Dream Deceivers (1990)
This is a really great KNPB-produced PBS documentary about a teen suicide pact made over Judas Priest in Reno in 1985 with one of the two kids, James Vance, unfortunately surviving a twelve-gauge blast to his head and the following absurd and frivolous lawsuit over supposed subliminal messages in the music. This happened in the suburban neighborhood we nicknamed America, where our old band practiced, where Jake and Ryan were jumped and stabbed a minute back, and where Miles and the Lundahls live. Perhaps a hex was cast on olde Black Forest Lane. This story is nearly as outrageous as a Reno 911 plotline, but as if shot from the other side of the law; the disaffected and alienated teenagers in Reagan America. Look out for what happens in a town preoccupied in the tourist and adult industry, a county with the highest heavy drinking rate in the nation, and within a state last in education and concerned with gambling on the future of Nevada. Is it clear yet why all of the bands here sound like Nirvana or Pantera?
Also worth noting:
-The influence of this movie for Harmony Korine on Gummo. He's mentioned it as a favorite, and his dad was a filmmaker for PBS in Nashville.
-Vance's lawyers office is shown, and is now a Church of Christ right across the street from us on Sinclair, very arguably an 'infamous' epicenter of metal, punk, and skateboarding in Reno.
-The kid playing guitar in the window sill and the metal fans at Frederic de LongChamps' beautifully designed Washoe County Courthouse as Priest rolls up. Dope.
Dream Deceivers
my dad sat in on that trial, he tells me the story a few times a year because he always forgets that he told me. weird.
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