“That’s negative energy, man!”

Drake’s rating: I also shred. Mostly lettuce, but sometimes cabbage.

Drake’s review: So what do you do when you really, really want to be a heavy metal guitarist but you just don’t have the requisite skills? Oh, sure, you might decide that the best route to go is practicing for hours every day, learning basic chord structures and scales and then building on those basics until you’ve built up the necessary tools to shred with the best of them.

But that can take months or even years, and who’s got that kind of time? Not Angel Martin, that’s for sure. Because Angel is stuck in a dead-end job at a small pizzeria, creeping on the girls and ticking off his boss, and he’s teetering on the verge of eviction. So it seems to be just the lucky break that Angel needs when he gets an audition for a local band on the rise. This band has all the tools for success, except for the conspicuous absence of a guitarist. How they made it this far without one is a mystery unto itself, but for Angel the opportunity is just what he needs to get out of his humdrum existence and start living the life of a hair metal rock god.

The only problem is, Angel sucks. Like, the dude is bad on the guitar, and his audition with the band sounds like he literally picked up the instrument for the first time that very day. Mocked by the band’s singer, Angel flees the practice space. And it’s then that he finds out that there is indeed a quick path to rock & roll stardom.

No, he doesn’t discover three-chord punk. Stop that.

What Angel does discover is that selling your soul to the devil really works! Desperate to become the next Slash, Angel happily makes a deal with the strange lady who hangs around the pizzeria to become the biggest rock star in the world. One spooky dream later and our previously dorky pizza guy has lost his horn-rimmed glasses and tomato-stained t-shirt in favor of a black wig that looks like it was picked up at a Blackie Lawless yard sale and a closet full of concert tees.

And on top of all that, he also has a house full of beautiful women and cool guitars, and he’s suddenly become an expert musician. I wonder if he developed instant callouses on his fretting hand…

Armed with newfound self-confidence, the ability to read music and of course positively devilish guitar skills, Angel waltzes right back into the practice room and shred his way into the band. But it’s not all glitz and glamour for Angel, as he soon discovers the ramifications of making a Faustian contract include the need to eat the souls of others, which in Shock ‘Em Dead are portrayed by horribly dated FX that would have looked hokey on Star Trek a full 25 years earlier.

Still, a rock star’s gotta eat, so Angel dispatches a groupie here and his band’s previous singer there, the latter having been kicked from the group on stage and mid-song at their debut concert. But nothing’s really enough for Angel and he notices that the band’s manager Lindsay (Traci Lords, Not of This Earth) sure is purty, so then he wants her to be his immortal girlfriend. Which doesn’t sit right at all with her current beau, who also happens to be the band’s bassist.

Which, OK, he’s not the drummer. But still.

Shock ‘Em Dead is a weird little flick that’s not particularly good, but it’s still kind of fun. Granted, it’s supposed to be a horror-comedy and those are hard to pull off, but the horror elements are so tame as to be nearly non-existent, and the comedy bits range from desperately unfunny to “This was actually offensive even in 1991.” But at the same time it’s an entertaining little time capsule of the early ‘90s and skewers the hair metal scene a bit, just before a stake was driven into the heart of that particular musical genre as grunge rock took center stage.

Shock ‘Em Dead, much like hair metal itself, is silly, often inane and just a tad obnoxious. But that’s just part of the fun, and if you’re in the mood for something bright and colorful that will let you leave your brain in neutral, this one is a perfect fit.

And if you find yourself with a hankering to be a rock star, for goodness sake don’t go selling your soul to that weird lady outside the pizzeria! I’ve got all you need right here:

Justin’s rating: Every time he takes a shower, he gets smothered in six pounds of wet hair

Justin’s review: The Faustian deal — selling your soul for your greatest desire — drives this off-kilter movie from 1991. But really, Shock ‘Em Dead is basically an ’80s movie for all of its fawning love for hair metal rock.

