Movies
Sammi Curr Lives: SCREAMBOX Brings ‘Trick or Treat’ to Streaming for the Very First Time!
What are you afraid of? It’s only rock ‘n roll. Decades before Michael Dougherty released Trick ‘r Treat there was Trick or Treat, a 1986 horror movie directed by Charles Martin Smith that introduced the world to undead rocker Sammi Curr. The cult classic has NEVER BEFORE been available to stream, but Bloody Disgusting is changing that this Halloween.
Cineverse is giving horror fans a whole new reason to scream this spooky season, as they announce the acquisition of the 1986 horror classic Trick or Treat from Red Shirt Pictures/Synapse Films. The company will premiere Trick or Treat just in time for Halloween weekend exclusively on SCREAMBOX. The film begins streaming this Friday, October 27!
This will be the first time the new restoration from Synapse Films has EVER been seen, and it’s also the first time the movie has EVER made its way onto a streaming service.
Red Shirt Pictures recently acquired the incredibly rare horror gem and provided it with a brand new 4K restoration that will receive a 4K UHD & Blu-ray Special Edition at a later date.
The first feature from award-winning filmmaker Charles Martin Smith (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), the film featured a cast of soon to be household names including Marc Price (“Family Ties”) and Doug Savant (“Melrose Place”). Alongside rock icons Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne, Trick or Treat blends the best of the 1980s metal scene with the decade’s tongue and cheek take on the genre.
Nearly four decades after its release, the film’s nostalgic nuance still resonates, with Cinelipsis declaring “Trick or Treat spells ‘FUN’ with an awesome story of fandom, satanism, and the power of 80s music.” And Juicy Cerebellum adding “I loved metal music when this came out, hence I loved the film.”
This Halloween it’s PARTY TIME. Following the death of his heavy metal idol, a bullied teenage boy inadvertently discovers away to resurrect the rocker. After hearing the news of his hero’s death, Eddie Weinbauer (Price) finds himself in possession of a one-of-a-kind item, the final recording of Sammi Curr. While, at first, the record seems like a godsend, things quickly turn when he discovers its sinister secret. Played a certain way, it has the power to bring the demonic rocker back from the dead and unleash heavy metal Hell on those who get in his way.
The cult classic was written by genre heavyweights Michael S. Murphy (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2), Joel Soisson (Dracula 2000) and Rhet Topham (Freddy’s Nightmares). Trick or Treat also features Emmy Nominee Glen Morgan (The X-Files), Elaine Joyce (Beverly Hills, 90210) and Clare Torao (Cujo); along with its incredible cast, the film would go on to set the bar for horror cameos going forward. The film was produced by Murphy and Soisson, who would go on to collaborate on Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Blue Desert and Modern Love.
“Heavy metal, horror and raising Hell, does it get more 80s than that,” said Brad Miska, Managing Director of Bloody Disgusting/Cineverse. “Often forgotten among the Freddys and Jasons of the decade, Trick or Treat broke new ground by tapping into the varied interests of their viewers. The keen understanding these filmmakers had would allow for the expanse of the genre for years to come. Releasing titles like this is the best part of running a service like SCREAMBOX, because we are able to find these gems and share them with a new generation.”
“Trick or Treat has been my “white whale” so-to-speak for more years than I can count,” said Michael Felsher from Red Shirt Pictures. “This movie had fallen through the cracks for years, and now it’s coming back in a big, big way. Getting to work with Synapse Films to restore and re-release this criminally underrated rock ‘n’ shock rollercoaster ride has been a dream come true! Red Shirt Pictures is thrilled to work with Screambox to help expose the legend of Sammi Curr to a whole new audience!”
The deal was negotiated by Brandon Hill, Director of Acquisitions, on behalf of Cineverse and Jerry Chandler at Synapse.
SCREAMBOX features a broad mix of content for casual and die-hard horror fans alike. The service is refreshed monthly with content from the Company’s extensive genre library with films and episodes delivering every type of terror imaginable. SCREAMBOX currently features classic horror films like Slumber Party Massacre and the original House on Haunted Hill, the blockbuster indie horror films The Outwaters and Terrifier 2 as well as horror series such as The Island and Masters of Horror.
SCREAMBOX recently acquired the docuseries RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop and the documentary film Hollywood Dreams and Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. SCREAMBOX is available to stream on iOS, Android, Prime Video, YouTube TV, Comcast, Cox and Screambox.com.
Stream. Scream. Repeat. And Happy Halloween.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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