April 19: Record Store Day — Write about a movie starring a musician.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

I was 12 in 1984, living in a small town in upstate NY with very little to do in terms of entertainment. 

That summer, I was utterly obsessed with the movie Ghostbusters. I had the T-shirt and thee soundtrack and collected every issue of every magazine that wrote about it. 

That August, the film got knocked out of a stellar hold-over run at our tiny local theatre for something called Purple Rain. I remember vividly riding by with my mom and voicing my frustration that my favorite film had been usurped. I noticed the line of teenagers and young adults wrapped around the corner and filed it into the back of my mind. It played for a solid month. 

The following March of 1985, Prince and the Revolution brought the Purple Rain tour to Syracuse. I didn’t attend, but my friends who did wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks. 

Prince was everywhere, and I just didn’t get it. Until I saw the video for “Little Red Corvette” on Friday Night Videos that April. When he broke into that split during the guitar solo, something in my soul (and my nipples) woke up and said, “Hello!” I immediately went out and bought the only Prince record my local store had in stock. Purple Rain. The album blew my mind. It was rock-funk fusion perfection. The album came with a poster of his band, The Revolution. As I hung it upon my bare wall, I wondered, “Who are these female musicians, and the guy dressed like a doctor?” 

My family had no VCR at that time, so I saved my babysitting money and rented one. The first film I rented was, of course, Purple Rain. Soon after, I rented a second machine and made a dub of the original so that when the inevitable day came for us to finally get our own VCR, I’d be able to watch this movie ad infinitum. Which I did.  

Through the film, I discovered the identities of the people on the poster. Revolution members included r. Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and most importantly, real-life couple Wendy Melvoin on guitar and the classically trained Lisa Coleman on keyboards. I also discovered that as impressive as the album was, the band’s live performances were outstanding. 

Flash forward to 2025. Prince is gone, having passed away alone in an elevator in 2016. The estate re-released the film for one night only all over the globe in 4K with a new Dolby mix for the soundtrack. I was in the second row, with a glass of wine and a good friend, cheering all the way for The Kid, Prince’s semi-autobiographical character created for the film. He’s a dick. But that’s the point. 

The Kid comes from a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic, abusive, failed musician father, Francis L. (Clarence Williams III, and his long-suffering mother (Olga Karlatos) whose singing career was ruined by said father. 

The Kid is a control-freak misogynist just like his dad. His bandmates struggle with his their lack of creative input – something true to life where publishing rights and royalties were concerned. 

The band’s regular gig at First Avenue is under threat from another regular band at the club. The Time (another Prince creation), whose comical leader, Morris Day would love to push out The Revolution in favor of his new girl group, Apollonia 6, featuring The Kid’s new love interest Apollonia (Patricia Kotero) a beautiful, young singer/dancer who has just rolled into town to try her luck at First Avenue. 

The Kid has a choice. He can either follow the path of his father, beat his girlfriend and ruin his career, or he can mellow out, trust his bandmates to write good songs and stop being a dick to women. The whole thing comes to a head when he plays the now legendary title song, composed in the film by Wendy and Lisa. 

In real life, Prince brought the basic chords of “Purple Rain” to the band at their warehouse rehearsal space in 1983. While Wendy and Lisa did not compose the song, they certainly helped. Wendy reworked the simple chords Prince had brought into the iconic opening chords as we know them today. Nobody plays those chords the same way Wendy does, and it never sounds as good. She took Prince’s original, basic chords, inverted them, stretched out that third chord like a boss, and made history. 

The entire band spent the next few days working the song out together as a group. At one point, during a break, Lisa Coleman saw a homeless man, who had been outside listening to the song, crying because it was so beautiful. She knew them; they had something special. 

The success of the film and the album wasn’t because of the storyline or the romance, although it should be noted that it was the first film in history to land in the Box Office Top 10 whose leads were people of color. The film succeeds because of the musical sequences. It’s basically one long music video with a dramatic storyline woven throughout, and it still works after all these years. 

The opening sequence of “Let’s Go Crazy” is visual storytelling at its finest. It introduces the setting and all the major characters strictly through editing with minimal dialogue. 

During the scene where The Kid sings “The Beautiful Ones “to Apollonia, who is on a date with Morris at First Avenue, I turned briefly to observe the audience’s reaction. Some were shaking their heads in disbelief, mouths agape at the genius screaming into the mic on screen. Others were smiling from ear to ear.  I leaned over and whispered to my friend, “Imagine being that good at anything at the age of 24.” 

