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The Nightmare Returns Review

ALICE COOPER: The Nightmare Returns — The Alice Cooper Show (MCA Home Video)

Through his long and inventive career, Alice Cooper has remained the Master of the Macabre, with his live shows always a gruesome gas. He's set all standards for shock rock, a mark that groups like Lizzy Borden haven't begun to touch. The Nightmare Returns captures Alice in all his gory glory, filmed last Halloween in Detroit — a fitting place to have a horrorshow. Almost every song is accompanied by some onstage antic, each building in ghastly hilarity toward the piece de resistance: Alice being guillotined during "I Love the Dead." Watching this stunt on home video, even frame by frame, you marvel at how brilliantly staged it all is. The same goes for the highlight of "Go To Hell," where Coop impales a cameraman with the microphone stand. Of course, no Cooper show would be complete without Mistress, his pet python, which he lovingly drapes around himself and licks during "Be My Lover."

Hardcore feminists would do well to steer clear of Alice's antics, as women get more than a once-over from him. From the female dummy he pummels during "Cold Ethel," to the strangling of a nurse at the close of "Ballad of Dwight Fry," the gentler sex is given a humorous ribbing throughout. It's ironic that Cooper's best number would turn out to be the haunting "Only Women Bleed," performed here with eerie intensity. Of course any performance that concentrates so much on the stage show is suspect as to actually how good the musicianship is behind it, but here it's surprisingly solid. Lead guitarist Kane "Beefcake" Roberts provides blistering riffs while toting a mean axe that shoots fire at one point. Cooper's vocals are generally strong, although by the time the encores roll around, he seems a bit winded. Technically, the tape captures as much as could be expected from such an elaborate setup, with crisp sound and moody lighting.

It's hard to imagine a more entertaining show, provided your sense of humor leans toward the slightly twisted. This is a ghoulish delight by the best in the business at scaring up fun.