Stunt Rock

source: Stunt Rock

Part drama, part stunts showreel, part rock concert film featuring Grant Page, the famous real life Australian master stuntman best known for his work on Mad Max, Grant, who plays himself, goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. In this 1978 mocumentary page helps a band (Sorcery) to develop pyrotechnic magic tricks for their shows, and also recounts his exploits as a stuntman and daredevil, as well as a very informative movie about stunt work for movies and what goes on behind the scenes. The acting is superb as page plays himself and he fits in this movie better than Deathcheaters (1976), the script wild and unconstrained and the direction is wild. In total this gives you an experience of what cinema really should be, bereft of CGI and special effects and crazy budgets it just rides along free as a bird. And then there's the music. To be fair, there are so many tunes that ranges good to out-and-out classic. The music in this film is a spectacular array of AOR, Heavy metal and classic rock something you won't hear in a film's soundtrack nowadays. A downright Ozploitation classic.

I must have seen bits and pieces of "Stunt Rock" footage in the downright fantastic documentary "Not Quite Hollywood", probably found it instantly cool, promptly added it to my never-ending watchlist, and then subsequently forgot about it for the next ten years or so. They obviously only showed the awesome stunt parts in "Not Quite Hollywood", and from the documentary I couldn't derive that this really isn't the type of "film" I usually seek for. "Stunt Rock" isn't a film, in fact, because there aren't any real characters and there isn't a plot. It's a mixture of impressively performed stunts by Grant Page, integrally sung rock anthems by a band named Sorcery and inventive magical tricks shown by a Merlin lookalike wizard and a sort of devil named Prince of Darkness. It's original, exhilarating and entertaining for about half an hour, but then it becomes rather tedious and repetitive. I don't want to talk too negatively about "Stunt Rock", because I have tremendous respect for its director Brian Trenchard-Smith. After all, he's the Ozploitation pioneer who created cult hits like "Blood Camp Thatcher" and "Dead End Drive-In". He's clearly fascinated by the world of stuntmen and wanted to bring an ode to their business; good for him! Some of the Sorcery songs are quite catchy, for example the one that has a similar beginning as "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads.

Grant Page is our personal hero. An Australian stuntman known for his unbelievably dangerous stunt work, here he gets his own movie so he can display his charm to the audience as well. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith fashioned an innovative cross between a documentary, a fictional film and a concert film, and its ahead-of-its-time (even today) nature ensures pure entertainment that will appeal to any generation. What's so cool about Stunt Rock, besides the stunts and music, is that the filmmakers were smart enough not to weigh it down with an involved plot. There's really no time for that, it has to be packed full with stunts and the music of the L.A. rock band Sorcery. What happens is, Grant comes to Los Angeles to work on a new TV show starring Monique van de Ven, called Undercover Girl. Interestingly, her smarmy agent is played by Richard Blackburn, the director of the great Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973). The director of the show is played by Ron Raley, whose student film at UCLA was photographed by none other than Jim Morrison of The Doors fame when Morrison, Raley and Blackburn were at UCLA film school together. A very early appearance by Phil Hartman as the assistant director passes in a flash. Anyway, Grant ends up in a relationship with a magazine reporter (Margaret Gerard, wife of Trenchard-Smith) who is doing an article on stunt men. Meanwhile, Grant's cousin is in the stage show for Sorcery, who re-enact cosmic battles between good and evil featuring wizards and demons while the band crank out their rockin' tunes. This hugely entertaining film is just too awesome for words. The great Trenchard-Smith blasted out a tour-de-force of music and action - a majority of the movie is footage of Page's death-defying stunts while Sorcery music blares on the soundtrack. Page's insane, awe-inspiring work is so eye-popping, Trenchard-Smith puts it on split screens because one screen just isn't enough! The movie also has plenty of humor, as evidenced by the masked keyboard player with the funny voice (Doug Loch). Pure fun, the simplicity of the execution, married with the powerful combination of the music and the action, guarantees Stunt Rock the status of cinematic masterpiece. Trenchard-Smith described this gem as "a love letter to stuntmen in general and Grant Page in particular", and that love comes through in spades, and the overall upbeat, positive vibe is totally winning. Much of that has to do with the presence, music and magic tricks of Sorcery. If the filmmakers had gone with Foreigner or Van Halen (two other potential choices), it just would not have been the same, and Stunt Rock would have been an entirely different experience. If you don't like Stunt Rock, please seek psychiatric help immediately. You are a danger to the community. NOTE: A lot of the information in this review came from the excellent Code Red 2-DVD set. Buy it right now. For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

