TRAILER-A-RAMA VOLUME 2: 73 MINUTES OF SLEAZE! (2015) ***

This second installment in the Trailer-A-Rama series is a big improvement in just about every way.  There are still some newer films here (Battlefield Stadium, Duck!  The Carbine High Massacre, and Flesh for the Beast), and at least one of those annoying recut trailers (for The Witch Who Came from the Sea), but not nearly as many as in the previous entry in the series.  (Seeing promotions for a film’s website at the end of a trailer just isn’t as fun as seeing the words, “Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You”.)  

It helps that there is a good mix of rare (like Beauty and the Cave) and offbeat (like Voodoo Village) trailers mixed in with the stone-cold classics (like Requiem for a Vampire).  As an added attraction, there are some spook show ads, drive-in snipes, and even a random nudie short horror film peppered in there to keep things lively.  Also, it runs a good half-hour shorter than the first compilation, which helps the abbreviated running time fly by.

Fans of Something Weird will enjoy it as it contains a lot of their titles (A Taste of Blood, Blood Suckers, and Swamp Girl), or at least trailers that have the Something Weird Video watermark.  Some of my favorite trailers were the double feature of The Vampire’s Coffin and The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (“It could only be shown at midnight!”), The Maniacs (an Italian sex comedy directed by Lucio Fulci and starring Barbara Steele!), and Hot Pants Holiday, which looks more like a voodoo movie than a skin flick.  Speaking of which, there are a lot of trailers for films about voodoo (Macumba Love, The Dead One, and The Devil’s Garden) and witchcraft (The Witch’s Curse, Virgin Witch, and Witchcraft).  We also get to see such familiar faces as Vincent Price (Scream and Scream Again), Donald Pleasence (The Mutations), and Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Haunted Palace), popping up every now and then, which adds to the fun.

The full compilation includes:  A Taste of Blood, a vintage nudie short, Battlefield Stadium (AKA:  Battlefield Baseball), Beauty and the Cave, Blood Suckers, Bourbon Street Shadows, Caged Virgins (AKA:  Requiem for a Vampire), Duck!  The Carbine High Massacre, Flesh for the Beast, Hot Pants Holiday, I Bury the Living, The Legend of Blood Castle, Macumba Love, Metal Skin, Scream and Scream Again, a double feature for The Vampire’s Coffin and The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, Swamp Girl, The Devil’s Garden, The Haunted Palace, The Maniacs, The Mutations, The Oracle, The Witch Who Came from the Sea, The Witch’s Curse, Twisted Issues, Virgin Witch, Voodoo Village, We Await, and Witchcraft.  

TRAILER-A-RAMA VOLUME 1: 101 MINUTES OF SLEAZE! (2015) ** ½

It’s pretty hard to screw up a horror trailer compilation, but the makers of Trailer-A-Rama Volume 1:  101 Minutes of Sleaze! come awful close to doing just that.  Typically, with these kinds of things, the previews are taken from theatrical, drive-in, or home video trailers.  This collection uses trailers from recent DVD releases, which does very little to add to the nostalgia factor.  I mean “Coming Soon to DVD” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Coming Soon to a Theater Near You”.  

Even worse is the fact that many of the trailers are for home video rereleases.  You know, the kind where they take an old movie and recut the trailer to make it look like a new one.  It’s pretty stupid if you ask me.  (Examples include Beyond Tomorrow, Texas Lightning, and The Gardener.)  It also doesn’t help that many of the trailers are taken from the same handful of home video companies such as Media Blasters (Banned, Devil Dog:  The Hound of Hell, and Anthropophagus, AKA:  The Grim Reaper), Subversive Cinema (The Candy Snatchers, Dust Devil:  The Final Cut, and The Wild Blue Yonder), and Universal (Cult of the Cobra, Dr. Cyclops, and The Land Unknown), so there is little in the way of variety, studio-wise.  Also, if you’re already familiar with the distributors’ output, you can probably anticipate what trailers will be shown which takes some of the fun out of it.  There’s also way too many trailers for Mark Savage movies (Defenceless:  A Blood Symphony, Marauders, and Sensitive New Age Killer) for my taste.  

