Terror on Tour

"Terror on Tour" is a lousy, putrid and terribly annoying attempt at occult slasher/Rocksploitation movie from the director of the infamous first two "Ilsa" flicks; - namely "She-Wolf of the SS" and "Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks". I've seen copious amounts of 80's slashers already and there are definitely more bad ones than good ones, but "Terror on Tour" is absolute bottom-of-the-barrel unendurable guff. The film lacks anything that remotely resembles a screenplay, the killings are dull and monotonous, the decors and cinematography are ugly, the acting performances are embarrassing and even the numerous topless girls flaunting in front of the cameras are irritating. A couple of losers form a rock band together, called The Clowns, and before as well as during and after every gig the concert hall transforms into one giant orgy with drugs, horny groupies and on-stage violence. Their looks are inspired by KISS and every band member is disguised, so we can't tell which clown is responsible for the gruesome knife- killings that are occurring after their concerts. The band members remain uninterested and unworried, even when more and more groupie-corpses are piling up around them, so why should us viewers wonder who's committing the murders? The killer is probably a very angry Gene Simmons because he didn't give permission to imitate his facial make-up. There, case closed! Most of the killing sequences in early 80's slasher movies are extremely misogynic and sexist, but the chicks in "Terror on Tour" truly deserve what's coming to them… They literally just throw their naked selves to any musician with a mask and paint on his hideous face, and then they look surprised when a knife is planted deep in their A-cup sized chests. This dud definitely earns a spot in my bottom 5 worst 80's slasher list, next to other hopeless titles such as "Blood Lake", "The Stay Awake", "Appointment with Fear", "Hollow Gate" and "Sledgehammer".

My review was written after watching a Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

Made in 1980, "Terror on Tour" is a theatrically unreleased stab and slash feature film currently available to home video users. Uninvolving programmer has little to offer horror addicts.

Premise has a hard-rock group the Clowns (wearing makeup reminiscent of Kiss) doing a Grand Guignol-style live act (similar to such trendsetters as Alice Cooper), caught up in a murder investigation when someone wearing their makeups starts stabbing girls for real. The victims are prostitutes, and script rather tediously keeps hammering away at the relationship between drugs, rock music and violence. Filmmakers even have the temerity to end on a note imploring the audience to stop displaying its enthusiasm for violent, "sick" entertainment.

Belying its ile, low-budget feature has no tour, with barely any exterior scenes and the group rooted in one spot. Only a handful of extras appear in the concert footage. Performing is dull, though lovely Lisa Rodriquez has a nice little role as a prostie working undercover for the police. Identity of the killer is obvious early on by the process of elimination.

Biggest surprise is absence of extreme gore, since "Tour" was directed by Don Edmonds, whose two "Ilsa" gore spectaculars of a decade ago have become cult favorites. He may have cleaned up his act, but the result is a failure to meet the minimum requirements of the exploitation genre.

I'm a fan of 80's metal. I'm a fan of 80's horror movies. Put the two together, and what do you get? Well, if you're lucky, ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984). Or you might get TERROR ON TOUR (1980), but that's not too shabby.

The Clowns are a rock band who wear clown make-up and half a clown mask across the right side of their faces. Someone sporting their concert get-up is murdering prostitutes and various groupies at their concerts. Who could it be? TERROR ON TOUR certainly isn't for everyone. The acting isn't great, the killer is goofy, the identity of the killer is obvious, and it's pretty sleazy to boot. But, being the die-hard slasher fan that I am, I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's not as good as ROCKTOBER BLOOD, but what can you do.

The acting wasn't TOO bad; it was more tolerable than anything. The people who played The Clowns were a real band called The Names, so you have to at least give them credit for trying.

The kills aren't too bloody or even original (it's all stabbing with a large knife), but they (mostly) come rapid fire and I'm in a forgiving mood, so I'll let it slide. The killer's identity is obvious (any four-year old who's seen more than one episode of Scooby-Doo can guess it), and his motive is really, really stupid.

On the rock scale, I'd say it gets a decent 3/4 mannequin be-headings. There are a lot of catchy rock songs, but none of them are very memorable. The runtime was short, but I never felt that it was boring; just a little repetitive.

Anyway, TERROR ON TOUR was a treat for an undemanding eighties slasher fanatic like myself. So if you're in the mood for a little rock and slashing and your VHS of ROCKTOBER BLOOD just broke, check this out.

The Clowns are a shock rock group who look like a cross between The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Sgt Kabukiman and your average Goth and like to pretend to stab, mutilate and kill groupies on stage. It becomes problematic when someone starts to actually kill groupies who have come to see the band in real life.

Terror on Tape was made in 1980 and so the shock rock aspect seems a bit passe. It would have been cooler if it was made in the early/mid 70's when Alice Cooper was becoming famous. But, nonetheless, it's still a solid and entertaining yarn. The make-up the band members wear makes it easy for someone to imitate them or to make it harder to ascertain which band member is bumping off the pretty young women who surround the band. The backstage area is also eerily deserted when the band is onstage, and so this also makes the murders easier.

The movie also captures something that you don't see in modern movies that try to portray the early 80's, and that is the amount of wood panelling that was used for interiors. Youngsters nowadays think the era was all pastel colours and neon. It wasn't. It was wood panelling.

Terror on Tour isn't bad, but it's far from being some forgotten masterpiece, either.

Fun fact 1- Alex Rebar, who was the lead in The Incredible Melting Man, is one of the executive producers on this movie.

Fun fact 2- The guy (Larry Thomas) who plays the notorious 'Soup Nazi' character from Seinfeld is one of the band members.

For anyone who makes the mistake of sitting though this movie: I had just decided to become an actor and I knew very little about it. I was majoring in journalism in Junior college and took a theatre class to get a date with a girl I liked and got interested in acting. I drove a friend to the audition of Terror on Tour (originally called "Clowns") and the director (Don Edmunds) asked me to read. I told him I wasn't ready as an actor to do a film and didn't know anything about acting much less film acting. He cast me and talked me into doing it. I was patently awful. I over acted every word and indicated like crazy. Above that a year after initial filming when I knew a little more about acting they called me back to shoot two pick up scenes (easy to spot as my hair was much shorter--it went from '79 to '80 nuff said). I was told to yell my dialog as there would be loud rock music playing in the background. The other guy in the scene was producer Sandy Cobe who wasn't an actor and couldn't really handle yelling while imagining loud music. In the end they forgot to add the music so it seemed like I was over acting even more than in the rest of the film. When I saw the film I came very close to quitting trying to be an actor altogether. The only reason I didn't quit is that I figured if I could spot how awful I was maybe I had a chance to learn to do it right. The band members were a real band and had never acting before so you could forgive them their acting. Of the rest of the cast there was (in my opinion) one good actor. Jeff Morgan. In filming he actually seemed to be in the moment and connecting on an honest level when you were talking to him. When I saw the film I felt I could see it in his performance. I never heard from him again and don't know what he's doing now but I do think he escaped the horror of the acting in this horror film. Again I hope whoever has to see me in this film will understand my horror that it still exists.

Larry Thomas