Is anyone in this film a great actor? No. But the cast is charismatic, and they all hold their own in the dramatic scenes. Morris’s “What’s the password?” comedy scene, a re-creation of the Abbott & Costello “Who’s on First” skit with counterpart Jerome Benton, still elicits chuckles.  

One person walked out of the special screening during a scene depicting a violent fight under a railroad bridge between Apollonia and The Kid. There’s no point in sugar-coating it. The film is filled with misogyny. People like this existed in 1984, and they still exist today. The point was and is that The Kid had a choice. 

Following the attempted suicide of Francis L., The Kid finds redemption through musical collaboration with the female members of his band. He saves his regular gig at the club and announces his forthcoming stardom by ending the film with Baby, I’m a Star. If you didn’t know it before seeing the movie, you knew it when the credits rolled. 

Given that this was Prince’s most productive period musically, it’s safe to say that in real life, he found redemption through The Revolution as a band more than any other lineup of the New Power Generation who came after them. This was the last true band he was ever in. The rest were simply hired hands. Great musicians, all of them, but not collaborative in the truest sense of the word. If you don’t believe me, listen to the track below: 

It must be noted that the song “Purple Rain,” as well as the tracks “I Would Die 4 U” and “Baby, I’m a Star,” were recorded live at First Avenue in August 1983, before the film was shot. It was the debut gig of Wendy Melvoin, who was just 19. 

Engineer Susan Rogers, who manned the van on the day of the recoding, added a few overdubs for these tracks in the studio, but otherwise, what you’re hearing in the film and on the album is one of the tightest live bands to ever exist. Prince’s sound during this period was informed by this group of people, all hand-picked by to bring his vision to life. 

Yes, the dialogue can be corny at times, and yes, Jerome does throw a girl into a dumpster under Morris Day’s instruction, but the musical sequences are the reason Purple Rain the movie stands the test of time. And it’s the reason it will endure into the future. 

Note 1. – I still have hair envy for Apollonia’s do after 31 years. 

Note 2. – Wendy Melvoin’s father was musician Mike Melvoin, who composed the funky theme for the TV series Bigfoot and Wildboy. The kind of trivia I live for. 

April 18: Heavy Metal Movies: Pick a movie from Mike McPadden’s great book. RIP. List here.

Jason Jones (Robin Askwith from the Confessions Of… movies) is a burned-out would-be rock star on his way to Brittlehurst Manor, a health escape that has also drawn in Judy Peters (Vanessa Shaw), who is looking for her aunt.

It’s no surprise or spoiler that this is really a…Horror Hospital!

Yes, Dr. Christian Storm (Michael Gough), Judy’s aunt (Ellen Pollock) and evil dwarf Frederick (Skip Martin) have been drawing hippies her and either turning them into brainwashed, motorcycle-helmet wearing zombies or outright killing them.

There’s even a band, Mystic, who play the movie’s theme “Mark of Death!” Their members are James IV Boris, Alan “The River” Hudson and Simon Lust. Those are some great stage names! The cross-dresser who is singing for them is co-writer Alan Watson. And Mystic is really the psychedelic group Tangerine Peel, who at one point had songwriter/producer Mike Chapman, who promised Blondie that he would make Parallel Lines into their biggest album. It includes “Heart of Glass” and he said of the album to Rolling Stone, “There’s loads of hits, it’s a great album, but who gives a fuck. It’s easy, you see. When we go into the studio, we go in and make hit records, and it just happens. We don’t think about it. If you’re going to be in the music business, you gotta make hit records. If you can’t make hit records, you should fuck off and go chop meat somewhere.” He also produced albums for The Knack, Suzi Quatro, Toni Basil, Pat Benatar, and more.

Vanessa Shaw is really Phoebe Shaw, who was mainly in commercials and dated Askwith after this. She also dosed the entire cast and crew at the wrap party with the cake she made. Ah, 1973!

This was directed and written by Antony Balch, who in addition to bringing all sorts of incredible movies to England — Don’t Deliver Us from Evil, Supervixens, Truck Stop Women — also directed one of my favorite movies ever, the mummy starring Secrets of Sex AKA Bizarre.

This movie is a total mess. Who cares? I loved it.

In Italy, this was known as Diario proibito di un collegio femminile, which means Forbidden Diary of a Girls’ Boarding School. That’s the type of title that gets you into the theater.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 17: Bat Appreciation Day –Watch a movie with a fake bat in it.

The work of Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) has earned his company millions and all they give him is $5,000. But didn’t he take a buyout early instead of being a partner? Isn’t that the way corporations work?

