This week, B-Movie Enema goes down under for another Australian treat.

This week’s movie comes from Brian Trenchard-Smith. He’s someone we’ve seen around these parts a few times. The first movie of his I ever looked at was one he was only a co-producer on, 1982’s Blood Tide. However, I later took a look at two other films of his that are way better. The first was also from 1982, the dystopian, Most Dangerous Game-inspired Turkey Shoot. Then, I looked at the first of two sequels to one of my all-time favorite Halloween movies to watch, Night of the Demons 2.

I pretty much knew that Trenchard-Smith was someone I could cover a large portion of his filmography in a few different ways. Hell, 1983’s BMX Bandits features a teenaged Nicole Kidman in the early stages of her career. There was a trio of movies of his that we’ve looked at over at Film Seizure – Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, and Dead End Drive-In. Those two Leprechaun movies could very easily appear here on this blog. But I decided to go a little more interesting for this week when it comes to Trenchard-Smith’s filmography. This week, I’m going to look at the mockumentary/action/musical Stunt Rock from 1978.

Now, because this is a mockumentary, I assume most people would immediately think of, or want to compare it to, 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap. It’s natural, right? Both are mockumentaries. Both feature real music, if not real musicians, in the film. Both are about rock bands. I admit, I immediately thought about that too. However, to make sure I covered my bases, I looked to see if there was really any kind of real connection between Stunt Rock and This Is Spinal Tap. The answer I landed on was, “No, not really.”

Look, one of the issues that I think some people out in the wild have is that there is often confusion between what’s really a ripoff, or the more appreciative word of “pastiche”, and what just simply exists within a category. These are both musical mockumentaries. That doesn’t mean that one ripped off the other or, frankly, even inspired the other. You don’t look at found footage movie and immediately think, “Oh, this is just a ripoff of The Blair Witch Project.” You wouldn’t look at that movie and think it ripped off The Last Broadcast. My point is these are two movies, both using a similar convention, the same genre, and some of the same fake documentary style to get across something that hopefully scares people. Additionally, This Is Spinal Tap is a comedic mockumentary while Stunt Rock goes into the action genre.

I digress because I don’t mean to create controversy between these two films when none actually exists in the first place. The only reason why I brought that up in the first place was that I find it kind of cool that we have a couple of these mockumentaries that feature rock bands and both of these movies have a cult following. While Stunt Rock didn’t get the reviews that the later film had, Trenchard-Smith would say that while he thought initially the film was the worst one he ever made, he later admitted to this movie having a special place and his fans seem to really appreciate the movie too.

Before jumping in, I like that we generally think of mockumentaries being either mostly comedic (like with This Is Spinal Tap and the other mockumentary films headed up by Christopher Guest) or scary as is the case with the found footage subgenre of horror. You certainly can’t imagine one being dramatic as that would be really iffy in terms of subject matter or what have you. Imagine a fake documentary on a disease or racism or a culturally impactful concept. If you aren’t careful, that’s going to come across as very poor taste for the people who deal with that stuff in the real world. Stunt Rock, though, is listed as an action film as well as a mockumentary. That’s kind of cool. Let me know if there are any other action mockumentaries out there because I’m betting there aren’t that many.

Stunt Rock stars Australian stuntman Grant Page. Basically, if you saw an action movie from Australia, he likely did stunts for it. Mad Dog Morgan, Mad Max, Thirst, Road Games, Death Ship… he did stunts for all those and so many more. He was perhaps one of the greatest stuntmen to have ever lived. Sadly, he passed away on March 14, 2024, when the car he was driving struck a tree. The final film he worked on is next week’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. So, while not intentional, this movie is getting a review as a tribute to the recently departed Grant Page.

The film opens with text on the screen stating that the movie features many dangerous stunts and urges the viewer to not copy any of them. And… If you watch the movie, you soon realize you don’t really have to wait that long to see something you don’t want to do yourself. The first thing we see is our star, real-life stuntman Grant Page, scale his way down a rock cliff in the Gap, a rocky beach in Sydney, Australia. This is just part of his everyday work route because not only do we see him scale down the rock face, but we also see him arrive at work where he plans to zipline his ass down another really tall rock face.