Trailer-A-Rama even commits the cardinal sin of trailer compilations:  Repeating the same trailer twice!  Since it was for Joe D’Amato’s classic, Beyond the Darkness (“If you enjoy the violent emotions, this film is for you!”), I can’t get too worked up about it.  

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, this isn’t really a bad collection, if you can get past all the DVD trailers and newly recut ads.  In fact, the actual, authentic, old-school trailers are a lot of fun.  Some of the highlights include The Big Doll House, Girls Nite Out, The Godson, The Grapes of Death, and Mystics in Bali.  There are also a lot of Filmirage titles (Troll 2, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Stage Fright, and Porno Holocaust) in the second act, which certainly helps to offset the amount of newfangled ads.

The complete line-up includes:  A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Bad Inclination, Banned, Beyond the Darkness, The Big Doll House, The Candy Snatchers, Castle of Blood, Cult of the Cobra, Defenceless:  A Blood Symphony (two trailers, actually), Devil Dog:  The Hound of Hell, Dr. Cyclops, Dust Devil:  The Final Cut, The Fiendish Ghouls (AKA:  Mania), Girls Nite Out, The Godson, The Grapes of Death, The Grindhouse Trash Collection DVD box set, Hell’s Bloody Devils, Anthropophagus (AKA:  The Grim Reaper), Beyond the Darkness (again), Troll 2, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Stage Fright, Porno Holocaust, Witchcraft:  Evil Encounters (AKA:  Witchery), Killing Birds (AKA:  Zombie 5), Hitcher in the Dark, Death Smiles at Murder, Just Before Dawn, The Land Unknown, Last Cannibal World (AKA:  Jungle Holocaust), Marauders, Mystics in Bali, Prey, The Revenge of the Living Dead Girls, Sensitive New Age Killer, Shadow:  Dead Riot, Beyond Tomorrow, SS Experiment Love Camp, Texas Lightning, The Wild Blue Yonder, They’re Coming to Get You (AKA:  All the Colors of the Dark), and Zombies 2 (AKA:  Zombie).  

THE 15TH ANNUAL VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS: AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Before we give out this year’s Video Vacuum Awards, I’d like to thank everyone who has stuck with me for the last decade and a half as I constantly spout my nonsensical drivel out into the internet.  Without your support, I don’t think I could’ve made it this far.  Here’s to fifteen more years of nonsensical drivel.  Now that the sentimental shit is out of the way, let’s hand out some awards!

BEST TRAILER COMPILATION

And the nominees are…

The AGFA Horror Trailer Show

The AGFA Horror Trailer Show:  Videorage

The Best of Doris Wishman

The Curse of VHS Delirium

Drive-In Delirium:  The Final Conflict

And the winner is… The AGFA Horror Trailer Show:  Videorage!

BEST SEQUEL

And the nominees are…

Coming 2 America

Don’t Breathe 2

Godzilla vs. Kong

The Matrix Resurrections

Spider-Man:  No Way Home

And the winner is… Spider-Man:  No Way Home!

BEST SCI-FI MOVIE

And the nominees are…

Fried Barry

The Matrix Resurrections

Psycho Goreman

Reminiscence

The Resonator:  Miskatonic U

And the winner is… The Matrix Resurrections!

WORST HORROR MOVIE

And the nominees are…

The Conjuring:  The Devil Made Me Do It

Halloween Kills

In the Earth

Paranormal Activity:  Next of Kin

Willy’s Wonderland

And the loser is… Paranormal Activity:  Next of Kin!

BEST HORROR MOVIE

And the nominees are…

The Amusement Park

Death Rider in the House of Vampires

Don’t Breathe 2

Godzilla vs. Kong

Shadow in the Cloud

And the winner is… The Amusement Park!