I had an epiphany during this movie, for my whole life I naively thought Citizen Kane had no equal, but now I can say with complete confidence that Stunt Rock is unequivocally it. The similarities are subtle but many, there are moving pictures & sound - so far so good, plenty of thoughtful mugging is going on just like what Orson Welles did and lastly while you are watching twelve monkeys don't encroach around you hurling their feces in your general direction. One of the reasons I discovered this movie is I found the soundtrack to Rocktober Blood, which I listened to hundreds of times before finally deciding to watch the actual movie and of course Sorcery (not Sorcery of Chicago) does the music and they Rock! I feel the movie (Rocktober Blood) is underrated, the plot is more interesting than you may initially think, but then again you get great music as well! I feel many parallels can be drawn between Rocktober Blood and Stunt Rock, which can only bode well for you, the viewer, since you could have a great night with friends, make it a double-bill!

you won't believe your eyes! stunts! rock! it's the new style! these people really thought they were onto something here, and their earnestness, regardless of talent, helps elevate the whole film. there is no plot to speak of, although a few tangental storylines keep things moving more or less ahead. but really it's all an excuse to get from musical sequence to stunt sequence and back again. over and over and over. every moment is unbelievably absurd and surreal. many of the stunt sequences are spliced in from other films the star, Grant Page, has performed stunts in. he plays himself, as do many of the other actors and musicians here, including the amazingly awful sorcery, whose live performances, as shown here, are filled with an audience who seem to all be wondering who the hell these people are. besides this, there's a masked keyboardist! stunts painfully gone awry! chicks in gold spandex with guns! wizards! demons! 10 out of 10! especially good as a double feature with Dolemite or The Song Remains The Same. PS: a few years ago a friend had a bachelor party in which he and his buddies dressed up as Sorcery and actualy learned and played the entire soundtrack to the film. Even better was that the director, Brian Trenchard-Smith showed up and videotaped it!

This movie can't decide if it is a concert film, a stunt documentary, or a love story. Ultimately, it winds up being none of the above. Choppy editing, wooden-like-a-tree acting, dreadful, repetitive and puerile songs;dialog that beggars description and magic tricks that are either interminable or transparent or both (i've seen better at a child's birthday party)--this is a perfect storm of a bad film. Perhaps it would be tolerable if watched under the influence of intoxicating substances, but any clear-headed viewer with the desire for a coherent story and interesting plot need not linger here. What baffles me most of all is where the funding came from for such a project. Assuming there was a script prior to shooting, who would bankroll such a dreadful waste of celluloid? This is nothing more than a vanity project for Grant Page, the stuntman who takes up most of the um...plot isn't the word. Ah, i have it--Grant wastes most of the screen time. You watch this, you don't tell me you weren't warned.

I picked this up at the video store because of Tarantino's recommendation ("If you don't like (this), go f&^% yourself!") on the box... seemed like a ringing endorsement.... I was expecting something a bit more like "Death Proof"... not much actual violence in this one tho, or plot, of character, or dialogue. Look at the poster. It's all there. Stunts, and rock. It goes back and forth. A week or so in the life of an LA band that does a crappy magic show, at a level that you'd maybe see in one of the lesser casinos off the Strip, and an Aussie stuntman new in town finding his feet... They work, they meet girls, they party. End of story. The band obviously needed all that stuff because they are frankly second-tier, and playing a style that was already dated in 1978. It has to be said that the stunt bits in the film are genuinely spinetingling - that Aussie fellow really is something, and the film seems largely motivated by love and respect for the "art". I hung it there to see what crazy thing he'd do next. Just wish he could have found a better vehicle.