Don’t worry, movie… I ain’t gonna do this stunt at home.

He then is approached by a news lady who asks him what his next stunt is going to be. He tells her that his next trick is going to be something like a bungee stunt where he’s pulled back like an arrow in a bow. He says that the calculations were mulled over for some time because the hope is he’ll fly out over the water faster than the gravity will pull him down to his fuckin’ death atop some rocks at the bottom of the big ol’ cliff. We learn that today will be the first time he will be “practicing” the stunt. But then we see him doing it. Does that not mean he has successfully completed the stunt?

Like… I can say I can practice jumping out of a moving car. There are two ways I can practice this stunt. The first is to figure out how to roll out of the car to make sure my face and body and balls don’t get shredded when I land and tumble around. I can do that with my couch in my living room. Then, I can practice by getting in a car and understanding the mechanics of how I will be able to roll out of it. Hell, maybe even go super slow in the car and jump out. However, the moment I say I’m going to “practice this stunt” by way of getting in a car, taking off down the fuckin’ road at a normal traffic speed, open the door, and then roll out of the car, doesn’t that mean I have done the stunt? I survived so not only did I practice, I also survived it. Therefore, have I not done the fuckin’ stunt?

Eh… what do I know? We get to see more of Grant’s various stunts in movies. We also see the band Sorcery perform one of their hard rock songs. For the most part, I see Sorcery as something similar to Kiss. But you know one thing they do in their live shows? They have two characters come out to have a fight! They have a wizard dude and a dude named the Prince of Darkness. The guy who plays the Prince of Darkness, Curtis, is Grant’s cousin. Grant is in Los Angeles to do some stunts for a TV series. So he’s gonna hang out with this cousin.

The next day after being shown the sights of Hollywood and meeting Sorcery, Grant is, again, interviewed by a TV station. I guess stuntmen are the type of people that if a reporter knows what they do for a living, they must be interviewed and featured on a TV program. He’s going to demonstrate another stunt where he’s going to get hit by a car. This time, it goes wrong. He gets up on the car’s hood as to be expected but his body shatters the windshield and he rolls awkwardly up onto the roof of the car before being tossed off rather violently. He suffers a mild concussion and is ordered to remain in a hospital until further tests can be performed.

Grant is like, “Oy fuhck you, mates… Here’s mah taynt!”

Either the concussion was worse than he was originally told, or he has no desire to be laid up at the hospital because he sneaks out of the window and climbs down the side of the building. He meets Lois (played by Brian Trenchard-Smith’s wife Margaret) and commandeers her car so he can get to the set of his TV show gig. Because Lois is a reporter, OF COURSE she wants to do an interview with Grant to find out more about what he does. Stuntmen are a rare breed, man.

So far, the first fifteen minutes are basically as follows: Grant Page talks to someone, then shows them a stunt, and then people sit around and talk about stunts. It’s not exactly the mockumentary I really expected. It’s a little more narrative. There are non-actors (very obvious the characters in this movie are not actors) who act out a scene. The more documentary feel to the movie comes in two different ways. The one that feels a little better integrated into the movie are the shots of people on set getting ready for and then filming the stunt itself. We see the cameras. We see the grips. We see the boom mic guys. We see the extra stuff we don’t normally see. The other way it becomes more documentary-like in format is when we are told that Grant did stunts in some movie and it shows footage from that movie or from the behind-the-scenes stuff.

For example, there’s a point in which the star of the TV show’s agent talks to Lois about the way stuntmen are used. He talks about how no one really cares if the stuntmen get hurt. They’re kind of a crazy sort of person. He mentions how Grant was hired because he doesn’t know when to quit so they are going to use him up for whatever they can get from him. He talks about how he saw the 1976 movie Mad Dog Morgan and there was a particular scene in it that was really neat and that’s how he found out about Grant Page.