So why wouldn’t he grow giant bats and have them kill anyone who wears a new aftershave he’s created? He’s destroying the CEO class, the elite, well, really everyone. He’s got Devil Bats — big, bad rubber bats that scream right at the camera — he leads the first horror film from the poverty row Producers Releasing Corporation studio, a movie that played along with Man Made Monster.

Carrruthers destroys everyone that owned the company other than Mary Heath (Suzanne Kaaren), the daughter, who is saved by Chicago Register reporter Johnny Layton (Dave O’Brien) and the aftershave lotion gets dumped all over Carruthers, his bats attacking their master, following the way that he killed those who held him in chains.

Or maybe not, as he speaks from the shadows in the non-horror sequel, Devil Bat’s Daughter. There was also a 2015 movie, Revenge of the Devil Bat, with Lynn Lowrey in the cast. Another PRC movie, The Flying Serpent, is almost the same movie.

Director Jean Yarbrough’s career went all the way into the days of television. He also directed one of my favorite movies, Hillbillys In a Haunted House, as well as Footsteps In the Night, She-Wolf of London and The Creeper. Based on a story by John T. Neville, the script came from George Bricker, who also wrote an early wrestling movie, Bodyhold.

More movies should have fake bats in them. I recommend A Lizard In a Woman’s Skin, as man, that bat attack was so good it ended up on the U.S. poster.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 16: Filmirage — Give in to the sleaze and write about a Joe D’Amato produced movie. There’s a list here.

This is the last Filmirage movie on my list. Now, I’ve seen all of them and part of me is sad yet part of me feels good that I did it.

What if Filmirage made Henry & June? THEY DID. Well, a rip-off, at least.

I love that this was their chance to do a high-end period picture! Black Emanuelle — Laura Gemser — made the costumes! Peter from Stage Fright is Henry Miller! Martine Brochard from Eyeball is Anais! Her husband Franco Molé (who was in Notturno con grida) directed it! A Gabrielle Tinti cameo! Shot by Giancarlo Ferrando who did Troll 2, Devil Fish and Torso!

Slow down, Sam.

Anais Nin (Martine Brochard, whose career is in non-classy movies made for me like The Nun and the Devil, Murder Obsession and Savage Three) comes into the lives of Henry Miller (David Brandon, Caligula… The Untold Story, Eleven Days, Eleven Nights and many more Joe D’Amato films) and his wife June (Linda Carol, Reform School Girls) and no one will be the same.

This is the only movie that Gianni Silano ever scored and wow, it sounds like the old organ store at the mall. Maybe that makes you remember the past, but it sure is weird music for what is supposed to be a sophisticated sex movie.

April 16: Filmirage — Give in to the sleaze and write about a Joe D’Amato produced movie. There’s a list here.

Also known as Instinct, this has a box that promises an erotic thriller.

Seeing as how it starts with a naked woman being killed by a radio in the bathtub, I can see why.

In 1994, Joe D’Amato would direct the Rocco Siffredi-starring adult Marco Polo, China and Sex as Robert Yip, The House of Pleasure, Chinese Kamasutra as Chang Lee Sun, Il labirinto dei sensi, Marquis de Sade (yes, Rocco), Fantasmi al castello and Sexy caccia al tesoro and Ladri gentiluomini – Donne, gioielli… e culi belli with The Return of the Exorcist director Luca Damiano. He also shot several of those as Fred Slonisko, as well as the adult Erotic Dream of Aladdin X and producing the Siffredi-directed Panna montata.

Joe D’Amato was a busy guy.

He also made this movie that year, working with Claudio Bernabei and Daniele Stroppa. Well, James Burke was the name he used, but we all know how much he loved his many names.

One of the last Filmirage movies, this is about Frances (Gala Orlova, Legittima Vendetta), a woman seeking her lost sister who is, you knew it, the naked girl killed in the bathtub. She gets mixed up with the same guy her sister was involved with, the gigolo Sonny Everett (Theo Losito), after she buys the same house her sister lived in by real estate agent Maurice Poli, who was also in Frankenstein 2000 and Black Cobra.

The cast also includes Walter Toschi (the pilot from Concorde Affaire ’79) as a cop named Perkins, Susanna Bugatti (P.O. Box Tinto Brass), Maurizio Panici (Dark Bar), Elisabeth Rossler, Emy Valentino, Jean Hebert, Vira Silenti and Marlene Weber.

Shot in Austria, this had Joe’s son Daniele Massaccesi behind the camera. It looks nice, probably better than it deserves, and the soundtrack is actually pretty good. It also has stunts by Ottaviano Dell’Acqua!

After this, Joe wouldn’t really look back, making lots of porn. A lot of people complain online — of the 2-3 people who have reviewed this — that this movie is all sex. What did you expect? You do know the assignment Joe had, right? What movies are you people watching to be shocked by that?

