PARENTS GET THE MESSAGE FROM VIDEO

Gory pictures! Kinky sex! Four-letter words! Loud, hard rock!

No, it’s not the latest heavy-metal video in MTV’s rotation. It’s “Rising to the Challenge,” a 26-minute home videocassette designed to help parents lead their children safely through today’s mine field of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s no surprise to learn that the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), the well-connected, Virginia-based organization that’s taken the issue of rock’s excesses all the way to congressional hearing rooms, is behind the video.

What is surprising is that “Challenge” strikes a fairly reasonable tone, steering clear of more controversial items on the PMRC agenda--like the campaign to get record companies to put warning stickers on certain albums.

Moderation is what the video’s executive producer Robert DeMoss Jr. was after. “Neither of us is at all advocating censorship by any means,” he said during a phone interview this week, “but rather education and parental involvement with their children.”

DeMoss is the director of the Pittsburgh-based Teen Vision organization, which produced “Challenge” in conjunction with the PMRC. He describes it as an educational, nonprofit organization that works with teen-agers and parents “to sharpen their critique skills of youth culture, music and media in particular.”

The former musician--he says his single “Video Veggie,” under the name Bobby D. & the Scam, made the Funny Five on Dr. Demento’s radio show--founded Teen Vision 3 1/2 years ago after seeing a Scorpions album cover that he describes as “child pornography.”

Said DeMoss, “I recognize that there are a lot of positive and helpful things being communicated in music. Likewise there are those who are very exploitive in their attempt to sell products, and I think some of the social behavior that’s the theme of a lot of their material, such as necrophilia or suicide . . . are something that most children are not given helpful insight on how to deal with.

“Not that every kid that hears a song like that’s gonna go out and kill themself or have sex with a dead person. But I think that those who are possibly not as strong in their background or are already given to a certain--you know, alcohol is something that’s very attractive to them, then they see (Motley Crue’s) Nikki Sixx or somebody (advocating drinking), it just justifies the behavior for them.”

“Rising to the Challenge” divides rock’s harmful message into five categories: aggressive rebellion, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, violence and the occult.

Some of its points are questionable. For instance, it’s hard to accept the notion that the cartoon posturing of Twisted Sister and the authority-baiting rhetoric of Kiss are a more aggressive brand of rebellion than, say, the Doors’ call to arms in the ‘60s or punk’s anarchy in the ‘70s. Others are inarguable. Most people would buy the proposition that images of sexual violence and the promotion of alcohol and drug use can be a bad influence on young minds.

But the video blunts its own credibility when it gets closer to the fringe. The sequence equating album photos of standard leather-and-studs-sporting hard rockers with some of your more unusual adult publications is bound to get a lot of laughs when the kids get together in the rec room. And dwelling on an alleged occult explosion undercuts the video’s position on more legitimate concerns.

After all the examples of blood and sex and drugs, Ozzy Osbourne and Bitch and Dead Kenneys (presented in montages of still photos--this is not a technically razzle-dazzle production), “Rising to the Challenge” fails to meet the challenge of delivering some hard evidence about its effects. The video presents some experts to dispute Frank Zappa’s claim that it’s harmless, but instead of studies or statistics, they offer broad, unsubstantiated observations about the effects of music.

“Rising to the Challenge” should be in video stores within six weeks, according to DeMoss. It’s currently available by mail order for $26.95 from Teen Vision, 321 3rd Ave., Carnegie, Pa. 15106.

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: Redd Kross, T.S.O.L., Little Kings, Dancing Hoods and House of Freaks are among the acts at one of the most ambitious local-music showcases in recent years: the Hollywood Hills Rock Festival, an 11-hour show starting at noon on Sept. 6 at the John Anson Ford Theatre. Both general admission and reserved seats are available for the show, which also features the Unforgiven, the Pandoras, Damn Yankees and Sea Hags.

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Monday for the Fat Boys’ Oct. 2 show at the Greek Theatre and for Marillion’s Sept. 19 date at the Hollywood Palladium. . . . Tickets will be available Sunday for a second Motley Crue Forum show Oct. 7. . . . Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Peter Case will play acoustically Sept. 11 at the Wiltern to raise funds for Democratic candidates. . . . Whitney Houston will be at the Forum Oct. 2. Tickets on sale now. . . . The Ramones play the Palladium Sept. 18. . . . Tickets go on sale Sunday for three Universal Amphitheatre shows: Michael Franks/Stanley Jordan Oct. 17-18, Four Tops/Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons Oct. 23 and Enrico Macias Oct. 25.