready as an actor to do a film and didn't know anything about acting much less film acting. He cast me and talked me into doing it. I was patently awful. I over acted every word and indicated like crazy. Above that a year after initial filming when I knew a little more about acting they called me back to shoot two pick up scenes (easy to spot as my hair was much shorter--it went from '79 to '80 nuff said). I was told to yell my dialog as there would be loud rock music playing in the background. The other guy in the scene was producer Sandy Cobe who wasn't an actor and couldn't really handle yelling while imagining loud music. In the end they forgot to add the music so it seemed like I was over acting even more than in the rest of the film. When I saw the film I came very close to quitting trying to be an actor altogether. The only reason I didn't quit is that I figured if I could spot how awful I was maybe I had a chance to learn to do it right. The band members were a real band and had never acting before so you could forgive them their acting. Of the rest of the cast there was (in my opinion) one good actor. Jeff Morgan. In filming he actually seemed to be in the moment and connecting on an honest level when you were talking to him. When I saw the film I felt I could see it in his performance. I never heard from him again and don't know what he's doing now but I do think he escaped the horror of the acting in this horror film. Again I hope whoever has to see me in this film will understand my horror that it still exists.

Larry Thomas

What's more fun than seeing KISS-lookalike rock group members mutilate the pretty female groupies in and out of their concerts? If exploitation is your thing, then this'll be the perfect movie for you! This one came from Don Edmonds, who directed the violent exploitation classic ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. You know you're in for some mindless and tasteless fun, so dig deep through the bargain bin! Come across TERROR ON TOUR and tell the cashier that Jason Atwood of Virginia sent ya'!

"Terror on Tour" is a lousy, putrid and terribly annoying attempt at occult slasher/Rocksploitation movie from the director of the infamous first two "Ilsa" flicks; - namely "She-Wolf of the SS" and "Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks". I've seen copious amounts of 80's slashers already and there are definitely more bad ones than good ones, but "Terror on Tour" is absolute bottom-of-the-barrel unendurable guff. The film lacks anything that remotely resembles a screenplay, the killings are dull and monotonous, the decors and cinematography are ugly, the acting performances are embarrassing and even the numerous topless girls flaunting in front of the cameras are irritating. A couple of losers form a rock band together, called The Clowns, and before as well as during and after every gig the concert hall transforms into one giant orgy with drugs, horny groupies and on-stage violence. Their looks are inspired by KISS and every band member is disguised, so we can't tell which clown is responsible for the gruesome knife- killings that are occurring after their concerts. The band members remain uninterested and unworried, even when more and more groupie-corpses are piling up around them, so why should us viewers wonder who's committing the murders? The killer is probably a very angry Gene Simmons because he didn't give permission to imitate his facial make-up. There, case closed! Most of the killing sequences in early 80's slasher movies are extremely misogynic and sexist, but the chicks in "Terror on Tour" truly deserve what's coming to them… They literally just throw their naked selves to any musician with a mask and paint on his hideous face, and then they look surprised when a knife is planted deep in their A-cup sized chests. This dud definitely earns a spot in my bottom 5 worst 80's slasher list, next to other hopeless titles such as "Blood Lake", "The Stay Awake", "Appointment with Fear", "Hollow Gate" and "Sledgehammer".

There is absolutely nothing redeeming or interesting about this film. There are no moments even worth mentioning and there were no characters that were the least bit intriguing. It was all shot in the dark and everything was shadowed. Every scene is dark and most of the time you can't even tell who is talking because it's so shadowed you can't see their mouth. The premise of the movie is idiotic. Like that idea hasn't been done a million times before.

Question: why is it that movies that wish to involve attractive women always resort to killing them because of their "morals." Every movie you see with "hot chicks" that are murdered always ends up being because they were thought to be loose women that didn't deserve to live. There's some white guy who thinks these women should die - kind of like that real life case that we just learned about of the guy who killed prostitutes after he had sex with them. This guy murdered over 50 women in real life. Horror movies caught on to this idea way before this guy was busted. Why is this? Is it because we really think this in society? I'm serious, this is not the only movie that does this, there are TONS. I just don't get it. Or is that the only excuse the writers can some up with that enables the viewer to see the ladies topless. After all, any woman that takes off her shirt has got to be immoral and a whore, right? Any woman that is pretty deserves to die, right?

Anyway, despite my obvious disapproval from this rant, the movie sucked even more than that. The music was generic and horrible, the Clowns' outfits weren't the least bit sexy, the characters didn't have anything unique about them, the movie moved really slowly and I found it hard to believe any word that came out of any character's mouth because either I couldn't see which character was even saying it, or because no one talks like that. The writing was bad and the acting was bad. Bad bad bad bad.

1/10. If I could have given it a 0, I would have.

The Clowns are a shock rock group who look like a cross between The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Sgt Kabukiman and your average Goth and like to pretend to stab, mutilate and kill groupies on stage. It becomes problematic when someone starts to actually kill groupies who have come to see the band in real life.

Terror on Tape was made in 1980 and so the shock rock aspect seems a bit passe. It would have been cooler if it was made in the early/mid 70's when Alice Cooper was becoming famous. But, nonetheless, it's still a solid and entertaining yarn. The make-up the band members wear makes it easy for someone to imitate them or to make it harder to ascertain which band member is bumping off the pretty young women who surround the band. The backstage area is also eerily deserted when the band is onstage, and so this also makes the murders easier.

The movie also captures something that you don't see in modern movies that try to portray the early 80's, and that is the amount of wood panelling that was used for interiors. Youngsters nowadays think the era was all pastel colours and neon. It wasn't. It was wood panelling.

Terror on Tour isn't bad, but it's far from being some forgotten masterpiece, either.

Fun fact 1- Alex Rebar, who was the lead in The Incredible Melting Man, is one of the executive producers on this movie.

Fun fact 2- The guy (Larry Thomas) who plays the notorious 'Soup Nazi' character from Seinfeld is one of the band members.