Creeptober Day 28: Trick or Treat (1986)

Metal never dies, and neither will Sammi Curr! Trick or Treat is our pick for day twenty-eight of Creeptober, and this music-infused piece of 1980s Satanic horror is the perfect treat as Halloween nears.

Read on for our thoughts on Trick or Treat (1986) as well as a recap of the movie, and join the conversation on our Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram!

Reacting to Trick or Treat

For people of a certain age and of certain tastes in music, Trick or Treat is a classic. It’s a silly, fun horror movie that satirizes the pearl-clutching and hand-wringing done by various groups over rock music. It’s a movie that is 100% a product of its time, and for some, that might put it into the category of “you had to be there.” But for fans of rock and metal music, especially from the 1980s, Trick or Treat is a blast.

Covering a bit of history, there are two main topics you need to know in order to understand where Trick or Treat is coming from. First is backmasking. Accusations of musicians including secret—and often harmful—messages in their music through the use of sound played backwards started decades before Trick or Treat, but they came to a peak in the 1980s. This was also the time when the Satanic Panic in the United States was running rampant, so backmasking, Satan, and heavy metal/rock all became conflated in the eyes of some parents, politicians, and religious leaders. There were books about it (like 1983’s Backward Masking Unmasked by Jacob Aranza), there were record burnings, and there were news reports. The supposed devilry of rock music became a concern among parts of the population.

The second thing you need to know is that in 1985, a committee called the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) essentially put rock music on trial. The alleged crimes the PMRC held against musicians included promoting sex, violence, and Satan to children. There was a televised Senate hearing that drew much attention for its ridiculousness, and for the wonderfully entertaining testimonies by Dee Snider, Frank Zappa, and John Denver. The goal of the PMRC was to instill a rating system for music, but a version of their proposal was already agreed to, which made the whole hearing a farce. Musicians and fans knew that the fight against rock music was ludicrous, and many people mocked the PMRC and their way of thinking. One year after the Senate hearing, Trick or Treat was released in theaters.

Trick or Treat satirizes all of the asinine theories about the evil of metal music. It is a movie about a Satanist musician who uses backmasking to communicate to a teenage fan and cause him to do evil deeds. This is not subtle satire. It is abundantly clear what is being referenced throughout the movie. We even see rocker Sammi Curr in a televised hearing, mocking a PTA group who opposes his music and performances. Anyone who saw the PMRC Senate hearing, and a lot of people saw it, knew exactly what Sammi’s hearing was referencing.

Trick or Treat isn’t demonizing the music though. It’s celebrating it. It’s showing viewers pretty much exactly what Dee Snider talks about in his testimony in the real-life PMRC hearing, that the fans who listen to these albums aren’t stupid. Eddie knows right from wrong, and he is smart enough to not be held under the sway of the sounds coming out of his stereo, even if the wild claims made by certain groups were true.

Sammi Curr, as great of a villain as he is (iconically portrayed by Tony Fields), is made to look foolish at times throughout the movie. When he’s chasing Eddie and Leslie toward the end of the movie, he gets his hand caught in a toilet. He’s gullible enough to fall for Eddie’s trick that traps him in the backseat of a police car. Sammi is a representation of the ridiculous theories about the connection between Satanism and rock music, so by showing the character to be kind of a goof, it’s saying that the theories are goofy. That’s how I see it, because it cannot be denied that the movie itself is in love with rock music.

The band Fastway did the music for Trick or Treat, and there are tons of references to other bands and musicians throughout the movie. Most obviously, Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne act in the movie. Both of their roles are cameos (despite their faces and/or names being prominently displayed on certain home-video releases of the movie), but it’s super fun to see them regardless of how long they’re on screen. Ozzy’s role as an evangelist speaking out against metal music is particularly hilarious.

But even if you don’t know the real-life history and don’t recognize any of the bands seen in Trick or Treat, it’s still a great piece of 1980s cheese that fans of horror and humor should watch at least once. For me, it only recently became a yearly Halloween viewing. I saw it when I was young, but I didn’t revisit it for a long time. Now, I look forward to it every October.

