Before Tony Fields became the undead heavy metal maniac Sammi Curr in 1986’s Trick or Treat, the role was offered to two musicians who already had the rock-star credentials to make the character feel dangerously real: KISS legend Gene Simmons and W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless.
Neither one ended up playing the part. Gene Simmons’ reason was pretty solid. He thought the character was too ‘cornball’.
Gene did show up in the movie, but in a much smaller role. He plays local radio DJ Nuke, the friend of teenage metalhead Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price) who gives Eddie the only copy of Sammi Curr’s unreleased final album. Eddie takes the record home, plays it backward and discovers that his dead idol has left behind a very strange message.
That setup could have been very different if Simmons had accepted the part of Curr.
Simmons was originally offered the role of the fictional rock star, but he did not think much of the script and ultimately agreed to appear only as Nuke. Simmons later explained that he wanted to play the radio DJ as a tribute to Wolfman Jack, the legendary broadcaster who had been one of his childhood idols.
The connection is particularly fitting because Wolfman Jack had appeared in American Graffiti, which also starred Charles Martin Smith, the same actor-turned-director who made his directorial debut with Trick or Treat.
Nuke may only have a handful of scenes, but Simmons’ presence gives the movie an instant shot of genuine heavy metal credibility. He is also the character who puts the story’s supernatural chain reaction into motion by handing Eddie the acetate of Sammi’s final album, Songs in the Key of Death (yes, of course I have a T-shirt for this album and I wear it at least once a week. No False Metal).
Simmons wasn’t the only metal star considered for the part. Blackie Lawless was also offered the role of Sammi Curr. The W.A.S.P. singer ultimately turned it down, although accounts of exactly why have varied over the years.
In a 1987 Washington Post profile, Lawless said he objected to what he considered gratuitous violence in the movie. Other accounts have reported that he disliked the script, while later retrospective coverage has connected his decision to the fact that he did not want to lip-sync music written for Sammi.
There was an obvious reason filmmakers would have looked toward Lawless and Simmons. Sammi Curr is written as an exaggerated heavy metal celebrity, complete with outrageous stage behavior, controversy surrounding his music and a larger-than-life public persona. Lawless and Simmons were already recognizable figures from the real-world metal scene, so casting either one would have given the character an entirely different kind of authenticity.
Instead, the role went to Tony Fields. Fields was not primarily known as a rock musician. He was a dancer and actor who had appeared on Solid Gold and had a background that allowed him to bring an unusually physical quality to Sammi.
That turned out to be important because Curr isn’t simply a musician standing around delivering dialogue. Once he returns from the dead, Fields gets to throw himself into the character’s wild stage presence and supernatural mayhem.
The finished movie also made the most of its connection to the real heavy metal world. Ozzy Osbourne appears as Reverend Aaron Gilstrom, a TV preacher who rails against the evils of heavy metal. It is a deliberately ironic casting choice, particularly considering Osbourne’s own reputation as one of the genre’s most notorious figures at the time. He is the guy who “bit the head off a bat”, can’t get more metal than that.
Meanwhile, Sammi Curr’s music was supplied by Fastway, the British-American hard rock band formed around Motörhead guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke and vocalist Dave King. That meant the movie could create a fictional rock star without requiring Simmons, Lawless or another established musician to actually record the character’s songs.
Looking back, Trick or Treat ended up with a strange piece of metal-movie casting history. Gene Simmons could have been the movie’s undead rock villain and instead became the radio DJ who hands a teenager the cursed record. Blackie Lawless could have been the face of Sammi Curr but passed on the role. Tony Fields ultimately became the man under the hair, makeup and leather, while Ozzy Osbourne showed up on the other side of the heavy metal argument as its fictional enemy.
Considering how much of Trick or Treat depends on the idea of a larger-than-life rock star becoming a supernatural force, it is hard to imagine a more appropriate collection of almost-cast possibilities for an ’80s metal horror movie. All this talk has made me want to go rewatch Trick or Treat right now. I’m such a Skippy stan, it’s stupid. I can’t believe Marc Price didn’t get at least a Stranger Things cameo. Come on, Netflix. Skippy gotta eat (love ya, Marc).