BEST DIRECT TO VIDEO/STREAMING MOVIE

And the nominees are…

The Amusement Park

Coming 2 America

Don’t Look Up

The Resonator:  Miskatonic U

Zack Snyder’s Justice League

And the winner is… The Amusement Park!

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

And the nominees are…

Black Widow

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 

Spider-Man:  No Way Home

Venom:  Let There Be Carnage

Zack Snyder’s Justice League

And the winner is… Spider-Man:  No Way Home!

BEST ACTION MOVIE

And the nominees are…

F9

Mortal Kombat

Nobody

No Time to Die

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

And the winner is… Nobody!

BEST ACTRESS

And the nominees are…

Kim Director for Death Rider in the House of Vampires

McKenna Grace for Ghostbusters:  Afterlife

Alana Haim for Licorice Pizza

Jennifer Lawrence for Don’t Look Up

Chloe Grace Moretz for Shadow in the Cloud

And the winner is… Jennifer Lawrence for Don’t Look Up!

BEST ACTOR

And the nominees are…

Nicolas Cage for Pig

John Cena for The Suicide Squad

Josh Lawson for Mortal Kombat

Lincoln Maazel for The Amusement Park

Bob Odenkirk for Nobody

And the winner is… Lincoln Maazel for The Amusement Park!

BEST DIRECTOR

And the nominees are…

Glenn Danzig for Death Rider in the House of Vampires

Ilya Naishuller for Nobody

Michael Sarnoski for Pig

George A. Romero for The Amusement Park

Jon Watts for Spider-Man:  No Way Home

And the winner is… George A. Romero for The Amusement Park!

WORST PICTURE

And the nominees are…

Cosmic Sin

Eternals

Halloween Kills 

Paranormal Activity:  Next of Kin 

Willy’s Wonderland

And the loser is… Cosmic Sin!

BEST PICTURE

And the nominees are…

The Amusement Park 

Death Rider in the House of Vampires 

Nobody 

Pig 

Spider-Man:  No Way Home 

And the winner is… Spider-Man:  No Way Home!

Well, that’s it for the show.  Looks like Spider-Man:  No Way Home and The Amusement Park were the big winners this year with three wins apiece.  Who will win big next year?  Only time will tell.  Until then, keep your nose to the wind and your tail to yourself.

THE 15TH ANNUAL VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS: THE TECHNICAL AWARDS

Well, folks.  The 15th Annual Video Vacuum Awards are nearly upon us.  As is the tradition, before the festivities begin, we start by handing out The Technical Awards.  Sometimes, I don’t watch enough movies in a certain genre to justify creating an entire competitive award category.  So, what I like to do is give these awards to upstanding motion pictures that deserve the recognition on a technicality, regardless to whether or not I watched many films in that genre.  Without further ado, here are the winners of The 15th Annual Video Vacuum Technical Awards.

WORST ACTION MOVIE

(WINNER) Those Who Wish Me Dead

(RUNNER-UP) Prisoners of the Ghostland

BEST COMEDY

(WINNER) Coming 2 America 

(RUNNER-UP) Don’t Look Up

WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

(WINNER) Eternals

BEST DIRECTOR’S CUT

(WINNER) Rocky IV:  Rocky vs. Drago

(RUNNER-UP) Zack Snyder’s Justice League 

WORST DIRECT TO VIDEO/STREAMING MOVIE

(WINNER) Cosmic Sin

(RUNNER-UP) Paranormal Activity:  Next of Kin

BEST DOCUMENTARY

(WINNER) The Sparks Brothers

(RUNNER-UP) Kid 90

BEST DRAMA

(WINNER) Pig

(RUNNER-UP) Licorice Pizza

WORST DRAMA

(WINNER) Cry Macho

BEST HOTEL (FORMERLY THE BEST WESTERN)

