Demon Rock

I'm a fan of 80's metal. I'm a fan of 80's horror movies. Put the two together, and what do you get? Well, if you're lucky, ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984). Or you might get TERROR ON TOUR (1980), but that's not too shabby.

The Clowns are a rock band who wear clown make-up and half a clown mask across the right side of their faces. Someone sporting their concert get-up is murdering prostitutes and various groupies at their concerts. Who could it be? TERROR ON TOUR certainly isn't for everyone. The acting isn't great, the killer is goofy, the identity of the killer is obvious, and it's pretty sleazy to boot. But, being the die-hard slasher fan that I am, I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's not as good as ROCKTOBER BLOOD, but what can you do.

The acting wasn't TOO bad; it was more tolerable than anything. The people who played The Clowns were a real band called The Names, so you have to at least give them credit for trying.

The kills aren't too bloody or even original (it's all stabbing with a large knife), but they (mostly) come rapid fire and I'm in a forgiving mood, so I'll let it slide. The killer's identity is obvious (any four-year old who's seen more than one episode of Scooby-Doo can guess it), and his motive is really, really stupid.

On the rock scale, I'd say it gets a decent 3/4 mannequin be-headings. There are a lot of catchy rock songs, but none of them are very memorable. The runtime was short, but I never felt that it was boring; just a little repetitive.

Anyway, TERROR ON TOUR was a treat for an undemanding eighties slasher fanatic like myself. So if you're in the mood for a little rock and slashing and your VHS of ROCKTOBER BLOOD just broke, check this out.

The Clowns are rocking hard on stage.Their energetic and insanely cheesy performance includes decapitating mannequins.During the show a dealer is murdered and the groupies are dying stabbed to death whilst being semi-naked.Is the killer a crazed band member?Or perhaps a nutty fan?"Terror on Tour" is an ugly and very dull slasher movie directed by Don "Ilsa:She Wolf of the SS" Edmonds.The direction is lame,the acting is poor and the characters are bland and annoying.Even the horror and stalk-and-slash scenes leave something to be desired.The killings are just stabbings and there is a bit of blood and plenty of naked female flesh.5 clowns out of 10.

The producers of this crap owe the horror fans a BIG apology.

There's no way they could have been serious. This was a sorry excuse for a comedy. They tried gore for no reason other than they knew the joke was flat.

This gets one star for the idea, and another for the concert scenes. Even though the music was worse than anything I could think of.

Deaths follow a metal band on tour.

Did they do it?

Will you care?

No!!!

Put it back and rent something else.

My review was written after watching a Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

Made in 1980, "Terror on Tour" is a theatrically unreleased stab and slash feature film currently available to home video users. Uninvolving programmer has little to offer horror addicts.

Premise has a hard-rock group the Clowns (wearing makeup reminiscent of Kiss) doing a Grand Guignol-style live act (similar to such trendsetters as Alice Cooper), caught up in a murder investigation when someone wearing their makeups starts stabbing girls for real. The victims are prostitutes, and script rather tediously keeps hammering away at the relationship between drugs, rock music and violence. Filmmakers even have the temerity to end on a note imploring the audience to stop displaying its enthusiasm for violent, "sick" entertainment.

Belying its ile, low-budget feature has no tour, with barely any exterior scenes and the group rooted in one spot. Only a handful of extras appear in the concert footage. Performing is dull, though lovely Lisa Rodriquez has a nice little role as a prostie working undercover for the police. Identity of the killer is obvious early on by the process of elimination.

Biggest surprise is absence of extreme gore, since "Tour" was directed by Don Edmonds, whose two "Ilsa" gore spectaculars of a decade ago have become cult favorites. He may have cleaned up his act, but the result is a failure to meet the minimum requirements of the exploitation genre.

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