Black Roses
Their recordings have been met with adoration by the youth of America and consternation by the more conservative among their parents, the Black Roses never having played live but in preparation for their first ever set of gigs, a four night residency at the incongruous venue of the Mill Basin High School auditorium, a litmus test for a wider tour.
English teacher Matthew Moorhouse trying to open the eyes of his students to poetry, he is open minded, while Mrs Miller accuses the band of being a “corrupting influence, disciples of the Devil,” with their Satanic music and subversive lyrics, but watching the opening number of soft rock and synths the teachers and Mayor Farnsworth are mollified, the Black Roses changing the tune when the adults have departed and the real concert beginning.
The supposed relationship between heavy metal, rock music, teenage rebellion and Satanic cults having long been established in the minds of “moral majority” of the American right wing, Black Roses was released in 1988, two years after the similarly themed Trick Or Treat but without the presence of Ozzy Osbourne or Gene Simmons to sell it to an audience and decidedly less ambitious in its intention to shock or outrage, or even to raise a laugh.
Shot on a shoestring in Canada and directed by John Fasano from an uneven screenplay by production manager Cindy Sorrell which leaves the motives and goals of the demonic band unclear, taking their time to sow dissent among the local youth who slowly turn homicidal, the rage and resentments they prey on seeming petty and the ambition of playing a high school fairly limited, attracting no attention from the media or out-of-towners.
Moorhouse (John Martin) quoting Whitman and Emerson, trying to engage his students in debate, his attempts are wasted in the face of their indifference, Farnsworth (Ken Swofford) similarly disinterested in the warning signs despite bodies piling up in his small town and declining to initiate an investigation and the blown-dry hair of pouting lead singer Damien (Sal Viviano, voiced by King Cobra’s Mark Free, later Marcie Free) far from threatening.
The acting of the “teenagers” and the demonic puppet work on a par with Hobgoblins, the transformation of Julie (Karen Planden) resembling an oversized plucked chicken, Black Roses’ four night stand in a small town kills any momentum, failing to build dread in the way Salem’s Lot did with the corruption taking root in the town and built around a mediocre radio friendly soundtrack which was dated by the time it was released, the dark arts perhaps the only way the adulation the band inspires could be explained.
Black Roses is streaming on Shudder now
