W.A.S.P. - Reidolized - The Film (2018)

W.A.S.P. - Reidolized

(The Soundtrack to The Crimson Idol)

Dir. Ralph Ziman

Even though I'll be referring to the album itself, the text below is primarily for the sixty-minute 'film' that accompanied W.A.S.P.'s re-recording of their fifth studio album, The Crimson Idol, which was originally released back in 1992. If ever I do a band discography post I'll give the new version of the album the kudos it deserves.

The 'film' is the album's songs with occasional v/o narration by vocalist Blackie Lawless; i.e., parts of The Story of Jonathan (Prologue to the Crimson Idol) track that was included on the 1998 remaster of the 1992 concept album.

Documenting the tragic rise and fall of a fictional rock star named Jonathan Aaron Steele, and incorporating such themes as abandonment, emotional need, addiction, ambition and, ultimately, self-worth, it's presented in grainy lo-fi B+W with frequent splashes of symbolic crimson. It's a conceptually interesting idea that nevertheless gets tiresome pretty quickly.

The slide into boredom that I experienced while watching is perhaps not wholly the fault of the creator(s), seeing as how the visual effects they seemed to have had at their disposal were of a type that eventually became available to home video editing enthusiasts in various PC software suites and as such have lost their power to impress - if they ever had it to begin with.

- It's sixty minutes of that kind of aesthetic. -

It's basically an extended music video that got made and shelved back in the day. It's the original track listing, with none of the 'lost' tracks on the re-recording. Oh, and it's in 1080/60p, not 24p - at least the four-disc European version is, but I suspect all regions output the same.

If you've not already guessed, it's primarily something for W.A.S.P. fans, and will have very limited appeal outside of that demographic. But, damn, The Crimson Idol is still a great album!