Stunt Rock

I had an epiphany during this movie, for my whole life I naively thought Citizen Kane had no equal, but now I can say with complete confidence that Stunt Rock is unequivocally it.

The similarities are subtle but many, there are moving pictures & sound - so far so good, plenty of thoughtful mugging is going on just like what Orson Welles did and lastly while you are watching twelve monkeys don't encroach around you hurling their feces in your general direction.

One of the reasons I discovered this movie is I found the soundtrack to Rocktober Blood, which I listened to hundreds of times before finally deciding to watch the actual movie and of course Sorcery (not Sorcery of Chicago) does the music and they Rock! I feel the movie (Rocktober Blood) is underrated, the plot is more interesting than you may initially think, but then again you get great music as well!

I feel many parallels can be drawn between Rocktober Blood and Stunt Rock, which can only bode well for you, the viewer, since you could have a great night with friends, make it a double-bill!

I must have seen bits and pieces of "Stunt Rock" footage in the downright fantastic documentary "Not Quite Hollywood", probably found it instantly cool, promptly added it to my never-ending watchlist, and then subsequently forgot about it for the next ten years or so. They obviously only showed the awesome stunt parts in "Not Quite Hollywood", and from the documentary I couldn't derive that this really isn't the type of "film" I usually seek for. "Stunt Rock" isn't a film, in fact, because there aren't any real characters and there isn't a plot. It's a mixture of impressively performed stunts by Grant Page, integrally sung rock anthems by a band named Sorcery and inventive magical tricks shown by a Merlin lookalike wizard and a sort of devil named Prince of Darkness. It's original, exhilarating and entertaining for about half an hour, but then it becomes rather tedious and repetitive. I don't want to talk too negatively about "Stunt Rock", because I have tremendous respect for its director Brian Trenchard-Smith. After all, he's the Ozploitation pioneer who created cult hits like "Blood Camp Thatcher" and "Dead End Drive-In". He's clearly fascinated by the world of stuntmen and wanted to bring an ode to their business; good for him! Some of the Sorcery songs are quite catchy, for example the one that has a similar beginning as "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads.

Part drama, part stunts showreel, part rock concert film featuring Grant Page, the famous real life Australian master stuntman best known for his work on Mad Max, Grant, who plays himself, goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. In this 1978 mocumentary page helps a band (Sorcery) to develop pyrotechnic magic tricks for their shows, and also recounts his exploits as a stuntman and daredevil, as well as a very informative movie about stunt work for movies and what goes on behind the scenes. The acting is superb as page plays himself and he fits in this movie better than Deathcheaters (1976), the script wild and unconstrained and the direction is wild. In total this gives you an experience of what cinema really should be, bereft of CGI and special effects and crazy budgets it just rides along free as a bird. And then there's the music. To be fair, there are so many tunes that ranges good to out-and-out classic. The music in this film is a spectacular array of AOR, Heavy metal and classic rock something you won't hear in a film's soundtrack nowadays. A downright Ozploitation classic.

Although this movie is somewhat dated, the rock band Sorcery makes it worth watching. I saw Sorcery live in LA at a concert where non-other than Van Halen opened for them. The movie showcases their music and their spectacular stage show. Not too much bad language so its OK for even little kids.

This film has a minor cult following and it's easy to see why. The story is about Australian stuntman Grant Page (playing himself) traveling to Hollywood to handle the stunts for the new TV series "Undercover Girl". Grant hooks up with his cousin, who is a member of a rock band called Sorcery. Sorcery uses real "magic" on stage with their music and their entire stage show is a rock opera that tells the story about a duel between the King of the Wizards (Paul Haynes) and the Prince of Darkness (Curtis Hyde). They go see Sorcery rehearse in the studio and then to an actual stage performance, where the band uses fire, and some pretty awesome prog-rock tunes to tell their story about good versus evil. That's about the entire plot of the film, as Grant performs a series of dangerous stunts (along with footage of other stunt men and women) and Sorcery performs a series of original tunes and magic to an appreciative audience. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith treads a fine line between fiction and reality and, by all accounts, he should have failed miserably. Surprisingly, though, this film is a total blast from beginning to end, thanks in no small part to Grant Page's on-screen charisma and devil-may-care stuntwork and Sorcery's kick-ass music and stage show. But none of this would have mattered if it didn't gel with the concert footage. Luckily, Trenchard-Smith chose SORCERY, a big-haired prog-rock Los Angeles band (the keyboard player wears a hood over his head and his voice is electronically altered) with a loyal cult following.

I must confess that I never heard of them or their music before this film, but their songs and stage show won me over pretty quickly. They are kind of like Emerson, Lake and Palmer mixed with an Arthurian Legend stage show, complete with a Merlin-like wizard (who at one point is spun on the tip of a sword and then impaled!) that performs many magic tricks. It's like watching a David Henning magic show with fist-pumping rock music, but without the extreme overbite. It's a feast for the eyes and the ears.