So this is a schlocky horror movie from the ’80s about the Satanic possibilities of heavy metal music.

The movie is deeply, deeply confused about what it wants to say. At first, it seems to be doing a “lol clueless olds” thing about the silliness of prim old ladies being freaked out about metal. It’s just music, it’s not literally Satanic! But then… it is literally Satanic, and it does corrupt kids. Skillfully done, you could imagine this film actually having a clear satirical message — this is what it would look like for heavy metal to be what you fear it is, and look how silly that is — but this isn’t skillfully done, and it comes off as a thematic mess.

But even beyond that, the thing about the ’80s being a long time ago is that metal is just absolutely in no way a threatening genre today. Like motorcycle gangs, it belongs entirely to the domain of the elderly. Not everyone who’s into metal today is over 50, but the younger people who are into it are basically like people who were into jazz in the ’80s, li’l hipsters who’ve found their way to an unpopular niche genre of music.

(In a totally coincidental way, this movie lined up with the Super Bowl halftime show, which inspired the (accurate) normie takes on how it was old-person nostalgia music; but then also with the (bemusingly dated) very old-person takes about how this “rap” stuff is either fresh and cool, or threatening and weird, depending on how racist the very old person was.)

So yeah, the devil music theme is so dated that it actually wraps around into being a charming piece of retro nostalgia.

Beyond that, the movie is just very poorly made. The characters are basically incoherent, their reactions to the plot events are nonsensical, and the main “hero” of the piece is a creepy Robin Williams-style teacher who clearly wants to bang one of his (high school!) students. It’s just a sprawling mess, and I think the best you can say of it is that it moves along quickly enough for its clumsiness not to grow too annoying. Not really recommended.