This is a truly awful movie and it reminds me of a part of American history that many of us would rather just forget. Yep, the time when Disco forged an unholy alliance with roller skating! This craze lasted about a week and a half and spurred on the creation of this terrible film. The movie is less a musical and more a teenagers save the roller disco from the evil corporation--all set to a disco beat. Linda Blair seems to try hard enough, but the horrid script, direction and the idiotic supporting actors they paired her with doomed this movie to oblivion. BUT, it's so bad, it's good. In other words, it will provide hours of laughter and the ineptness of the film.

In addition, you should be aware that 1979-1980 also gave us perhaps the WORST musicals ever--not just Roller Boogie. Can you remember the horrific and big budget mess that was XANADU (Gene Kelly's body is STILL spinning in his grave for having appeared in this film)? Or, perhaps the West German sci-fi disco religious musical THE APPLE (where the good hippies were saved by a Cadillac driving Jesus at the end of the film)? Well, my advice is watch these terrible films to relive your past OR watch them so you can laugh at your parents who actually paid good money to see them!

Along with Skatetown, USA, Roller Boogie is the other film that celebrates that brief era when roller disco ruled the youth culture. It came as soon as it arrived almost. People still skate, they just don't do it to disco music any more.

I think that Linda Blair accepted the role of the lead here possibly because she wanted to break away from that Exorcist image. She couldn't play all her parts with a spinning head and was trying for a more wholesome image. As a leading man for Roller Boogie she took a skating champion Jim Bray.

Possibly they also saw a budding teen idol in Bray. As an actor he was a great skater. But also in time he might have developed into a decent actor once his projected bubblegum popularity waned. But the film came and went and Bray left no real impression other than with his skates.

The plot has the roller kids trying to save former Roller Derby champion Sean McClory's skate emporium from developers who led by Mark Goddard aren't squeamish about how they acquire the joint. Goddard is also in cahoots with Blair's father Roger Perry.

Blair's mother is Beverly Garland who sees her daughter as a flute prodigy and has her earmarked for Julliard. But Blair wants to learn to skate so she can roller disco with the rest of the gang and Bray's willing to teach her.

I think you can see where this one is going. If you like roller disco you have a double bill of Skatetown, USA and Roller Boogie for your fare.

Terry Barkley (Linda Blair) is a rich Beverly Hills kid who loves her roller-skating. She gets into the roller-skating scene at the beach.

It's disco. It's the beach. It's a lot of leering at a certain lady area. It's a roller-skate dance movie. It's all very cheesy. It's probably the height of the roller-skating fad which married into the disco era. It's a young Linda Blair trying to be more than the Exorcist girl. I've always wondered if she could have worked more as a scream queen. She could have carved out a more successful career that way. This is what it is. It's not tricking anybody. If anything, Linda is doing a lot more roller-skating than I expected. The acting and the story is another matter. Non of that is any good. It's telling that non of the other young actors are big names before or after this. The movie seems to have cast to roller-skating skills than acting skills.