So this is another film I’ve never seen before so this will be interesting!
Art by Devon Whitehead
Eddie Weinbaur is writing a letter to his idol, heavy metal rocker Sammi Curr. Sammi is an alumni of of Eddie’s school who has been banned from playing at the Halloween dance. After writing the letter he is watching the news and hears that Sammi had died in a mysterious fire.
Devastated, Eddie goes to visit his friend, local radio DJ Nuke who happened to know Sammi personally - of course he did. Nuke gives Eddie a copy of Sammi’s final and in-released record, and reveals his plans to play the album on air at midnight on Halloween. That night Eddie falls asleep listening to the album and has a strange dream about the fire that killed Sammi, and he wakes up to find the disc stuck. He listens to the tape backwards - as you do - and discovers Sammi is talking to him from beyond the grave! Sammi instructs him to take revenge on his high school bullies. At first the revenge is fairly innocent, but it soon starts to become more sinister with people being hurt and possibly murdered.
Eddie gets cold feet - as any normal person would - and wants to sever ties with Sammi, but Sammi is not going to let that happen. When Eddie is alone in his room, Sammi causes side to spill on the record causing enough of an electrical surge for him to escape from the record into real life. Eddie smashes his stereo in the hope he never has to see Sammi again - I think we all know that won’t work!
Eddie’s bully had stolen the cassette tape from Eddie and it caused his bully’s girlfriend to end up in hospital just from listening to it! Eddie is determined to get the tap back and recruits his friend Roger to help him destroy the tape. Roger steals the tap but curiosity gets the better of him and he doesn’t destroy the tape, instead he listens to it and gets a visit from Sammi! Sammi orders Roger to play his album at the Halloween dance or die - I mean if he had just destroyed the tape when he was told he wouldn’t be in this mess!
Roger does as he is told - makes a change - and plays the album at the dance. Eddie tries to stop it as he finds out the tape is being played. As the live band start to play, Sammi escapes from the lead singers amp and steals the show. The naive students think this is amazing and that it is a tribute to Sammi .... that is until he starts shooting electric bolts out of his guitar and disintegrating students and panic erupts. Eddie manages to get to the school he comes across his bully Tim who he tries to save, but Tim is a dick and ignores him so Sammi kills him! He finds Leslie and they tries to find the main circuit box. Sammi, realising what they are doing attacks them but Roger knocks the circuit box, shutting down the power and temporarily stopping Sammi.
Eddie realises Sammi can only travel through radio signals and goes on a rampage smashing every radio in sight - I do not blame him! Eddie heads to the radio station to stop the midnight broadcast and manages to lure Sammi (inside a cassette tape) into a police car and provokes him until he appears behind the grill and tries to attack Eddie. Eddie drives over the edge of an unfinished bridge into a river to destroy the rocker once and for all.
This film was okay but it was a bit unrealistic for me, I would watch it again. All kinds of messed up in the stories! I can see why Sam became such an icon for Halloween, even if his screen-time is minimal! I would happily watch again for Halloween!
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