SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC HORROR TRAILERS VOLUME 5 (199?) *** ½

It’s rare that the fifth installment of a franchise is the best, but Sinister Cinema Classic Horror Trailers Volume 5 is that rare beast.  It far surpasses its predecessors when it comes to cool, creepy, and cult trailers.  I think the secret to this one’s success is the fact that after four volumes, the previous entries had already pretty much exhausted a wealth of famous and/or familiar trailers.  That leaves us with a lot of obscure titles, lesser-quality low budget flicks, and trailers that almost never turn up on these compilations.  

Highlights include trailers for Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (which uses the stock music from the old Universal horror flicks), the WTF Mexican kids’ movie Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters, the alliterative ad for The Devil’s Wedding Night (“Diabolic demons delirious with desire!”), Allan Sherman introducing the trailer for My Son, the Vampire, and a young Linnea Quigley being terrorized by the Psycho from Texas.  There’s also plenty of oddball shit along the way, like The Gorilla Gang (narrated by “Edgar Wallace”), The Spirit is Willing (a ghost comedy starring Sid Caesar and produced by William Castle), and Monstroid, (which the narrator keeps referring to as “Monster”).  Even though some films from other collections appear again, they almost always use different trailers (like The Island of Dr. Moreau) and/or alternate titles (like Welcome to Arrow Beach), which is great for completists.   

Some of the most memorable previews revolve around gimmicks.  The trailer for The Mask on hosted by an expert on masks (who has “the most comprehensive collection in the world”) hawking the “Miracle Movie Mask”.  (It’s just a fancy 3-D viewer.)  In Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, people in costumes “jump out of the screen and into the audience”.  And Wicked Wicked uses “Duovision”, which is just split screen.

The intermission ads, concession stand commercials, and drive-in snipes are even more awesome this time around.  Some of the best are the commercial for Eskimo Pies, an ad for a “Movie Discount Card” for teenagers to use at drive-ins, a concession stand promo featuring Dixieland Jazz musicians, and a great ‘70s Coke intermission ad called “Looking for a Good Time”.  My favorite though is an intermission interstitial for Sprite that copies the starfield special effects from 2001.  Like that flick, Sinister Cinema Classic Horror Trailers Volume 5 is out of this world!

The full line-up is as follows:  Pharaoh’s Curse, The Thing That Couldn’t Die, The Bat, Blood and Roses, Circus of Horrors, Castle of Blood, The Curse of the Living Corpse, The Murder Clinic, Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters, A Taste of Blood, The Death Curse of Tartu, a double feature of It! and The Frozen Dead, Twisted Nerve, Venus in Furs, Crescendo, Night of Dark Shadows, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, The Devil’s Wedding Night, Cat O’Nine Tails, From Beyond the Grave, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Welcome to Arrow Beach, House of Whipcord, The Gorilla Gang, Kiss of the Tarantula, a double feature of Cauldron of Blood and Crucible of Horror, The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, The Awful Dr. Orloff, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, My Son, the Vampire, The Mask, Black Sabbath, The Horror of Blackwood Castle, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, Lady in a Cage, Hysteria, the “Orgy of the Living Dead” triple feature of Revenge of the Living Dead, Curse of the Living Dead, and Fangs of the Living Dead, Mark of the Witch, Simon, King of the Witches, Raw Meat, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, Wicked Wicked, The Spirit is Willing, The Savage is Loose, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Psycho from Texas, Horror Hotel (AKA:  Eaten Alive), Monstroid, and Bluebeard.