NIGHTMARE FESTIVAL (1989) ***

Friend of the Video Vacuum, Stuart McPherran has posted a lot of great trailer compilations online in recent years, and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them that he has uploaded.  He let me know about one I missed, and I eagerly checked it out.  Among the highlights are the trailers for Forbidden Planet (which was shown as part of a ‘70s re-release of “MGM Children’s Matinees”), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which parodies The Seventh Seal and The Seven Samurai), Sleeper (in which Woody Allen is interviewed in between snippets of the film), The House That Dripped Blood (which has a great tagline:  “Vampires!  Voodoo!  Vixens!  And VICTIMS!”), The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (narrated by the sexy star, Kathryn Grant), and The Gates of Hell (which looks like it was culled from a VHS release).  

Nightmare Festival presents a good mix of trailers that span across the decades and subgenres.  Included are previews from the ‘30s (Rocket Ship), ‘40s (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), ‘50s (The Incredible Shrinking Man), ‘60s (The Fearless Vampire Killers), and ‘70s (Ben).  Because of that, it’s a good primer for fans of horror and sci-fi alike.  There are also plenty of ads for films by notable directors, such as Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Eaten Alive), Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs), William Castle (Macabre and The Tingler), and Robert Wise (The Haunting and The Day the Earth Stood Still), and movies that appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000 are well-represented too (The Leech Woman, It Conquered the World, and The Crawling Hand).  While there are some trailers that will be overly familiar for dyed-in-the-wool trailer compilation aficionados like me (the trailer for the double feature for The Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama is trotted out yet again), there’s a nice assortment of fun, oddball, and iconic trailers here to please just about everyone.  

The complete list of trailers is as follows:  Forbidden Planet, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), The Incredible Shrinking Man, Them!, Raw Meat, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Ben, Sleeper, Race with the Devil, Invaders from Mars, Things to Come, I Married a Witch, Tales from the Crypt, Island at the Top of the World, Scream, Baby, Scream, Rocket Ship, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Invisible Ray, The Astro-Zombies, The House That Dripped Blood, The War of the Worlds, The Blob, Queen of Outer Space, One Million Years B.C., The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The Gates of Hell, a double feature of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space, Macabre, The Tingler, a double feature of The Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama, Horrors of the Black Museum, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, The Legend of Hell House, Sugar Hill, The Woman Eater, The Flesh Eaters, The Haunting, Count Yorga, Vampire, Eaten Alive, The Omen, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Dracula:  Prince of Darkness, Carrie, The Leech Woman, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Valley of the Dragons, It Conquered the World, The Crawling Hand, Revenge of the Creature, Children of the Damned, and Freaks (re-release).