Stunt Rock Reviews

This unique collision of documentary, fiction, and music video overcomes a serious deficiency of plot with non-stop action and blazing rock & roll. Stunt Rock performs like a demo reel for its dual protagonists, stuntman Grant Page and heavy metal band Sorcery. At the time Stunt Rock was made, Page's stunt credits were primarily Australian action/adventure films (Mad Dog Morgan, The Man From Hong Kong, High Rolling in a Hot Corvette) and director Brian Trenchard-Smith gleefully cuts away at random intervals to footage of Page hang gliding off a mountain, leaping from skyscrapers, driving motorcycles through fire and other death-defying gags. The rest of Stunt Rock's running time is dominated by Sorcery, a 70s-era metal band that presented its bombastic occult-themed rock with an outlandish stage show. Unlike contemporaries like Kiss or Alice Cooper, the members of Sorcery stuck to their instruments and employed a pair of long haired illusionists to handle the theatrical elements. Each concert featured elaborate magic tricks and special effects to dramatize a battle between good and evil, pitting a leather-clad demon against a bearded sorcerer amid pyrotechnic displays. There isn't much more to tell about Stunt Rock; two female characters take turns expressing astonishment at Page's dangerous antics and gasping in surprise when one of Sorcery's illusionists pulls a cigarette out of thin air, and a smarmy Hollywood agent gets his comeuppance during a rock & roll pool party, but that's about as dynamic as the storyline gets. But Trenchard-Smith keeps the pace swift and the volume loud, so those predisposed to the action at hand will hardly notice.