Terror on Tour

What's more fun than seeing KISS-lookalike rock group members mutilate the pretty female groupies in and out of their concerts? If exploitation is your thing, then this'll be the perfect movie for you! This one came from Don Edmonds, who directed the violent exploitation classic ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. You know you're in for some mindless and tasteless fun, so dig deep through the bargain bin! Come across TERROR ON TOUR and tell the cashier that Jason Atwood of Virginia sent ya'!

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.

"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".

The producers of this crap owe the horror fans a BIG apology.

There's no way they could have been serious. This was a sorry excuse for a comedy. They tried gore for no reason other than they knew the joke was flat.

This gets one star for the idea, and another for the concert scenes. Even though the music was worse than anything I could think of.

Deaths follow a metal band on tour.

Did they do it?

Will you care?

No!!!

Put it back and rent something else.

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.