It’s kind of a weird movie. To me, I think the movie screeches to a halt when these types of scenes come up. It feels really forced to have this agent talk about how he saw this movie, describe the stunt while we also see the stunt, and then inform another character (and us, the audience) about the things Grant did in movies. I much prefer seeing Grant go into a set, do a stunt, and then see all the before, after, and during stuff that goes on when a movie is being made. I find that far more interesting. Instead, we have characters talking about how stuntmen are treated in a dramatic way and it’s all not very well acted. It’s this odd mix of “aren’t stuntmen cool!” and “aren’t stuntmen so mistreated and taken advantage of?!” It never quite hits the right mixture for me. It becomes a little stilted in the early stages of this movie. It really does feel a little more like a vanity project than a fun little movie about a guy who is straight-up playing himself.

If I were to be honest, I really wish this was more of a straight forward documentary. People can still say the things about Grant they do and he could still say the things he says in this about himself, the business, and how he prepares for stunts. It would feel a little more natural that way.

Now, I do think it is interesting that the lead of the TV show that Grant is working on, Monique van de Ven also playing herself, is hungry to do her own stunts on her shows. She’s frustrated by the obvious double that takes over for her for one of the stunts. So she says to Grant that she wants to drive the car herself in the big chase they are filming the next day. He takes her and Lois for a drive and it looks like he is talking to her about how to drive a car for scenes like that. I like that he still driving Lois’ car to do this. Anyway, he’s talking to them about his stunts while we get some additional clips of various car stunts he’s done in movies and TV shows. There is something there that is a flash of a more interesting element in the narrative.

They then go to hang out with Sorcery. It’s kind of wild that this is a two-sided movie, both of which are vanity projects for each side of the narrative story. We’ve talked about the hype that is built around Grant Page. On the other side, we get a lot of musical performances by Sorcery. Sure, they are trying to play up their own characters as fun-loving members of a glam rock band. It’s not good, but it’s the typical rock band in a movie sort of level of acting that we’re seeing here and, as a fan of The Monkees, I can’t really complain.

I will say they do have something with their stage show where they have a Merlin-like guy fighting with the devil. This is a gimmick that really plays up giving fans a full-on performance. Come for the music, stay for the Merlin vs. Devil grudge match. It isn’t just that either! The Devil and Merlin both do magic and illusions in their performances. Well, I suppose Merlin does more of the illusion stuff and the Prince of Darkness does more fire-play, but still… I’d check that shit out.

I like that after the big Sorcery show that night, Monique is like, “Let’s stay up all night!” and Lois says she needs to go back home to work on her notes for her article about Grant… which might also be about Sorcery now too? Anyway, Monique is more than happy to cut this Lois nerd loose because I’m pretty sure she wants to get in Grant’s Page if you know what I mean. However, Monique is somewhat suspicious of Lois. She thinks that Lois will be writing something that could really hurt Grant and Sorcery. Lois promises to not do them a disservice.

Grant gives Lois a scrapbook of his that has a bunch of articles and pictures about his work. She begins recording some of her notes. From what’s in Grant’s scrapbook, she talks about how the roots of stunt work go back to the circus. She talks about other famous stuntmen and women who do all sorts of different types of things – movies, live shows, carnival acts, circus acts, etc. The next day, she kind of scoffs at Grant calling stunt work “art” because she thinks it’s just danger and destruction. He brings up Gone in 60 Seconds (the good one from 1974). We then get a clip of one of the big car chases in that movie. He explains to her that there’s a lot of work that goes into setting up the stunts. Still, Lois thinks it’s all insanity and she’s not going to stick around while he gets himself killed.

In a really nice scene later in the day, Grant and Monique have a heart-to-heart about Lois being upset that Grant risks his life as a stuntman. Monique says that if she’s his type, she’ll come around sooner or later. He shouldn’t let her get him down. Besides, if she likes him, she should accept him for what he is and understand he knows what he’s doing.

Not only is Grant Page apparently doing stunts for Jon Pertwee in some episode of Doctor Who, but this is also a nice scene. This movie definitely has its moments. It’s too often split between wanting to be a mockumentary, a documentary, or a normal movie with a plot, and that definitely hurts it. That said, it’s a peculiar little movie. It is definitely not without its charms.

