Terror on Tour (1980) — Triskaidekafiles

TERROR ON TOUR

WRITER: Dell Lekus

DIRECTOR: Don Edmonds

STARRING: Rick Styles as Fred

Chip Greenman as Ralph

Rich Pemberton as Henry

Dave Galluzzo as Cherry

Larry Thomasof as Tim

Jeff Morgan as Herb

Dave Thompson as Jeff

Sylvia Wright as Carol

John Green as Lieutenant Lambert

QUICK CUT: New rock band The Clowns begin their breakout tour, and things do not go well!

THE MORGUE: So many characters that are interchangeable and never fleshed out, so I’m giving myself a pass this week.

Terror never comes close enough to where I live for me to see it.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! The time has come once again, for the annual "rocksploitation" movie, because yeah, I am still doing this, I guess? Funnily enough, there is one movie, and if you know the subgenre you can easily guess it, that I have been meaning to do since like, the second or third time I did this. But, I keep kicking that can down the road. And here I am, doing it again, so I can instead talk about Terror on Tour. Much regrets.

Immediately, we are introduced to The Clowns, a band that are basically Dollar Store KISS. They've got the face makeup, but it's simple and all the same for all the characters. They've got flashy costumes, but nowhere near on the level of KISS, and they have half-masks they wear over one eye.

The highlight of their performance is, uh, smashing apart mannequins on stage during the climax of a song. Uh? You do you, my dudes.

Oh, and a girl gets fake stabbed, so there's that. Still, it's all very light, even by 1980s standards. It's all so very try hard, even in trying to convince the audience at how edgy they are. Music is a slice of all right, I guess.

Meanwhile backstage, two others are getting into makeup, and...but...the band is on stage? How does this work? Okay it took a few viewings for this to sink in, but I guess they’re roadies and stage crew that also like to get made up.

Anyways, following their manager checking on them, one of them borrows some money to buy some more drugs from a woman in the alley.

Once he leaves, the girl ends up getting stabbed by someone dressed and made up as a member of the band, so at least there's a narrative reason for them all to look the same.

Damnit, dead hooker delivery is at the REAR entrance, not the SIDE!

The club owner goes to leave once the concert ends, but finds the woman's dead body blocking the door. Cue Lt. Lambert entering the plot to try and solve the crime. Kinda. He lingers and doesn’t do much until the second half.

Ralph is busy in his room doing drugs, when manager Tim comes in to scold him a bit, because he doubles as the band's dad. As all good managers do.

And I have no idea how many of these characters I'm gonna keep straight. It's like six people with dark brown hair, and no personalities.

Following some time killing time antics of band members being band members, it's time for another concert. And following the concert, it's more rockstars being rockstars; sex, drugs, alcohol.

One of the women hooking up with the band, discovers she is NOT hooking up with an actual band member, when he penetrates her with his giant dagger, instead of...something else.

The killer then moves along to another room, finds another girl, and kills her as well. Do this a few more times, wash rinse, repeat. On the upside, the movie has Wockachicka music, and I always have time for Wockachicka.

Whomever can remove this sword from this slut shall be crowned king of England!

Lambert shows back up to interrogate the band members, none of them know any of the women's names, and the cop is surprised by this. My dude, I can't even remember THESE guys' names.

You would think this would make the Clowns cool it with the hookers, but nope, that night, they all have new women to have fun with.

So we kinda sit around and spin wheels waiting for things to happen, and one of the Clowns is off on his own, practicing and thinking, when Manager Tim shows up.

Those two chat for a bit, and the Clown starts getting deep, wondering how his music is affecting people, are they sick, are the fans sick and...No. No, I am sorry. This movie has not earned any of its characters getting this philosophical and introspective.

Another night, another concert, and I gotta say, for being a "tour" they sure are staying in one place for a long time.

Lambert shows up to keep an eye on things, and hey, side observation; I get having the killer dress up as one of the band is a nice gimmick, and you're meant to think it's one of them, but if no one actually SEES the killer and lives to tell the tale..what is the point? You don't get a "Witnesses saw a Clown running away!"

Meanwhile, a woman whom Lambert has arrested before shows up, to work off a bit of her sentence, so she can get close to the boys, to see if they did the thing. This is a cute idea that...is woefully underdeveloped and underused. Which is rapidly becoming the entire ethos of this movie.

While the band gets ready, they play some music from their first go around, as a more bubblegummy pop group, and I gotta say; It's better. I get why it might not've sold, but it's what they shoulda been. Their hearts are more in it. Also, this plot of them being a formerly failed pop band…goes nowhere and is woefully underdeveloped.

The audience starts to get restless, chanting Send in the Clowns!...well, not really, but they shoulda, and Jeff runs into Tim backstage. He's one of the roadies, has been slacking off, and Tim decides to fire him.

Jeff gets upset, the two of them yell at each other, and I gotta say, if this wasn't 25 minutes from the end, with about six dead bodies in our wake, this would actually be a worthwhile plot point. But as it is here, it's a red herring that just is too late to make sense. Another solid idea that is utterly mishandled.

