The opening credits for Hard Rock Nightmare promised me something that I’d seen a lot of pop culture references to, but never once witnessed for myself: “Troy Donahue as Uncle Gary.” So … now I have seen a movie with Troy Donahue.
The hard rock band The Bad Boys are practicing in a garage in suburbia when the cops show up and tell them they will be arrested after the next noise complaint. Where is a hot young rock band to practice?
Luckily, Jimmy’s grandmother left him a remote farm! The band borrows Uncle Gary’s Winnebago and they set out to drive there. Only after they arrive at the end of the road does Jimmy tell everyone they will need to hike the rest of the way. Did I mention that Jimmy is the lead singer? The drummer and the sound guy are especially unhappy at this revelation.
Several of the guys in the band look alike. I found myself building a logic-puzzle-style grid in order to keep track of them. Jimmy, Paul, Charlie, Tim, Sammy, John. Vocalist, guitarist, bass, drummer, keyboards, and the sound guy. But not in that order. Plus two girlfriends (Sally and Connie) and a hanger-on (Tina). I was almost done with the movie by the time I had the whole thing filled out. There was a (lingerie) dinner party of sorts, but I didn’t need to figure out a seating chart, thank goodness.
People start to die. Jimmy believes that his grandfather has come back from the grave as a werewolf — or possibly a vampire. When Jimmy was a kid, his grandfather scared him with a story about being a werewolf and a vampire: grandpa was going to suck out Jimmy’s blood and kill him! After scaring Jimmy to death, his grandfather went off to take a nap. Being scared to death, young Jimmy then staked his grandfather to death. So it’s possible that older Jimmy is having a psychotic break by being back at the farm — and is himself the murderer.
The conclusion has very little logical connection to the rest of the movie (“How can a wolf light a match?”), but I suppose they needed to end it somehow. And we get to see Uncle Gary nutted.
There is a lot of hard rock music in the soundtrack, but a lot of it is The Bad Boys practicing. How are they? They’re solidly mediocre; there’s a reason they need the practice.