Big Rock Beat: A Wacky Zany Romp (Special Warfare) - Hardcover

Kihn, Greg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312867565 ISBN 13: 9780312867560

Publisher: Forge Books, 1998

Synopsis

It's 1967, the summer of love, ten years after legendary B movie director Landis Woodley's cult horror classic Cadaver. Now Woodley is shooting a rock-and-roll movie, complete with beach bunnies, hot rods, monsters, and rock bands. And as usual, money is tight.

Producer Sol Kravitz introduces Woodley to Tijuana financier Hector Diablo, who invests a huge amount of money in the movie with the proviso that James Dean's death car, which he has rebuilt and named The Impresser, has a starring role.

But something else is attached to this movie. Something that's not in the script. Sol is the first to die. Then others. And payback's a bitch.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Kihn is the author of Horror Show and Shade of Pale. He is the drive time disc jockey at KUFX in San Jose, California.

Reviews

Ex-rocker and current L.A. deejay Kihn brings back the resourceful hero of Horror Show for another goofily entertaining movie-and-rock romp, this one set in 1967. B-movie director Landis Woodley hasn't made a picture in 10 years when Sol Kravitz hires him to direct a dubious low-budget rock-and-roll flick?beach bunnies, racing cars, drugs, monsters. Landis's cousin, Beau, lead guitarist with a San Francisco band bumming around L.A., is swept into the movie, as are an uptight, ambitious young actress, an aging cheesecake starlet and a drug-soaked Bela Lugosi look-alike. Financing difficulties develop between Sol and investor Ernie Shakleford, owner of Shang-a-Lang Records, which drive Sol and Landis into the lethal embrace of Hector Diablo, a handsome devil who makes macabre conditions on his loan to bail out the production, now shooting. Landis and Sol are forced to take on his sinister nephew Johnny Immaculata as a producer, and to use James Dean's "death car" (reconstructed) in the movie. But there's worse to come. Sol is the first man murdered as the plot twists and loops around the wacky denizens of Kihn's Hollywood?many of whom survive the curse, and two of whom (the epilogue hints) will return in a sequel to this giddy exercise in pulp fiction.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The sequel to Kihn's 1996 debut novel, Horror Show, a satirical romp based on the film Ed Wood, which was followed by his Banshee novel Shade of Pale (1997). The hero of Horror Show was schlockmeister Landis Woodley (Ed Wood), the world's worst filmmaker, who brought in his masterpiece, Cadaver, in three days and under budget, using real corpses from the Los Angeles Morgue as standup zombies. Now, ten years have passed since Cadaver, with Landis pining away in his crumbling Hollywood mansion. It's 1967, the summer of love, and Landis's old producer buddy Sol Kravitz shows up to lure him into directing a rock-bottom schlock musical on an atomically small budget. Kravitz has fallen in with Ernie Shackleford, president of Shang-a-Lang records, who wants to feature his talentless rock bands in the movie. The film's star is aging Yvette Love, whose z-cup bra outbusts Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, and Marilyn Monroe combined. Second leads go to Gayle Mimi (formerly Gayle Ann Perko), making her film debut, and overaged teenager Tad Kingston, 31, whose hair does most of his acting. No sooner does Landis sign on than Hiroshi Watanabe (a name taken from Kurosawa's Ikiru) offers him a much grander salary for doing a monster movie for Toyo films in Japan. Meanwhile, fresh from San Francisco is Landis's cousin, very long-haired Beau Young, whose Stone Savages rehearse on San Franciscos Haight Ashbury. Thus Beau and the Stone Savages join the fun and frenzy. Beau courts Gayle but is seduced by Yvette. The money falls through, and Sol winds up dead in the flame-painted Porsche Spyder that James Dean also died in and which is to be featured in the film. Landis must take off for Japan. Lovers of rock music will find this almost as much fun as the prequelthough less fantastically over the topor fresh. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

B-movie director Landis Woodley is revered in Japan, but nobody in Hollywood will return his phone calls. So when he gets a chance to write and direct a rock-and-roll movie titled Big Rock Beat, he doesn't hesitate, despite serious misgivings about the shady financing behind the production deal. When the film's producer is found dead in the movie's setpiece--James Dean's Porsche Spyder, salvaged and rebuilt--Landis is forced to deal directly with the mysterious moneyman El Diablo. Kihn's sequel to his widely praised debut, Cadaver (1996), offers the same quirky humor and an entertaining cast of characters, including a Bela Lugosi^-like smack addict, a pure-hearted ingenue, and a talented musician who receives good advice from the ghost of Brian. Former rock musician Kihn makes good use of his background, and this is perhaps the only novel to ever feature a death by guitar (the victim is impaled on a Gibson Flying V). Short on plot but long on attitude, this lighthearted spoof should appeal to fans of Tim Burton's movie Ed Wood. Joanne Wilkinson

Edition details

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312867565
• ISBN 13: 9780312867560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352