Drive-In Delirium: Dead by Dawn is the fourth collection of classic drive-in, exploitation, and horror movie trailers from Umbrella Entertainment. This time out, they set the Way Back Machine even further into the past as this installment kicks off with a string of trailers from such ‘50s monster mashes as It Came from Beneath the Sea, The Monster That Challenged the World, and 20 Million Miles to Earth. From there, we segue into When Animals Attack flicks (Night of the Lepus, Food of the Gods, and a cool trailer for a double feature of Willard and Ben) before touching on Hammer horror (Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Gorgon, Dracula A.D. 1972), and Ozploitation (The Cars That Ate Paris, The Last Wave, Next of Kin). The first half of the disc wraps up with an impressive line-up of giallos (Five Dolls for an August Moon, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Short Night of Glass Dolls) and other assorted Italian-made terrors (Opera, Nightmare Beach, Beyond the Door).
After a short intermission (including a Kool-Aid commercial featuring The Monkees and Bugs Bunny), the second half kicks off with trailers for William Castle shockers (13 Ghosts, Homicidal, Strait-Jacket) before going on a marathon of mostly chronological previews of horror films. Among them: Motel Hell, Hell Night, Evil Dead, and a bunch of Larry Cohen movies (It’s Alive, Special Effects, The Stuff). I’m sure you’ve seen many of these on countless other compilations, but I mean are you really going to complain about seeing the Psycho trailer again, especially when it is hands down the greatest trailer of all time? Didn’t think so.
Another awesome trailer, one that I hadn’t seen before, was for a double feature of The Hex Massacre and Lucifer’s Curse. If you haven’t heard of those movies before, it’s okay because they are actually just Island of Death and The Chosen playing under new titles. The best part is that the trailer steals the score from Psycho and uses sound bites from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Speaking of massacres, I also enjoyed seeing the word “Massacre” being misspelled as “Masacre” in the trailer for Drive-In Massacre.
After the horror trailers dry up, things become a bit eclectic. There are previews for artsy films with exploitation elements (Deep End, Ciao! Manhattan, Immoral Tales) and ‘70s skin flicks (The Working Girls, CB Hustlers, The Pom Pom Girls) before we get an onslaught of comedy ads in the last hour or so. Some of these trailers are fun (like Dr. Strangelove, The End, and Zapped!), but others feel sorely out of place in a so-called “Drive-In” compilation. (Clue? The Princess Bride? Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?) Despite that, this is still another winner from Umbrella Entertainment, and I’m sure trailer compilation junkies like me will eat it up.
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