Trick or Treat – A Recap

High-schooler Eddie Weinbauer, who goes by the nickname Ragman, is an outcast. He’s a teenage metalhead who is ruthlessly tormented by bullies at school. The one thing that gives him hope and keeps him from ending his life is Sammi Curr. Sammi is a famous heavy-metal musician known for his controversial theatrics, and he graduated from the school Eddie currently attends. One day, Eddie sees a news report about Sammi recently being blocked from playing a show at his former high school on Halloween night. The report also says that Sammi Curr is dead, the victim of a hotel fire. Eddie is devastated.

Eddie talks with Nuke, a local radio DJ. Nuke gives Eddie a record that contains Sammi’s last recorded song. It is the only copy of the recording on acetate disc. Nuke is supposed to play the song at midnight on Halloween as per Sammi’s request, but he copied it onto tape, so he lets Eddie keep the record.

At school, Eddie’s crush, Leslie, invites him to a pool party. When he goes, his main bully, Tim, puts a weight in his backpack and pushes him into the pool. Leslie arrives and helps Eddie out of the water, but he angrily leaves, vowing revenge on his tormentors. That night, Eddie plays Sammi’s song which is titled “Songs in the Key of Death.” There is backmasking in the song that says something about being bait for a trap. The next day at school, Eddie uses himself as bait and causes Tim and his friends to get in trouble. Eddie thinks Sammi is speaking directly to him through the song, but his friend Roger dismisses the idea.

Eddie plays the record backward again, and Sammi says his nickname, “Ragman.” Eddie has a short conversation in which Sammi mentions a plan for revenge on Eddie’s bullies. The plan isn’t specific, but a hint leads Eddie to where he needs to be. At school, Eddie goes to the shop-class room Sammi hints at. Tim arrives and begins assaulting Eddie, but Tim’s tie gets caught in a machine that nearly makes a large hole in his face. Eddie turns the power off of the machine just before Tim is hurt.

Eddie makes a recording of Sammi’s song on tape and gives it to Tim as a “peace offering.” Tim’s girlfriend Genie listens to the song instead, and she is hospitalized after the song summons a grotesque monster and melts her headphones to her ears. Tim understands that Eddie’s tape caused Genie’s injuries, and he tells Eddie to stay away from him. Realizing things are going too far, Eddie tries to end Sammi’s plans for revenge. Sammi ignores him, and he says that Leslie is the next target. Eddie’s sound system begins glowing, and Sammi Curr appears in Eddie’s room. Sammi tells Eddie he should be loyal to his hero, then he disappears. Eddie smashes his sound system with a bat.

The next day, on Halloween, Eddie begs Roger to go get the tape from Tim and destroy it. Roger gets the tape, but he decides to play it. Sammi appears before Roger and tells him to play his tape tonight or die. Roger plays the tape during his school’s Halloween dance. When a live band tries to take the stage, Sammi appears in a flash of electricity, kills the band’s lead singer, and takes over as the frontman as the band performs. In the middle of the song, Sammi begins exploding people with blasts of energy shot from his guitar. Panic ensues.

Eddie arrives at the dance and enlists Roger’s aid in turning off the electricity in the building. Meanwhile, Tim tries to kiss Leslie, and he hits her when she rejects him. Eddie finds Tim alone, and he sees Tim blown up by an electric shock from Sammi. Eddie finds Leslie, and together they find the main circuit breaker. Before they can smash it, Sammi appears. Roger finds them and smashes the breaker box, causing Sammi to disappear.

Eddie remembers that Nuke has a copy of the song that he’s planning to play on the radio at midnight. Sammi tries and fails to stop Eddie and Leslie from making their way to the radio station. Their arrival is too late though. Sammi arrived before them, and his electricity is running through the studio, protecting the tape. Eddie takes a small radio and tosses it into the backseat of a police car. He drives away, leaving Leslie at the radio station. Eddie taunts Sammi. When Sammi appears in the car, Eddie drives it into a river, dissipating Sammi’s electrical being. At the same time, Leslie destroys the tape. With Sammi’s last recording destroyed, Eddie and Leslie kiss.

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