Stunt Rock

Watched July 31, 2013

1980
Starring: Grant Page, Monique van de Ven, Margaret Gerard, and Sorcery.

We first found out about this movie because the trailer was on the Sweet Sixteen DVD and it looked amazing. We thought the dvd and vhs were out of print; the only copies we found on amazon and ebay were expensive. We did find a place to rent it locally, but then Jen did some real searching and you can buy the DVD for $15 from the band Sorcery's website: http://sorceryrockband.com/stuntrock.htm
I bought the DVD and we had a bonus movie night to experience the magic, but it ended up being a little disappointing.

I'm sure this happens all the time in Hollywood, the behind the scenes creators want to get their moment in the spotlight. Grant Page is a real life stunt man who was most active in the '60's and '70's. Sorcery is a real '70's rock band that incorporated wizards and magic into their live shows. Put them together with no real plot and you've got Stunt Rock!

The thin plot that tries to hold the film together is that Margaret Gerard is a journalist doing a story on people who are so into their jobs that it kills them. She meets up with Grant Page as he is escaping from the hospital after being slightly injured doing a stunt. She begins to interview him about his job. This means that we get to see lots of memory flashbacks of Grant's famous stunts from other movies he's done. The stunts are great, but they choose to show them in strange split screen montages. Grant happens to be friends with Sorcery, so we get to see them play every night. The first time we see Sorcery it's great, the wizard makes fireworks appear and does magic tricks. By the third concert I was pretty done with Sorcery. That's about it for the plot. Grant does more stunts and asks Margaret out on a date while he is holding on to a rope strung between buildings. Some stunts are explained, which is cool. If you already love Sorcery's music this is like a really fun concert movie, but as a regular film it doesn't come together.

This reminded me of The Wizard of Speed and Time, which is about a special effects guy. I'm sure it must be tough to be the person that makes all the movie magic happen and not get recognized like actors do, but that's just the way it currently goes.

If anything, I would say watch the trailer, it sums up the movie and shows the greatest parts while being the correct length for the subject matter.