undoubtedly the best heavy metal horror item make in the manically headbangin 80 and which admittedly doesn not sound like much consider how utterly abysmal many other entry in this odd little fright film sub genre like hard rock zombie and blood track and terror on tour and and the especially ungodly jon mikl thor star stinker rocknroll nightmare tend to be . that aside and this one still deserve prop for downplay the excessive splatter and needlessly flashy special f or x razzle dazzle in favor of focus on adolescent high school character who be depict with great acuity and plausibility than the norm for a mid 80 teen target scarefest . moreover and the film point sardonic parodying of both ridiculously overblown 80 heavy metal stupidity and the nauseate self righteousness of the uptight killjoy conservative stiff who claim it be the devil music be very clever and on the money funny ( famed greed decade heavy metal god ozzy osbourne have a hilarious bit a a smarmy anti metal tv evangelist . ) . marc price ( the hopelessly dweeby skippy on family tie ) give a surprisingly strong and win performance a eddie ragman weinbauer and a geeky and socially awkward and severely persecuted heavy metal aficionado who constantly pick on by the stick up jerk preppie bully who make up the majority of the student body at lakeridge high school ( the cruelty and mean spiritedness of the high school kid be nail with painfully credible accuracy ) . eddie life take a turn for the worse when his rock star idol sammi curr ( an impressively whack out portrayal by tony field ) perishes in a hotel fire . hip local disc jockey nuke ( kiss front man gene simmons in a cool cameo ) hook eddie up with sammi final and unreleased album and which when play backwards resurrects curr malevolent spirit back from the dead . sammi encourage eddie to sic him on all the vile scumbags who make poor eddie life the proverbial living hell and only to have meek eddie prove to be a most reluctant would be accomplice . it up to eddie and assist by token nice girl leslie graham ( likeably essay by the lovely lisa orgolini ) and to stop sammi before thing get too out of hand . ably direct with commendable thoughtfulness and sensitivity by character actor charles martin smith ( who also briefly appear a a nerdy school teacher ) and smartly write by michael s. murphy and joel soisson and and rhet topham and and capably act by a uniformly up to snuff cast and this surefire sleeper even come complete with a handful of nifty jump moment ( an outrageous attack in the back of a car by a grotesquely lecherous long tongue mutant thingie rate a the definite highlight ) and a rousing carrie style high school dance slaughter sequence and a neatly utilized halloween set and revenge be correctly show a a truly ugly business and and a solid central message that you shouldn not make a particular over hyped person your hero strictly because of the calculated anti establishment posturing say fellow do to qualify for that special status .