Lovely Lindsay (Traci Lords) is the manager of Spastic Colon, a struggling heavy metal band in which her boyfriend Greg (Tim Moffett) plays bass. Unfortunately the band are going nowhere fast without a halfway decent lead guitarist. Nerdy pizza boy Martin (Stephen Quadros) tries out at an audition but his ineptitude earns him the mockery of preening lead singer Jonny (Markus Grupa). In desperation Martin sells his soul to a voodoo witch (Tyger Sodipe) who promises to make him the greatest rock and roll star the world has ever seen. After a Satanic rock fever dream, he awakens in a luxurious pad sporting a freaky hairdo and amazing guitar skills. He also has a trio of scantily-clad rock vixens named Michelle (Karen Russell), Monique (Laura Wiley) and Marilyn (Gina Parks) willing to cater to his every whim. As his alter-ego Angel he aces the audition and looks set for rock domination till he discovers the catch in his contract. Since Martin can no longer eat normal food he must kill people to stay alive.
An interesting relic from the era of big hair, spandex and brash guitar licks, this goofy low budget, shot-on-video heavy metal take on the Faust story by way of The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) was already old hat by 1991. And not just because the grunge rock wave ushered in by Nirvana was set to sweep all those ghastly hair metal bands onto the garbage heap. Several earlier films had put a rock and roll spin on this oft-told tale. Few came within a hair's breadth of the baroque wit and imagination of Brian De Palma's seminal Phantom of the Paradise (1974) which stirred elements of Faust into a take-off on The Phantom of the Opera, but Canada's leading animation studio Nelvana produced two outings, The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978) and Rock & Rule (1983) that are worth a look.
Seemingly influenced by comics, cheesy horror films and the kind of metal music videos that were arguably beyond parody by this point in time, Shock 'Em Dead exhibits an ingratiating enthusiasm that counterbalances some ropey production values. Writer-director Mark Freed, whose only other film was Lovers and Liars (1994), a trashy melodrama set against the fashion world with Michael York and David Carradine, goes for a wildly tongue-in-cheek tone that suits the material though the film is never quite as funny or outrageous as it ought to be. Stilted performances suggest the cast were reading lines from cue cards off camera although in his initial role as geeky bespectacled Martin, lead actor Stephen Quadros gives a performance so broad he makes Jerry Lewis look restrained. Apparently Quadros is less than happy when anyone brings up this fim given he went on to become a martial arts champion and handle the fight choreography in some major movies. Though the film tries to establish Martin as a sympathetic oaf he comes across so shrill and whiny it is hard to care when his alter-ego starts behaving like a jerk: upstaging Jonny at a big gig, vomiting on a girl in the audience, bullying staff at the pizza parlour where he used to work and, oh yes, killing people.
More self-consciously cheesy than subversive, the plot plods along but musters a handful of good gags including a chase sequence involving the hilariously camp Jonny clad in red spandex. The songs are also pretty funny. Composed by Mark Freed himself the likes of “Virgin Lover” and “I'm in Love with a Slut” send-up the misogyny of the hair metal era though it is worth noting the female characters here are either squealing victims or murderous sluts. Top-billed Traci Lords is given little to do besides swoon or scream and, to the dismay of her fans, keeps her clothes on. Not that sleaze addicts will have much to complain about given every other female character gets naked. Fans of name actors in low-rent exploitation will recognise Aldo Ray as Martin's grumpy pizza parlour boss while former Sixties heartthrob Troy Donahue acquits himself surprisingly well as a sleazy rock agent. Shock 'Em might lack the sort of full-throttle set-piece to make it truly memorable but the climax wherein an audience mistake Angel's satanic ritual involving a captive Lindsay for a stage-show proves rather amusing.
