Rockula
Back to Halloween! In 1988, both New World and Cannon Pictures were filing for bankruptcy. As a result, several of the films that the two companies made which were ready for release got shelved. The films made by New World eventually found decent distribution -- and their "Warlock" wound up being a huge hit on video. Cannon's "Rockula," however, suffered the opposite fate. According to cast and crew, it only played a few theatres before being dumped on video in August of 1990, where it remained largely ignored. While the film has developed a small cult following over the years and it's played on TV from time to time, it deserved better treatment. In recent years, however, it's turned up on television and on online streaming sites like Netflix.
Dean Cameron (who's perhaps best remembered as Chainsaw in "Summer School") plays Ralph LaVie, a vampire who's been under a curse for the past 200 years. Every 22 years, he meets the love of his life, Mona. But on Halloween night a few weeks later, a pirate with a peg leg wielding a ham-bone always clobbers her over the head and kills her. Mona's doomed to be reincarnated again and again until the curse is broken. This time around, Mona's a singer, and Ralph sets out to impress her by starting his own band (can you guess what the name is?). He's prodded along by his wisecracking doppleganger who lives in the mirror, where he's trapped until the curse is broken. With its bizarre sense of humor, low-brow jokes, campy performances and utterly absurd plot, the film isn't striving to be Oscar material, just an inoffensive low-budget comedy (with a very glossy '80s look). And it achieves exactly that. Think "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" meets "Once Bitten." Here's the seldom-seen trailer:
The entire cast ooze with charm. Set in 1984 (doing the math from when Mona lived in 1918), the filmmakers assembled a small roster of time-appropriate musical talent to star in it, including Thomas Dolby as the whacked out owner of "Stanley's Death Park" who also vies for Mona's affections, Toni Basil as Ralph's vampy mother (both Dolby and Basil gleefully steal scenes with their campy, over-the-top deliveries), Bo Diddley (who's wasted in a minuscule role) as a musician who winds up in Ralph's band, and the Visiting Kids, who are allegedly the offspring of members of Devo. A soundtrack album was planned, but by the time the film was finally released, the album was forgotten. Sad because there's some really good '80s music here. One of the highlights is Toni Basil's not-so-impromptu song "The Night" (which she, of course, choreographed herself!). And according to director Luca Bercovici ("Ghoulies"), Dolby had a scene where he sang a song, but it wound up on the cutting room floor (God, I hope they put enough effort into the DVD to find the deleted scenes, which are abundant). But at least it's finally getting the recognition it deserves as a cult oddity!