So sums up the female lead of this one of a kind cinematic experience know as STUNT ROCK. A faux documentary about real life Australian stuntman Grant Paige, STUNT ROCK garnered considerable attention in cult film circles earlier this year when a trailer for it appeared on the TRAILER TRASH vol. 1. And, truth be told, the trailer is merely a glimpse of the insanity that dares to combine the reckless and the rocking. Grant Page (renowned stunt coordinator, probably best know for MAD MAX) packs up his bags and heads to L.A. to visit his "brother," a performer in the heavy metal outfit Sorcery. When his first stunt goes awry in Hollywood, Page attracts the interest of a blonde reporter who is determined to find out what makes this crazy stuntmen tick. Page is more than happy to show her the expressions of his unique knack, all the while making sure to catch a few Sorcery gigs. Yup, that is the plot of STUNT ROCK. But who needs plot when you have stunts! And rock! Filmed in both Australia and Hollywood, STUNT ROCK is a true oddity of cinema. The stunt work is pretty daring, featuring some real fist clenching scenes. Page, a dead ringer for Richard Norton, performs a myriad of dangerous stunts, mostly just to say that he had done them (just performing stunts was cool back then). He flies planes, jumps from cars, drives a dune buggy and dangles over cliffs and high rises alike. A stunt gone wrong from MAD DOG MORGAN is highlighted to show how dedicated Page is to his art (he was severely burned but made it back to the set a few days later). "Art?" asks the naïve reporter to which Grant replies, "Ah! You've never seen GONE IN 60 SECONDS?" Yes, to solidify the idea of stunts as art, the production even includes several of the amazing (and groundbreaking) car chases from the original GONE IN 60 SECONDS. To counter the outlandish nature of the stunt work, the production features several over the top numbers by the heavy metal outfit Sorcery. In addition to their music, Sorcery presents an elaborate on stage show featuring theatrics that put 70s rivals KISS to shame. The narrative of their show is a battle between good and evil, essayed in a number of magic performances featuring Merlin combating the Devil onstage as the band sings. Given the amount of pyrotechnics used, I guess they qualify as stunts too. The two diverse worlds of stunt and rock finally coincide when Page joins the band on stage for a fire stunt and then Sorcery dedicates a song to Page entitled "Stunt Rocker." Exactly who this combination of music and mayhem was aimed at has never been determined. But in both cases the events captured on film are truly something that astounds. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith is no stranger to the world of stunts, having previously helmed the similar Page vehicle DEATH CHEATERS (1976) and the stunt laced Jimmy Wang Yu film THE MAN FROM HONG KONG (1975).

I rate this a 10 because... This movie does exactly what it sets out to do. As I read some reviews, mostly from people with no movie or TV experience but lots of self-promoting opinions take shots at this film let me try to set them straight. If they can handle it! 1) The Plot is simple: Stuntman Grant Page goes to Hollywood Cal. to work on TV series "Undercover Girl" where he garners the interest of his co-star "Monique Van De Ven" and, a the reporter,played by "Margret Gerard" who is writing a story about people who get TO caught up in the work. In this case stuntman like Grant Page. When Grant arrives in Hollywood, he hooks up with his cousin, played by Curtis Hyde, who plays the devil character in "Sorcery" in the bands stage show. Their show is a magic based stage show of the battle of good vs. evil. It features some great hard rock music of that era. The band has some roles in the film and Grant does a good job at what he does,stunts. Keep in mind a few things here. The film is from 1978 and the Director,Brian Trenchard Smith is responsible for all we see and hear as the director and editor usually do. 2) Sorcery did a very good job, as I'm sure they followed the directors suggestions and did what was called for at the time. Note, Sorcery went on to do more records after this "gig" and their other CD's, T.V.appearances, Dick Clark shows and other movies they did can be found on you-tube by searching; "Sorcery TV appearances" you'll find them. They were an excellent band and I for one think they considered this picture just another job. It's OK if some people don't care for this film,I know how many I don't like,but this is for many a good time movie about Rock,Stunts, and the backstage requirements of stuntmen and the movie business from a inside look from Grants perspective as a stuntman. And the contribution over time they make to the overall movie. 3) Summary: I would recommend this film to anyone who wants to be entertained! Forget the wanna-be critics who never did anything that requires talent but love to express their jaded points of view. Last word: Sorcery & Stuntrock are well worth watching and if you have the DVD,you'll watch it more than once.