Ah, yes—the air is turning crisp and cool.  Stores are bustling with busy shoppers.  Christmas music is blaring across the land.

What better time of year to review two little-known 1980s flicks with “Hard Rock” in their titles?

So it is that I’m diving into a twin review of two quite different films:  Hard Rock Zombies (1985) and Hard Rock Nightmare (1988).

Both of these films are incredibly absurd, as their names suggest.  Hard Rock Zombies is a straight-up horror comedy, and is clearly a low-budget affair (it was distributed by Cannon Films, if that says anything).  The footage is grainy even for an Eighties flick, and it looks like it was filmed in the late 1970s.

Regardless, it’s a pretty fun movie.  The gist of is that an up-and-coming heavy metal band rolls into a small Southern town to put on a show, but they’re murdered by a Nazi cult that runs the town.  Then a recording of one of their songs featuring lyrics from a medieval grimoire causes the band to rise from the dead to seek revenge.

It’s totally ridiculous.  Even Adolf You-Know-Whitler makes an appearance.  The family at the center of the Nazi death cult consists of a honeytrap babe granddaughter; a frisky elderly set of grandparents; and a couple of malformed midgets.  I’m pretty sure there were other characters, but the whole family is basically a freak show.

One of the musicians in the band writes a cloying power ballad for a mysterious (and probably inappropriately young) girl who tries to warn them away.  Her name is Cassie, and she doesn’t do much beyond serve as the main thing the revived zombie band is trying to defend.  The song also got stuck in my head for a week:

More dead rise from their graves as the body count rises, and it’s a fun, totally outrageous romp.

Hard Rock Nightmare is not nearly as memorable (there were no cheesy power ballad, for one thing).  A young boy murders his grandfather with a stake through the heart after the grandfather proclaims himself an evil, bloodsucking creature of the night.  Fast forward a dozen years later, and the boy is grown up and taking his friends back to his grandparents’ house for… some reason.  His wealthy and doting uncle encourages him to go along, but to be careful that the visit doesn’t dredge up any suppressed memories.

Naturally, the guy starts wigging out again, and suspects there are “wheerwolves” (seriously, that’s how everyone pronounces “werewolves” in this movie) killing everyone.  But is it our hero doing the slayings?

Nope.  It’s actual werewolves.  Well, at least, it’s a guy in a very bad werewolf costume, which looks worse up close.  Fortunately, that actually works for the plot, which has a Scooby Doo-esque ending.  Remember that wealthy uncle?  Like all good Scooby Doo villains, he’s attempting to defraud someone out of their real estate, and he’s using dudes in wheerwolf costumes to do it.

Both of these flicks are probably a hard pass for 90% of viewers, but if you have to pick one, go with Hard Rock Zombies.  It’s fun, cheesy, and totally ridiculous—much like yours portly.