Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at a baker’s dozen of movies from the 1980s subgenre of Heavy Metal-related horror. Why only thirteen? Because I already reviewed Black Roses and Rocktober Blood years ago.
PAGANINI HORROR (1989) – Directed by Luigi Cozzi, better known to us fans of psychotronic movies as the Italian Ed Wood. Three women and one man constitute a heavy metal band desperate for a hit song. They strike a Faustian bargain with the mysterious Mr. Pickett, played by Donald Pleasence.
Pickett takes their souls as payment for a lost musical composition by the long-dead violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. The rockers adapt the piece of music as a heavy metal work and decide to film the song’s music video in a mansion once owned by Paganini himself.
Playing the piece while filming at the mansion causes Paganini to rise from the dead and lets loose other forces of Hell. Those characters not butchered by the masked, undead maestro via a knife that pops out of his violin are slaughtered by the supernatural forces now at large in the house.
Cozzi being Cozzi we also get the kitchen sink in the form of time loops, portals to Hell, family curses, cosmic Lovecraftian concepts and some of the daffiest death scenes imaginable. Some victims die by wood fungus, an inexplicable car fire and even by having invisible walls close in and crush them. Insert your own mime joke here. Continue reading
BLACK ROSES (1988) – This legendarily laughable attempt at a horror film belongs to quite a few niche sub-genres. It’s a Canadian horror movie, it’s one of the wonderfully campy Heavy Metal Horror productions of the 1980s and most importantly for trivia lovers Black Roses is one of the Big Three Canadian turkeys to feature Frank Dietz in a supporting role. (The other two are Rock’N’Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare. ) 
ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984) -This example of the Heavy Metal Horror films of the 1980s was produced, directed and written by Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, a well-known pair to all of us Bad Movie Geeks. The premise of this hilariously bad movie is that Heavy Metal star Billy Eye programs something sinister into his latest album by way of backward-masking. (Like “I buried Paul” and others) 
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