Also: I love Joe so much that I spent $12 to get this and do not feel bad at all. I have skipped meals to save money and gone thirsty so I didn’t spend too much on drinks when I was out of the house, knowing I had refreshments at home. Yet, here I am, just plopping down money to get a movie that I know won’t be great, but I need to watch every Filmirage movie, no matter the quality. My life is a success.

 April 16: Filmirage — Give in to the sleaze and write about a Joe D’Amato produced movie. There’s a list here.

We as film nerds often get very high and mighty when it comes to our favorites.

Then again, as we all know, Joe D’Amato was making movies to make money.

Of course he made a breakdancing film.

His came six years after Breakin’, however.

Directed by Gerry Lively (the cinematographer of Friday, Angel 3, Children of the Corn 3, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Return of the Living Dead 3, Necronomicon, Motorhead’s video for “Hellraiser,” Hellraiser III, Waxwork and the director of two direct-to-video Dungeons and Dragons movies) and written by the always working 90s Italian screenwriter Daniele Stroppa — and produced by Joe D’Amato with costumes by Laura Gemser — Hot steps – passi caldi has two dancing squads squaring off in the Hot Steps contest at the Neptune disco.

Set in Florida but shot in New Orleans, this movie asks you to “Feel the Heat!” Rico (Kirk Rivera, also in Salsa and Cop Rock) leads one crew while Kevin (also in Salsa, as well as a movie called Sketch Artist II: Hands That See) is in charge of the other. There’s also Nancy (Lindsley Allen, a Goddess dancer in Showgirls, as well as someone in The Time’s “Jerk Out” video), Kevin’s little sister who nearly died and has come back to dance, baby.

Kevin coaches his team by saying things like “We have to be awesome if we want to win!” and he’s rich and we can assume his co-opting culture. He better watch his sister, because if she and Rico are making moves like that on the dance floor, you can only imagine what they’re doing when they get behind closed doors. Cha-cha-cha…

How does Kevin get back at his enemy? By sleeping with one of his dance team, Mayra (Dianne Granger).

Will true love win? Will Nancy’s legs stop working again? Is that Terri from Boardinghouse, Elizabeth Hall? Did they decide to have composer Tiromancino write more than two songs? Yes, no, yes and it sure doesn’t seem that way.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 16: Filmirage — Give in to the sleaze and write about a Joe D’Amato produced movie. There’s a list here.

Directed and written by Mino Guerrini (The Third Eye), this is the story of Stefano (Alessandro Freyberger, The Wild Beasts), a mechanic who dreams of being a boxer. It’s also a love story, as he falls for Giulia (Claudia Vegliante).

This is totally Lemon Popsicle in Italy and I love it, because it’s filmed by Aristide Massaccesi and has Michele Soavi as an assistant director. As if that’s not enough, Bob — Giovanni Frezza  — is in the cast.

I have no idea of anyone other than me that would care even the least bit about this movie, but such is my love for Filmirage. This obviously never came to America, where its translated title may have been When the Sun Shines…Let’s Go to the Beach but probably would have been given an insane name like Beyond the Sun or The Punch of Love.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 16: Filmirage — Give in to the sleaze and write about a Joe D’Amato produced movie. There’s a list here.

Panasonic (Kiro Wehara, Thong from The Blade Master) has been sent by his master, General Electric, on a mission to protect the last place left on Earth that can create life, the Interzone. He soon meets Swan (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator), the Max Rockatansky of this rip-off, and a slave girl named Tera (Beatrice Ring, Zombi 3). But this wouldn’t be an end of the world pastarmageddon movie without bad guys, who are led by Mantis (Teagan Clive, another obsession of mine, the bodybuilding blonde star who was also in Vice Academy Part 2, Alienator, Sinbad, Mob Boss, Obsession: A Taste for Fear, Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Armed and Dangerous. She also wrote the “Power Café” articles in Iron Man magazine, as well as episodes of Acapulco H.E.A.T. and Conan the Adventurer, plus she’s in the video for “California Girls” by David Lee Roth) and Balzaka (John Armstead, Error Fatale).

Is there a treasure to be found? Will it explain to Panasonic the truth of his name? You know it.

This was directed by Deran Sarafian, who also made The Falling, To Die For, Death Warrant, Gunmen and Terminal Velocity. A year after this, he’d be in Zombi 3. It was written by James L. Anderson and Clyde Anderson, so you may think this is an American movie. But then, there it was, produced by David Hills, who is Joe D’Amato, who is Aristide Massaccesi. And who is Clyde Anderson? Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi. And is that Laura Gemser as Panasonic’s sister-in-law?

