Directed By: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Starring: Grant Page, Monique van de Ven, Margaret Gerard
Tag line: "Death Wish At 120 Decibels"
Trivia: An Australian / Dutch co-production that was shot primarily in California
Director Brian Trenchard-Smith once described his 1978 film Stunt Rock as “a professional love letter to stuntmen in general”. The movie is definitely this, but that's not all it is!
Australian stuntman Grant Page (playing himself) travels to America, where he has been hired to coordinate the stunts for a new TV series titled Undercover Girl, starring Dutch actress Monique Van de Ven (as herself).
He’s met at the airport by his cousin, Curtis Hyde, aka “Prince of Darkness”, one of five members of the rock group Sorcery. A heavy metal band that, when playing live, incorporates magic into the show, Sorcery also features Paul Haynes (whose on-stage persona is “King of the Wizards”); lead singer Greg Magie; guitarist Smokey Huiff; Richie King on bass; Perry Morris on drums; and Doug Loch (who never removes his mask on keyboards.
At the motel where he’s being put up, Grant meets Lois (Margaret Gerard), a journalist in search of her next story. With Monique usually in tow, Grant and Lois spend their days discussing stunt men, and their nights attending Sorcery concerts.
Yet try as she might to understand Grant and those like him, who risk life and limb for the sake of movies or TV show, Lois can’t shake the fear that the man she’s falling for has a death wish, and wonders how long it will be before one of his stunts goes very, very wrong.
Believed by many to be the finest stuntman in Australia at the time, Grant Page pulls off a number of death-defying feats throughout this film, including a leap from a water tower (with blood-filled squibs attached to his chest) and a car crash, during which he smashes head-first through the windshield while engulfed in flames. Along with the stunts he performed exclusively for this movie, we’re shown scenes from a few of Page’s earlier films, such as 1976’s Mad Dog Morgan, where another fire-related stunt almost ended in disaster.
In unison with the thrills, Stunt Rock teaches us a thing or two about being a stuntman, from the safety measures they take to a general history of the profession, with archive footage of daredevils from the 1920s and a brief look at some of Grant’s peers, including Peter Armstrong, who, in movies like Stone and The Cars That Eat People (both 1974), specialized in jumping from moving vehicles. Shown often via split-screen, which gives us two different views of the action, these sequences are, without a doubt, the film's most entertaining.
That’s not to say Sorcery, the rock band that also features prominently in the movie, doesn’t have its moments. Their live shows, where Paul Haynes’ Magician and Curtis Hyde’s Prince of Darkness stage mock battles, are a blast. Along with the theatrics, Sorcery also performs five original songs, not a single one of which impressed me to the point I want to seek out more of their music. Sorcery definitely adds some entertaining flash and flair, but in this movie, the “rock” takes a backseat to the stunts.
Stunt Rock is a movie doesn’t fit neatly into any one genre classification. It’s an action / musical / documentary with touches of fantasy, comedy, and romance tossed into the mix. Yet it’s this very thing that makes it such a fascinating motion picture. Stunt Rock may be an oddity that’s too strange to classify, but it’s also too much fun to ignore.
No comments:
Post a Comment