Shock Em Dead (1991)

Acting:		Partying:		Girls:
Blood:		Language:		Gore:
Violence:		Humor:		Sexuality:
Torture:		Predictability:		Overall:

Let's go back, fans of obscure and bad films, to the late eighties. Oh, this film says it was released in 1991, but there's no doubt, Shock ‘Em Dead is a film from the late eighties. Every bad memory of the clothing and music is in this film, to say nothing of the hair styles. Even the Guitars scream late eighties production. I've played Guitar for years, and watching this film reminded me that for quite a few years Music in general was just kind of silly. Even the instruments were kind of stupid looking.

Shock ‘Em Dead has been told lots of time before. Take your basic loser nerd, who is stuck at a dead end job (this time a Pizza place: nothing says desperation and no future then a fast food establishment. Probably the influence of that awful Poison video.) After he tries out for a band, and gets flat out humiliated and mocked due to the sheer ineptness of his playing, he decides to sell his soul to the Devil for the ability to play guitar. So far, we're stealing some of Faust, and adding parts of "Crossroads" with Ralph Machio. Instead of being screwed over with a portrait he has to stare at once a night, he can only subsist on a human heart. And blood. Plus he has to stab people with this bizarre looking knife.

On the plus side, he gets his own cool house, which looks exactly like you'd picture a member of, say, Warrant's house to look like circa 1989: also, he gets three hot babes in lingerie to play with, and the ability to play guitar like Yngwie Malmsteen. Or Steve Vai. Or the douche from White Lion. Or any hair band ‘shredder' from that era. If you're a fan, more power to you, but personally, speaking as someone who was alive in that era, and who remembers it really well, that music blew. In an era where the Ramones and the Replacements couldn't buy a spot on the Billboard top 50, you had to stomach bands like The Bullet Boys, Britney Fox, Cinderella and others. But damn if it's ...

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