Returning to Sorcery, it’s time for another show. However, this time, there’s a whole different performance going on. Unless it’s the same things they do every night and we’ve just been seeing their concerts at different points in the show. But man… How much does it cost this band to put on their shows? Like… a million dollars a night? Seems like a really expensive thing. They have a five-person band. They have a Merlin. They have a Prince of Darkness. There’s a lot of fire and magic effects. Does a ticket to one of their shows cost $400? I would believe it. I’d pay $400 to see a Sorcery show.

By the way, Curtis Hyde, when dressed up as the Prince of Darkness and really leaning into his character, looks like a 70s Wolverine. Look at him! He’s got the mutton chops. He looks vaguely like Hugh Jackman. If Marvel had made an X-Men movie right after Warner Bros. did their Superman movie, they could have gotten Curtis Hyde to play everyone’s favorite Canadian superhero. Just my two cents, bub.

Because we’ve had a little Grant, followed by a little Socery, it’s time to go back to a little Grant doing his thing. Here’s one of the better documentary-style scenes of the movie. He did a stunt in Sydney where he lit himself on fire and then jumped off a cliff, which basically combined two stunts in one. He talks to a documentary crew about the timing they’ve allowed for to make sure he’s safe. Lois narrates other facts like the clothing he wore doing the stunt and the chemical it was soaked in that also was smeared all over his face and hair. We then see the stunt actually performed.

It’s this sort of stuff I wish we got a whole lot more of in this movie. Learning about how stuntmen do fire stunts or how they plan for contingencies to make sure they only burn for a certain amount of time before they get help is really interesting. We all like seeing a guy lit on fire and walking around while ablaze. We all like seeing cars go scrunch or go boom. These are bitchin’ things in movies and TV shows. But I would love to hear Grant Page in this movie go all in on what he had to do in preparation or what might go wrong and how he plans to avoid that.

The same thing goes for the Sorcery stuff. I’d love to see a complete concert film following them around. I want to know where they got their inspiration to do the performance part alongside the music. Where did they find the actors? Was it a long casting process? Did they specifically seek out magicians and fire guys? Did Sorcery change their show based on what could be done by the people they cast as the wizard and the devil? That would be a really fascinating movie too!

Maybe what I really want is a real documentary? Or if not that, and it was still going to be a mockumentary, I wish both Grant and Sorcery were slightly parodied. They are the stuntman and the band, but maybe they are having a goof on what they do or they find themselves getting involved in something they weren’t expecting. Like maybe these two acts come together to do an old-fashioned show like we learned a little bit about in the scene where Lois was learning about the history of stunts.

I do like that Grant has set up a stunt in which he set up a cord between two buildings and used a wireless phone to call Lois to invite her out to a party. You get the impression there were people in some of the apartments around where he set up the stunt that did not know he was going to be doing that. There are people looking out windows at what the hell this crazy Aussie was up to. There is no doubt that he is doing this without a net or with any kind of harness for safety. There is a guerilla-style filmmaking to it.

He tells Lois, who thinks he’s crazy, about how he handles this sort of stunt. He does a lot of work in heights-based stunts. He says it’s about the confidence you have in what you know. You know how strong your hands are. You know how to keep yourself balanced. Well, at least, you have to learn that. He says that you learn a lot of this stuff in childhood. He says the first thing every stuntman needs to know is that it was their ego that led them to where they are and it’s their ego that will also kill them. This is some of the best stuff in this movie. While they are playing characters, it does feel like we’re getting to see an actual interview with Grant Page, the stuntman, not seeing Grant Page trying to be an actor.

Shortly after that great scene in which Grant Page talks about how important, and potentially detrimental, a stuntman’s ego is, he takes Lois to a party Sorcery is throwing. Now we get a chance to hear some stories from the real band. We know it’s a very real thing they are talking about because, at one point, one of the guys trips over a word. It’s a real moment. They talk about what they experience on stage. They get so into what they are doing, they don’t even know if they get hurt or whatever. One of the guys says his hair caught on fire but he didn’t miss a beat. So they hear about what the fans experience in the crowd and they think about how they experience the same thing from the other side. You get the feeling they really love to perform and they want to put on a show for their fans that no one else can.

