Before They Were Stars: Bruce Dickinson in “Incubus”

This is probably the most unusual horror-themed “Before They Were Stars” I’ve ever done as it features a member of a very famous band making a cameo as part of his previous band in a bad horror film! Before he found great fame as the lead vocalist of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson was the singer for a New Wave British heavy metal band called Samson. In 1981, Dickinson left Samson to join Iron Maiden, but not before footage of the band was used in a Canadian-made horror flick called Incubus. Shot in Guelph, Ontario and starring John Cassavetes, Incubus is a godawful movie about women in a small town being raped and murdered by some sexual demon, but there are two very amusing things about it: 1) It must set some sort of record for uses of the word “sperm” in one movie, so much so that you could make a drinking game out of it, and 2) The completely inexplicable cameo from Bruce Dickinson and Samson. The band had previously shot some music video footage for a short film called Biceps of Steel and, for whatever reason, the makers of Incubus decided to display this footage on the big screen during a sequence set in a movie theatre. It comes completely out of left field and and when I went to see Incubus at a midnight screening a few years ago, the audience just roared with laughter once they saw Bruce Dickinson pop up on screen.