A sergeant shows up to give Lambert some info, and he's new on the job, and so enthusiastic. He blurts out, "I love murder!!" Yeah, that's probably not a good idea.

Yes, this is yet another plot point that is very underdeveloped.

Meanwhile, some random woman is wandering around backstage, and you guessed it, ends up a victim at the wrong end of the killer's knife.

HEY BART WANNA CHECK OUT MY NEW CARVING KNIFE AND "CLOWNS" MASK??

Patricia Plotpoint comes across the dead body, and almost becomes the killer Clowns' next victim. She manages to kick him in the nuts and run away, though.

Y’know, aside from it being THE WHOLE GIMMICK, the band is almost completely unnecessary to this plot. They're so often just sitting around, or on stage while Stuff Happens, and just utter non characters.

While the band plays on, the killer stalks after Patty, but eventually finds Lambert and stabs him. So, he didn't do a whole lot, huh?

What you all painted up for, crackhead??

Patricia finds Lambert's body, and the killer shows up and adds her to his body count. In the scuffle, she knocks the mask off and, uh...it's a white dude with a half painted face and dark hair. That's like...85% of this cast, fuck if I know who this is, come on.

Herb wanders back in, finds the dead girl he was sweet on, and runs into whom he assumes is one of the band members, but then realises it's Tim...ohhh, Tim. The manager is the killer. …Why?

I mean, they're hookers, and there was ONE tiny scene midway through the movie where someone finds a letter from Tim's mom, a super religious person, hoping he's not going to Hell because of his job. But that's so minor, and yet also so on the nose, it really needed something better done with it.

The motivation of "I had to kill them, they had no moral values!" makes ZERO SENSE when you manage a *rock band* filled with people doing drugs and women and every other little thing right in front of you. And you aren’t even TRYING to kill them! There’s a bit where Tim goes off on them being potential mothers, but like EVERYTHING ELSE, just underdeveloped.

He chases Herb around, slashes him a bit, and eventually the roadie stumbles onto stage. The commotion makes the band stop, and then Tim shows up to finish the job on stage.

And the movie comes to an end, with Tim having committed that act for all to see. Kinda sudden, I must say.

You know…it really says it all when all the girls are listed as "Something Girl" and no character names.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Ugh, this doesn’t look great. It’s a LOT of black on black on black, and stuff in dark scenes. It’s JUST good enough to see what’s going on, but I’d love to see a restored version of this some day.

Audio: All right, but there’s a lot of mumbling, and again, my one thing I want better of from rocksploitation movies, is at least give me good audio, to showcase the songs.

Sound Bite: "Is there anything I can do for you?" "Yes. Die."

Body Count: An all right, if unemotional amount of death in this movie.

1 - At 8:40, the killer claims his first victim, when he stabs the drug dealer with a knife.

2 - One of the groupies gets stabbed.

3 - And then he slashes another's throat.

4 - And yet another stabbed through the chest.

5 - Yet another girl gets gashed.

6 - The killer finally mixes things up when he stabs Detective Lambert in the neck.

7 - But then it's back on track, as he stabs Patty Plotpoint.

8 - Herb gets stabbed in the back.

Best Corpse: Kinda uninspiring this week, but there’s at least the stabbed in the chest gag, which is pulled off well enough.

Blood Type B: An almost shockingly high grade. There’s quite a bit of blood splashed and slashed around, and all right effects.

Sex Appeal: Almost all the female victims are various levels of nude at some point.

Drink Up! Every time you realise a plot is going nowhere

Movie Review: This one is rough, and mostly because you can see the ideas there. You know there’s SOMEthing here, so it becomes frustrating when so much potential promise dies on the vine. It’s like they tossed all the ideas in, hit blend, and then didn’t pay anything off. The band SHOULD be the stars, but they’re almost little more than set dressing while the plot goes on around them. If you actually developed all the half baked ideas, if you actually gave all the characters personalities, and made it possible to tell them apart, worked on the killer’s motivation…you got something. And it’s not even that well directed beyond that. The concerts are uninspired and bland, and they should POP for what this band is supposed to be. But this just barely pulls off a two out of five giant afro wigs.

Entertainment Value: This movie is bad and grimy, and trashy, but somehow intriguing. It has a sense of atmosphere that is borderline compelling. The sleaziness is what it works at, but then there’s everything else. The acting on a few characters is all right. Tim does a fine job, although some hints of what he was capable of would' be nice, otherwise it comes too out of the blue, and you don’t feel like they played fair. If the cast all had personalities, you could give them all motivations and make them suspects, and still have Tim be a nice guy, with a few odd quirks, so it’s not obvious, but also not out of the blue. There’s some funny lines here and there, mostly from the killer. Even the philosophical moment is nice, but completely in isolation from everything else around it. The movie is bad, but at least it’s not annoying. Three out of five one eyed masks.