BLOOD-O-RAMA SHOCK SHOW (1994) ****

Here’s another fun horror trailer compilation from Something Weird.  It’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.  It features more classic trailers than you can shake a stick at.  There’s an art to making the perfect collection of previews, and with Blood-O-Rama Shock Show, Something Weird cracked the code.  It might fall just shy of their immortal Something Weird Extra Weird Sampler, but it’s top notch in just about every regard.  

I’ve seen probably over a hundred or so trailer comps over the years, and this one left me dizzy from all the amazing coming attractions that were crammed into the two-hour running time.  Most of these things usually start running out of steam at about the ninety-minute mark.  Blood-O-Rama Shock Show made the running time fly by.  When it was over, I kinda wanted to watch it again.  If that isn’t the true testament of a great trailer compilation, I don’t know what is.

Things kick off with a swell trio of trailers from Hemisphere Pictures:  Blood Fiend, Curse of the Vampires, and Mad Doctor of Blood Island.  Later in the collection, they turn up as part of various drive-in quadruple features, which is a great way to show how these films were repackaged (often under different titles) and rereleased to an unsuspecting moviegoing public.  There’s a great sampling of genres (vampires, zombies, and cannibal movies), eras (mostly ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s), and quality, which adds to the fun.  Along the way, we get a taste of Something Weird’s catalogue of titles (Sins of Rachel, The Beautiful, the Bloody, and the Bare, and She Freak), some Grade A schlock (I Dismember Mama, Shriek of the Mutilated, and The Corpse Grinders), a handful of true classics (Vampyres, Dawn of the Dead, and Basket Case), plus many films from Herschell Gordon Lewis (Color Me Blood Red, The Gruesome Twosome, and The Wizard of Gore) and Andy Milligan (The Body Beneath, The Rats are Coming!  The Werewolves are Here!, and The Ghastly Ones).  All told, a horror fan’s dream come true.

The complete collection includes:  Blood Fiend, Curse of the Vampires, Mad Doctor of Blood Island, The Murder Clinic, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, Andy Warhol’s Dracula, Make Them Die Slowly, Tender Flesh, Sins of Rachel, Color Me Blood Red, The Body Beneath, The Beautiful, the Bloody, and the Bare, She Freak, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks, I Dismember Mama, Lila (AKA:  Mantis in Lace), The Gruesome Twosome, The Wizard of Gore, Sacrifice! (AKA:  Man from Deep River), Shriek of the Mutilated, The Flesh and Blood Show, Mark of the Devil 2, Private Parts, Blood Feast, Chiller Carnival of Blood (a quadruple feature that includes Blood Demon, Blood Doctor, Blood Fiend, and Blood Brides), Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, Dawn of the Dead, Basket Case, Mansion of the Doomed, The Blood-O-Rama Shock Festival (Blood Fiend, Brides of Blood, Blood Creatures, and The Blood Drinkers), Night of the Lepus, Caged Virgins, the iconic double feature of I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin, the classic triple bill “Orgy of the Living Dead” (containing Revenge of the Living Dead, Curse of the Living Dead, and Fangs of the Living Dead), Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, The Corpse Grinders, The Gore Gore Girls, The Thirsty Dead, Disciples of Death, Meat Cleaver Massacre (narrated by Christopher Lee!), Night of a Thousand Cats, Don’t Open the Window, The Worm Eaters, Dawn of the Mummy, and Deranged.