‘RIVER’S EDGE’ GETS THE HARD-ROCK SELL

How do you market a film whose core audience listens to speed-metal bands like Slayer (at about 3,000 decibels), has their radio dials glued to hard-rock station KNAC-FM and gets their T-shirt fashion tips from pouring over metal fanzines like Kerrang?

If you’re Island Pictures, you call Concrete Marketing, a new firm that specializes in reaching the unreachable--die-hard heavy-metalergics.

Island’s new film, “River’s Edge” (which opens May 8), is an unsettling tale about a pack of bored teens who discover that one of their friends has murdered his girlfriend. What makes the film so disturbing is that even after his chums see the corpse, no one is moved enough to call the police.

(The story is loosely based on a real-life crime that occurred several years ago in Milpitas, Calif.)

Island isn’t sure just who wants to see such a downbeat tale, but they’re convinced that head-bangers--who are always fascinated by sagas of gloom ‘n’ doom--are likely candidates. Enter Concrete Marketing, a New York-based firm that manages hard-core groups (like Metal Church), touts others and has spent the past several years establishing contacts with the heavy-metal underground.

“The major record companies used to look at heavy-metal as a dirty Kleenex,” explained Bob Schittard, 29, an ex-record company staffer who runs Concrete with Walter O’Brien, founder of Combat Records, a popular heavy-metal label. “But now, after they’ve seen how many metal records have been sold recently, they see there’s a lot of money to be made.”

Most heavy-metal hysteria is spread through word-of-mouth, so Concrete is co-promoting (with KNAC) a budget-priced party this Saturday at the Country Club. The popular hard-rock watering hole will have live music, plus a deejay playing Slayer songs and other excerpts from the film’s sound-track album, which is due out in early June.

In addition, the first 250 kids at the door will receive free passes to a May 4 screening of the film. Concrete also has distributed free passes for other screenings around the country at various heavy-metal record stores, which will also be adorned with a “hard-core” poster of the film, specially designed to appeal to metal fans. The firm also hopes to spread the word about the picture through ads in such metal fanzines as Kerrang and Art Shock, which Schittard describes as “the true mass media” for the metal set.

Concrete staffers will be in attendance at “River’s Edge” screenings, quizzing viewers to get feedback about the film. “We want to know--would they think their friends would enjoy it and would they tell them to go see it,” Schittard said. “If they like it, we’ll know we’re onto something. If they start throwing bombs at the screen, then I guess we’ll know they think it’s bogus and that we missed out completely.”

The Concrete staff was particularly enthusiastic about the special “metal” version of the “River’s Edge” poster, which features the profile of a sulky teen by the river. According to Schittard, the poster makes it appear as if the teen-ager is possibly relieving himself, which he sees as a big possible selling point.

“I think that’ll work in our favor, because the kids will identify with that,” he said. “They really like anything that comes off as defiant and rebellious.”