Tibor Takács made some wild movies, but before that, he was part of the Toronto-area punk and metal scene as the manager and producer for The Viletones and The Cardboard Brains, some of whom end up in this 1978 rock opera. Sure, he makes streaming Christmas movies now, but he once made The Gate and the insane I, Madman.

Written by Stephen Zoller, this feels like The Man Who Fell to Earth meeting The Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as Phantom of the Paradise and The Foreigner, but that’s just me trying to put some handle on this.

Max the Promoter (John-Paul Young, lead singer of The Cardboard Brains) has hired private detective Philip Chandler (Richard Ward Allen) to find The Messiah (David Jensen of the band Kickback), who is preaching to the teens of Anywhere City that rock and roll is filled with sin. Max either wants him to be a star or dead or both, while Violet (Liane Hogan) and the Children of Truth want him hooked on drugs.

The music in this feels early 70s glam rock but that just helps this seem even weirder, as does the Third Reich crowd noises in the final concert, as the Metal Messiah — spoiler warning — because a religious rock star and gets crucified to the cheers of the assembled crowd.

This was a stage play and that makes sense. What doesn’t is how much this movie seems to hate rock and roll while being a rock opera. The evils of music would stay with Takács, as the album The Dark Book would open quite literally The Gate once he learned how to hone his filmmaking.

You can watch this on YouTube.