It’s another fantastic scene where you really see the subject as the real version of themselves. I had to basically wait over an hour to get here, but here we are. We finally are getting something real, or at least something that feels like the mock/documentary I expected at the start.

Now, you might be curious how Grant Page and Sorcery meet in the middle, right? Well, Grant suggested a stunt to Curtis for a future Sorcery concert. Basically, wouldn’t it be cool if the Prince of Darkness lowered himself onto the stage? Curtis wants to know how to do it. Monique, still really hungry to do stunts herself, ends up learning how to do the stunt too. Another stunt Grant does for Sorcery involves him being drug onto the stage by some hooded monks that also sometimes get in on the performance. He’s strapped to a chair and then Curtis kind of cooks him. Monique and Lois get freaked out when the body in the chair falls out and seemingly is badly hurt. But then Merlin comes out and does a explody thing and Grant swoops in from the rafters.

I ask again… How much does a ticket to a Sorcery concert cost?!?

The movie ends with Sorcery dedicating a song to Grant and everyone rocks the fuck out. Lois says she’s going to write an article called “Stunt Rock” that is going to herald the beginning of a brand new thing – a show that features rock and roll, magic, and stunts. It’s going to take the world by storm!

I don’t know about the article Lois wrote, but I do have to ask myself “Is Stunt Rock a good movie?” That’s a question that is really hard to answer. We get to see some of Grant Page’s greatest hits from his stunt career. That’s pretty cool. Sometimes, when a discussion of what Grant does is done by someone who is not Grant Page, the movie halts and feels really disjointed and stilted. Sorcery is badass and I would love to have seen one of their shows at their height. Yes, Sorcery is still a band to this very day.

I ultimately do not think Stunt Rock is that good. If you can make it to the 60-minute mark, you will get some really good stuff directly from Page and Sorcery about what they both do. There are two very good documentaries here if that was what Trenchard-Smith wanted to do. He didn’t, though. What should have been two really interesting, and very focused, short documentaries was mashed together and had some padding filled in to turn it into a feature film. It loses its potential seriousness by building a really cheesy narrative uniting the ideas.

So it’s a goofy movie. Yet, there’s a charm to it that makes it something kind of neat. It wants to talk about stuntmen as artists and a serious element of entertainment. It wants to talk about the seriousness of entertaining a crowd at a rock concert. I think it succeeds when it focuses on that. However, the movie is too much and ultimately fails on its own premise.

As for the recently departed Grant Page, I did not choose this to be covered because he died. In fact, I wrote almost all of the opening to this article before getting into the movie part before I discovered his passing. It was as I was pulling up Wikipedia and IMDb to lend a helping hand with names and the cast that clicked on Page’s name and saw that he died the day before I actually sat down to write this review. His body of work is amazing. This movie does not appropriately do all it should in terms of a tribute. We do see some cool shit he did. We do hear a tiny bit from him directly about what it takes to be a stuntman.

The best tribute to Page’s long career is the work that is on the screen from the movies he worked on. He did everything from highwire acts to being set on fire to crashing cars to jumping off buildings. It’s his career that honors him most. I hope someday the Academy creates a category for Best Stunts at the Oscars because every movie has them. They are used heavily. Sometimes people died. It would only be fair for the Grant Pages of the world to also have a shot at being recognized for putting their lives at risk.

This week’s B-Movie Enema article is done, but there’s more to come! Tomorrow, join me for another episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series. This week, I’m looking at the goofy 40s exploitation classic I Accuse My Parents. Be sure to check out the site right here, or YouTube, or Vimeo to watch. Next week, we go north of the border for a Canadian exploitation flick from the 80s. As much as I have to expect there will be a whole lotta denim, we should also expect some monster truck goodness as we’re getting revenge with Steven Hilliard Stern’s Rolling Vengeance!

Until then, I bid you G’day, mates!