Shot outside of Rome, I learned from Matty at The Shlock Pit that Sarafian and Ring were engaged, which explains them being in Zombi 3.

This is not the best Road Warrior movie you’ll see, but you know, Teagen Clive’s interpretative dancing is all I need. I’m so easy.

April 15: TV to Movies — Let’s decry the lack of originality in Hollywood. But first, let’s write about a movie that started as a TV show.

It’s hard to explain to people today how big a show The Fall Guy was. Everyone had that Heather Thomas poster up in their house; my grandfather had one way into the 1990s. This movie doesn’t require you to know anything about the show.

Directed by David Leitch (John Wick) and written by Drew Pearce (Hotel Artemis), this starts with stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) breaking his back on a stunt as he doubles for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). More than the pain, the idea that he isn’t indestructible ruins his ego and he ghosts on life, leaving behind his girlfriend Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).

18 months later, Colt is called to the set of Metalstorm, Jody’s first movie, which is really her working out her feelings about him. He’s been hired by producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), but he thinks Jody wants him back. In no way is that true. Yet there’s a more significant problem: Tom Ryder is gone and without him, there’s no movie. Colt doubles for him while trying to find the missing actor, who shows up dead in a bathtub, yet his body disappears before the police get there.

Working with personal assistant Alma Milan (Stephanie Hsu) and stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), he learns that Tom has killed his stunt double in a brawl gone wrong. Before he can show the police the evidence, the phone is destroyed and Colt is taken by henchmen. Soon, it’s revealed — man, spoilers, right? — that Tom also broke Colt’s back, upset that he felt that his double was stealing the spotlight. He plans on setting Colt up for murdering his double, but of course, everything works out, love wins out and Metalstorm gets made with Jason Momoa.

And hey — there’s Lee Majors and Heather Thomas at the end.

This movie is a love letter to stunts—there’s a world record car roll in it—and action movies. Yep, Metalstorm comes from Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn and its tagline, “It’s High Noon at the End of the Universe,” is from Oblivion 2. I also love that the hero in that movie is named Space Cowboy, which is very George Peppard from Battle Beyond the Stars.

Plus, it has Endeavor 42, the actual boat from Miami Vice, exclamation-pointed with the show’s theme song, Seavers wearing a crew jacket, and sound effects from  The Six Million Dollar Man.

I loved this. It’s a big dumb action movie, complete with Hal Needham credits at the end!

April 14: Viva Italian Horror—Pick an Italian horror movie and enjoy the pasta sauce and gore.

Dario Argento did Opera and now, Phantom of the Opera, starring Julian Sands as the Phantom, perhaps the best-looking person to play the role. John Malkovich was the original actor for the part, but Sands ended up being in this, and unlike every other movie adaption, he wears no mask.

This is in the period of films where Argento is perhaps thought to have lost it. It’s in-between The Stendhal Syndrome and Sleepless and sadly, starts to look more like a made-for-TV movie (not always a bad thing) instead of the visually rich films that we expect from the director. Then again, it does have a score by Ennio Morricone and the acting isn’t bad. And if you like rats…

The Phantom (Sands) in this one is a telepathic man raised by said vermin, his baby basket plucked from a river and brought to the basement of the Paris Opera where he eventually finds Christine Daaé (Asia Argento), whom he seeks to gain the part of Juliet in a play. She’s also in love with Baron Raoul De Chagny (Andrea Di Stefano), yet she first succumbs to the lovemaking of the man with rat parents. Before you know it, he’s bringing chandeliers down on people and doing all he can for her, even if she winds up choosing the Baron; being flighty, she goes back to the Phantom by the end, but the police end up taking care of that, beating and stabbing him after he shrugs off a gunshot to the stomach by the Baron.

There are some cool dream sequences in this, no small amount of gore, and a sadly muted color pallette that doesn’t seem to even hunt at the rainbow excesses of the past. But you know, directors need to work, and Argento kept trying throughout the 90s, and fans of his- hey, that’s me- kept on hoping for more. I have this in a 4-pack, and that’s how it is available in the U.S., which is kind of sad, but I don’t think anyone is begging for a 4K of this or Dracula 3D. Actually, I am. Throw in Do You Like Hitchcock? and The Card Player, too.

Cinematographer Ronnie Taylor also worked on Opera, Argento’s other Phantom-inspired movie, and Popcorn, which has similar themes. He was also a cameraman on Phantom of the Paradise, so he really got a lot of work out of this story.

Also: I only have Pelts and The Five Days left of his movies to watch.