The internet has changed everything. Prior to Al Gore's mightiest invention group-hugging the universe in its fiber-optic tentacles, the exchange of information was a vastly different process. Take discussion of film, for instance. Before message boards, chat rooms or Monsters At Play (a dark time, indeed), films became notorious through print or good old-fashioned word of mouth. The “must-see” flicks of the time that truly were on the eyes, lips and ears of the fans were something special, either through quality or being so completely memorable its frames were forever burned into the viewers' psyches.

Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare falls pretty firmly into the latter camp: it's certainly not what one would call a “good movie,” or even what I would call a “beer and popcorn flick.” No, Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare is, based on technical merit alone, a bad movie. The plot is threadbare, most of the scares laughable, and the characters one-dimensional. Hell, the first scene is probably enough to make most viewers scoff in disbelief and turn off the TV. After watching a happy Canadian family get terrorized by an off-screen something, I was thinking the same thing, although my girlfriend and I were certainly enjoying ourselves aping the husband's monotonous bleats for his wife...”Care-uhl...Care-uhl!”

Then The Van shows up.

Not just any van...no, this is probably the most bad ass van ever captured on celluloid. It's got a hood scoop. It's got a wing. It's got graphics. It's got handcuffs dangling from the rear view. It's got an Alpine tape deck. And it's being commandeered by Jon-Mikl Thor. Seriously, all it needs is a Frazetta painting on the side and to run off of Pabst Blue Ribbon and this thing could carry an entire movie where it teams up with Airwolf to save the Swedish Bikini Team. I'd see it in the theater. Twice.

The Megavan is carrying the metal band The Tritonz out to a house outside Toronto for five weeks of practice so they can come up with ten minutes of new material to secure their advance. There's no TV or telephone to distract them, their manager Phil informs them, which upsets Lou Anne, the spoiled girlfriend of Stiggy the drummer. “Couldn't you have been something sensible, like a coke dealer?” she moans. It's after this scene that I started to get into the weird groove of the movie, with its delightfully forced dialogue and weird characters: Stiggy is especially memorable due to his accent, which changes in the blink of an eye from Australian to English to Welsh...made even better by the fact that he's not even foreign! John Fasano, in the audio commentary (more on this later), reveals Stiggy to just be “a pretentious asshole.” Works for me.

However, I went from being interested in the movie to being completely and utterly in love when The Tritonz played their first song, “We Live To Rock.” Suddenly, Fasano and his DP Mark Mackay put themselves in total MTV mode, sweeping the camera across the band as they pretend to play their instruments and capturing the infectious enthusiasm of Thor, who comes across almost like a beefy David Lee Roth in the scene. Even the song itself is charmingly anthemic 80's rock, catchy as hell with a driving beat.

Of course, this movie is called Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare and not “Band Practice-a-go-go” (although I certainly wouldn't mind the latter), so wouldn't you know it, the shit hits the fan in a big way. While on q hunt to find Stig more drumsticks, he's seduced in the basement by Lou Anne...or is it? In the middle of their hot and heavy makeout session (in which Phil actually uses the line “So how about those Mets?”), the false Lou Anne lets her demonic nature peek through and chows down on Phil's shoulder. Yum!

One bye one, The Tritonz are eliminated by the satanic entities of the house...Stig is lured in by the freckly cleavage of The Seductress (to quote Master Shake, “She looks like a reverse planetarium!”), the guitarist and keyboardist are done in by a demonic dog-boy...not even a quartet of teenyboppers (representing The Tritonz Fan Club, Missesauga Chapter) are safe from the Devil's evil machinations.

But there's still Jon Triton.

In perhaps the most notorious twist ending in film history (and it's given away on the back of the DVD, so don't get all pissy about spoilers here), turns out Jon Triton is really The Intercessor, an archangel by the name of Triton. All of his band members were figments of his imagination, inspired by horror movies, created to lure Beelzebub and his infernal minions out into the open so that Triton could face him and do battle.

Forget your preconceived notions about angels with wings plucking away at harps. Triton's angelic form wears little more than knee-high boots, a spiked metal codpiece, a cape, and some blue eye shadow. However, I'm sure the gallon of Aquanet used to tease his hair a good foot above his head offset all this. After shrugging off a barrage of rubber octopus/starfish things, Triton engages Old Scratch himself in a wholly enjoyable display of hand-to-hand combat, where Thor mugs for the camera so much he should have a handle coming out of the side of his head. All of this is set to the strains of “The Challenge,” which was easily my favorite song on the soundtrack of this little gem. Seriously, the upcoming soundtrack CD from La-La Land Records can't come soon enough!

While it may come across as cheesy and absurd, it's this very campiness mixed with enthusiasm on the part of the cast and crew that elevate that elevates the film to a work of art. Despite some hokey lines in the screenplay or inherent goofiness in some of the actions (Thor's grimaces when he tears apart the aforementioned starfish-things are beyond priceless), there is always the air that everyone is thoroughly enjoying themselves. It shows in Thor's spirited (if overly dramatic) performance, delivering every line with unmatched bravado. It shows in the cheesy but effective special effects, where the minimally-used appliances may show their seams, but still convince the viewer. It shows in the awesome songs (seriously, they're that good) which work together with the synthy score to produce a wall of sound that fits the movie like a leather glove.

Available for the first time on DVD, Synapse gives Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare the royal treatment. The European print they use (sporting the title The Edge of Hell) is nearly flawless. The over-the-top 80's palette looks fantastic on the screen, and the HD transfer looks razor-sharp, with only a little grain to soften the image. One night-lit scene at the very end looks pretty murky (must've been a bad reel of film), but the other 80-odd minutes look amazing. Audio is available in either the original mono, which sported some poorly mixed dialogue, or Synapse's new 5.1 remix, which helped clean up the dialogue issue and fill in some of the soundtrack to give it some extra oomph. Special mention goes to the music, which sounded completely fantastic all around.

Now let's talk about the extras, which easily earn this DVD its “Special Edition” title. First, we've got a newly recorded intro and afterward featuring Jon-Mikl Thor pumping us up for the movie. Next, we've got a mini-history of Jon-Mikl Thor, detailing primarily his acting career and a little bit of his music career with his band Thor. Two behind-the-scenes featurettes are on tap, one on the film as a whole, and another on the creation of the “Child-Wolf,” from head-plastering to final filming. This is the type of stuff I really go bananas over, as it shows all that enthusiasm that the filmmakers have down to the nitty-gritty stuff. Then there's the audio commentary I mentioned earlier with John Fasano and Jon-Mikl Thor. It's both informative and utterly entertaining, with the two trading vignettes of information, alternately mocking and praising their baby, and discussion of Thor's penis, which he has dubbed “The Hammer.” Wow. Rounding out this monstrous collection are not one, but two music videos for the songs “Energy” and “We Live To Rock.” Cannibalized from film elements and some modern footage of Thor playing (who, despite being as old as my father, could probably obliterate me), it goes to show that Fasano could've submitted the film clips to MTV as real videos.

There's a certain kind of person that will truly appreciate Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare. They're the kind of person who can sit down and enjoy a movie because it's fun, not because it's deep or provocative. This is pure beer-and-popcorn fare (perhaps a little more beer than popcorn), which will make you giddy with just how over-the-top and enjoyable it really is. It really does rock!