There was a cheesy little subgenre of horror in the 80s, presumably based on America's brief period of "Satanic Panic," of heavy metal themed horror films, like
Hard Rock Zombies,
Trick Or Treat,
Rocktober Blood... 1988's
Black Roses isn't my favorite of them (that would be
Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare!), but it's a fun runner up. And it's available in HD, but only if you're up for importing.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom.
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The Black Roses are a hot new band who want to practice performing in a
small town for a few nights (that "one night only" tag line is just flat out wrong-o) before embarking on their big tour,
especially since everybody in the audience at the last place they played
turned into monsters and went on a rampage. Yes, the uptight school
marms seem to be right to suspect this rock and roll band of having a
devilish influence on their youth, and it's up to a hip(?) high school
teacher to to get to the bottom of why his students behavior is becoming
increasingly criminal before it's too late for the whole world.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom. |
Black Roses is a low budget bit of Canuxploitation with a lot of ambition. It's full of cheap but thoroughly entertaining set pieces, from dramatic scenes of patricide to seductress ghosts appearing in the night. Records bubble on the turntable, monsters leap out of your speakers and all the nice girls start teasing up their hair. It's super cornball melodrama that's at least fifty percent self aware but knows to keep throwing stuff at the screen to keep us entertained. It helps that the music is really catchy and surprisingly good. The effects are all over the place, very low budget and rubbery, but often well designed and creative. Think
Rawhead Rex, where he looks great until you realize the expression is fixed and it's essentially a thick rubber mask that barely moves. And for some reason
The Sopranos'
Vincent Pastore turns up for a small role with a very out of place Brooklyn accent.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom. |
So Synapse originally released this on DVD in 2007 as a nice little
special edition. Unfortunately, that's where they left it, never
upgrading it to blu-ray. But in 2014, a little label called NSM Records was there to pick up the slack. "There" being Germany, where they released the film under the misfitting title
Freakshow. It didn't hang onto all the extras, but it's in HD for the first and still the only time.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom. |
Both discs are just slightly off of 1.78:1 - Synapse is 1.77 and NSM is
1.79, and their framing is slightly altered, though it's hard to say
which is better. NSM's blu's colors are better separated and its image
is brighter/ less saturated, the latter of which, again, may or may not be an
improvement, though it still keeps its blacks black. NSM's blu is unquestionably a sharper, HD image, though. It's not exactly a cutting edge scan, and the grain sometimes looks like over-sharpened digital noise, but it beats the smoothed out SD image.
Another advantage is that NSM bumps up the original stereo mix to lossless DTS-HD. Neither disc offers subtitles, so what's usually a small loss with imports like these is just a side-grade, and NSM does add a German dub (also stereo DTS-HD), if anyone's interested in that.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom. |
Now, Synapse's special edition isn't too packed, but
it's star feature is a pretty impressive commentary track with the
director, writer and several of its cast members. It's not perfect -
the director keeps putting his kid daughter on the mic, which is equal
parts annoying as cute. Still, it's great to finally hear the story
behind this film, and fans should be delighted to get it. There's also
some fun audition footage
[right] that shows some other directions they could've
gone with their lead villain character, plus there are some extended
promos (Essentially two five minute trailers).
Sadly, NSM didn't
carry over the commentary or the auditions, leaving it as a fairly
barebones release. They did manage to hang onto the promos, however,
and unlike Synapse, they found the actual theatrical trailer. They also
added a gallery of high def stills and a bunch of bonus trailers. It
has reversible artwork with the far more impressive poster art, and the
big red ratings logo is a sticker you can peel off the plastic.
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2007 US Synapse DVD top; 2014 DE NSM BD bottom. |
So, no, it's not a massive upgrade, and even if you do spring for it,
you'll want to keep your DVD for the extras. But it's something, which
is more than we've got in the USA. Maybe it's worth just holding out
hope that Synapse will get around to revisiting this title someday, along with
Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, which as another of their DVD-only titles; but in the meantime this is what we've got.
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