(WINNER) Death Rider in the House of Vampires

BEST KIDS MOVIE

(WINNER) Space Jam:  A New Legacy

WORST KIDS MOVIE

(WINNER) Tom and Jerry

WORST MOVIE BASED ON A TV SHOW

(WINNER) Tom and Jerry

BEST MOVIE BASED ON A VIDEO GAME

(WINNER) Mortal Kombat

BEST NICOLAS CAGE MOVIE

(WINNER) Pig

WORST NICOLAS CAGE MOVIE

(WINNER) Willy’s Wonderland 

(RUNNER-UP) Prisoners of the Ghostland

BEST REMAKE

(WINNER) Mortal Kombat

(RUNNER-UP) Godzilla vs. Kong

WORST REMAKE

(WINNER) Dune

WORST SEQUEL

(WINNER) Paranormal Activity:  Next of Kin

(RUNNER-UP) Halloween Kills

BEST THRILLER

(WINNER) The Little Things 

INFERNO (1998) ***

This week, I had the pleasure of being on The Direct to Video Connoisseur Podcast discussing two of my favorite directors, Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray.  The two main features up for discussion were Wynorksi’s The Return of Swamp Thing and Ray’s Don “The Dragon” Wilson actioner, Inferno.  Our chat can be found here:  DTVC Podcast 94 "Inferno" and "The Return of Swamp Thing" (talkshoe.com)

Inferno has the distinction of being the first American movie filmed exclusively in India.  Thanks to the local color, it looks a little bit classier than your typical Don “The Dragon” Wilson actioner produced by Roger Corman.  It also helps that it was directed in a no-nonsense manner by Fred Olen Ray, who keeps the action moving along at a steady clip.  

Wilson stars as a cop whose partner (Rick Hill) gets blown up by bad guy Evan Lurie.  The fact that Wilson is taken off the case doesn’t stop him from going all the way to India to track Lurie down.  Don eventually learns his partner faked his death to steal a computer program he can use to rip off banks for millions of dollars.  It’s then up to “The Dragon” to get payback and kick some ass.  

Inferno is in that classic Stranger in a Strange Land mold of action flick where the hero finds himself in another country, thumbs his nose at the local cops, and sets out to exact his very American idea of justice.  You know, the kind where the hero gets picked up by the cops after a major fight scene and is set down in front of the Yelling Police Captain who says stuff like, “I want you on the first plane back to America!”  You know, the whole Final Justice sort of thing.

Wilson does what he does best, namely kick fools in the face.  Evan Lurie is entertaining as the slimy villain.  I’m used to seeing him play loveable lunkhead kinds of roles, so it was a nice surprise to see him pull off such a villainous character with ease.  It’s also fun seeing Ray drawing from his usual pool of talent, as he was able to secure the presence of such beauties as Jillian Kesner and Tane McClure, who is involved in the Skinamax-style gratuitous sex scenes.  (This is a Fred Olen Ray picture, after all.)  I also got a kick out of seeing cinematographer Gary Graver and even Ray himself, popping up in incidental roles.  

The action is staged solidly for the most part.  What the fights and shootout lack in panache, they more than make up for in frequency.  I also liked the way it incorporated many plot elements from several Bond movies.  There’s a kingpin with a wild child daughter who falls for the hero (like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), the hero performing a fake-out assassination (like The Living Daylights), the hero’s best friend faking his own death and becoming the main villain (like Goldeneye), and big fight scenes that take place in Indian marketplaces (like Octopussy).  

Overall, it’s a shade better than your average Bloodfist movie.  

AKA:  Operation Cobra.  AKA:  Indian Ninja. 

THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995) ** ½

Alex Angulo stars as Father Cura, a seemingly meek priest who figures out the exact date the Antichrist will be born.  (Wouldn’t you know it?  It’s Christmas Eve!)  He then sets out on a quest to commit as many sins as possible so he can renounce God and invoke Satan.  Once he finally has drawn the Devil out, the priest can kill the Antichrist.  Along the way, he gains assistance from a beefy metalhead (Santiago Segura) and a charlatan TV psychic (Armando de Razza) who aid him in his goal of stopping the Apocalypse.