Martin (musician and color commentator Stephen Quadros) really wants to join Creeping Flesh, the coolest dang rock band in the whole wide world. Or the 90210 zip code. Or at least the school where it’s renting a room. Or at least most of the room.

To see his dreams of becoming a rock god come true, Martin sells his soul to a voodoo lady, who promptly stabs him in the heart. Suddenly flush with skill, popularity, eye liner, and more fluffy, feathered hair than he ever dreamed, Martin becomes an overnight sensation as “Angel.” However, his deal comes with a price — he’s got to keep murdering people because that’s in the fine print of the deal. Or something.

Shock ‘Em Dead is just a hair’s breath above VHS/soap opera quality — it’s more like a well-shot episode of Saved by the Bell in the visual department. Sometimes that looks a little too cheap, but not always, because sometimes it cranks up the effort and comes off pretty decent and even creative. And this uneven quality extends to the cast, which includes Traci Lords as Angel’s eventual love interest and band manager Lindsay.

As Angel enjoys his new lifestyle, he learns from one of his various live-in floozies that they too made a deal with the devil — and that their bargains came with a price. I’m not sure why these women got stuck being in his house, unless this is some work-release program from hell. In any case, they tell him that he can’t eat (it turns toxic) and that he’ll have to feed on other people’s souls to stay alive.

So yeah, he’s now a rock ‘n roll vampire, which sounds far more rad than how Angel is portrayed. Even putting aside the, y’know, murder, he’s a complete jerk to just about everyone. Nothing like returning to your former pizza job and shoving an innocent employee’s face into a vat of sauce to win over the audience.

Shock ‘Em Dead may have a few moments of creativity, but those are far outshadowed by a raging juvenile power fantasy that’s frankly embarrassing to witness. The double guitar used in this film is perhaps its greatest metaphor: The whole thing is totally and obviously stupid except to some young kid who thought it was the height of cool.

Intermission!

• Headbands for bands really need to make a comeback
• Random strange voodoo lady fly-by — she’s got to much face paint
• Heart stabbings and snake cuddlings are part of this deal
• Zombie cameo!
• That double guitar looks so impractical. How can you change chords?
• Satan is a rocker
• He’s got a waterbed, folks
• You never see Angel’s face when he’s playing guitar, only closeups on his hands. HMMM.
• Remember when guys used to wear berets in the early ’90s and thought it was cool
• “She was my spiritual advisor.”
• That guy needs to lay off the skintight spandex
• You’ll get a huge ovation if you throw up on your audience
• “Well my dear, you’re going to heaven and I’m going to hell.”
• Spandex guy screams like a girl. A lot.
• Hot tub snake is perfect for romance
• Dishwashers are great for hiding bodies in a pinch
• I think your girlfriend is… well done
• I mean, never try to cover Jimi Hendrix. NEVER.
• “If we have to hire one of the numbnuts then that’s what we’ll do!” Words often heard around the Mutant Offices.
• A peephole into the dressing room? Angel is a creep.
• “I want to be the greatest rock star in the world.” Also heard in the Mutant Offices, although most everyone ignores my ramblings.
• A whole guitar room! Not going to lie here, I kinda want the red B.C. Rich Warlock.
• They’re opening for Creeping Flesh? Is that good?
• Obvious guitarist body double.
• Angel’s going to have to eat… people! Or maybe Soylent Green.
• The sorceress gives Angel a set of cool knives. And it isn’t even his birthday!
• “You’re going to have to change your eating habits. And food isn’t on the menu.” What, did they just bug the Mutant Offices for the dialogue here? This is getting creepy.
• Angel goes back to the pizza place to be a jerk, as rock stars do.
• Real rock stars don’t toss out TVs from an open door. They throw them through windows.
• The Food Tube: Food Concentrate. A common sight in the Mutant Lunch Room.
• The sorceress is now just picking out random wannabe musicians and getting them to sell their souls for stardom. I think this is how Poison got its start.