“With special appearances by Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons of KISS!”

Whoever edited the 1986 theatrical trailer for Trick Or Treat didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in its staying power, considering that the booming voiceover hypes “Marc Price from Family Ties!” (aka, a background player in a contemporary sitcom) as the nominal star of the picture.

Both the premise (play a heavy metal record backwards and you’ll definitely hear something) and the main hook (Satan-friendly dead rock star reaches out to his teenage biggest fan) are on display, though, and the killer’s M.O. is more or less explained straight away (starts out possessing stereo / Walkman / amp, moves on to random electric appliances).

Three quick notes:

- “His fans won’t let him die. He won’t let them live” would have made for a better tagline.

- The only quotable bit from the script (“you should be loyal to your heroes… they could turn on you”) is put to decent use.

- I remember a slightly longer, different trailer being around, with a couple creepier shots (one involving a door being opened via the psychic electric blue glow of doom), but maybe my eight year old self was just working overtime to make up stuff.

Writer and metal rock enthusiast Fabio Genovesi notes that “it sort of has a point even in this day and age” - we’ll trust him on that.