The Day of the Beast is a strange, sometimes charming, sometimes frustrating experience.  Director Alex de la Iglesia (who would go on to make the classic Dance with the Devil) laces the film with a satirical edge as he pokes fun at the church and the media in equal measure.  Some of this is amusing, but the movie spins off on one too many tangents and/or side quests that really prevent it from kicking into overdrive.  

One thing you can say for The Day of the Beast is that it’s unpredictable.  You never quite know what zany misadventure our priest hero will get himself into, and you’re never sure how exactly he’ll get himself out of it.  That’s part of the fun.  There are times when it resembles a Terry Gilliam movie as its madcap characters continually run into one oddball predicament after another.  Unfortunately, it can’t keep up the energy of the early scenes, as the flick slowly sort of peters out before the climax.  The final confrontation also leaves a little something to be desired, but there’s enough blackly humorous moments and strange goings-on here to keep you invested more often than not.

It helps that the three leads have a lot of chemistry together.  Angulo is fun to watch as he slowly morphs from a man of the cloth to a bumbling Bible-thumping, shotgun-toting avenger.  Segura is also good as the loyal, but lowbrow sidekick.  De Razza has some fun moments too as the fake TV psychic who eventually comes around to the idea of fighting evil for real.  

SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC HORROR TRAILERS VOLUME 1 (199?) ***

After watching a bunch of horror trailer compilations from Something Weird, I decided to make a slight pivot and watch a horror trailer compilation from Sinister Cinema.  It looks like they released six volumes of trailers back in the late ‘90s, although I couldn’t quite pin down the exact date this one came out.  If anyone has an idea, let me know in the comments below.  

Things kick off with a great run of Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe adaptations (plus one from Nathaniel Hawthorne).  In fact, Price fans will undoubtedly love this collection as it is chockful of trailers for Price films including The Oblong Box, Cry of the Banshee, and Dr. Phibes Rises Again.  Christopher Lee is also well-represented as he is seen in ads for The Face of Fu Manchu, The Crimson Cult, and Night of the Blood Monster (perhaps better known as The Bloody Judge).  Peter Cushing also pops up numerous times (usually alongside Lee) in such trailers as The Skull, The Creeping Flesh, and Horror Express.  As a bonus, we even get the two most famous Alfred Hitchcock trailers (Psycho and The Birds… although the one for Psycho is from the rerelease).  The collection ends on a fun note with trailers for comedies such as Young Frankenstein, Old Dracula, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This is a pretty strong compilation through and through.  While I would’ve liked to seen a few trailers that featured some gore, nudity, or more sensationalized ad campaigns (although I did like the funny tagline for House of Dark Shadows:  “Come and see how the vampires do it!”), when all was said and done, I had to admit I had a fun time.  I will most certainly track down more trailer compilations from Sinister Cinema at some point in the near future.

The complete line-up includes:  House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror, The Premature Burial, Twice-Told Tales, The Haunted Palace, The Terror, The Raven, The Skull, Blood of the Vampire, Psycho (the rerelease trailer), Jack the Ripper, Peeping Tom, Black Sunday, Burn, Witch, Burn, The Birds, Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory, Horror Hotel, The Face of Fu Manchu, The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Conqueror Worm (AKA:  Witchfinder General), The Crimson Cult (AKA:  Curse of the Crimson Altar), The Oblong Box, The Dunwich Horror, a double feature of The Crimson Cult and Horror House, Blood of Dracula's Castle, a spook show attraction ad, Count Yorga, Vampire, Cry of the Banshee, House of Dark Shadows, Night of the Blood Monster (AKA:  The Bloody Judge), The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Werewolves on Wheels, The Return of Count Yorga, The Velvet Vampire, Murders in the Rue Morgue, I, Monster, Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, The Creeping Flesh, The Castle of Fu Manchu, Son of the Blob (AKA:  Beware! The Blob), Blacula, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Horror Express, Vault of Horror, Theatre of Blood, The Wicker Man, And Now the Screaming Starts!, Scream, Blacula, Scream!, The Beast Must Die, Young Frankenstein, Old Dracula, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.