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.  

SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC HORROR TRAILERS VOLUME 4 (199?) ***

Sinister Cinema trailer collection numero four-o kicks off with previews for such ‘50s shockers as Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (a film that seems to be under the impression that Dr. Jekyll was a vampire?!?) and A Bucket of Blood, before setting its sights on Mexican horrors like Face of the Screaming Werewolf and Black Pit of Dr. M.  We also get trailers featuring Barbara Steele (The Ghost and Nightmare Castle), rare and/or cheap looking movies (The Devil’s Bedroom, Alabama’s Ghost, and Curse of the Voodoo), trailers for films that have appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Bloodlust!, Tormented, and Ring of Terror), and at least one horror flick starring an extremely unlikely leading man (Pat Boone in The Horror of It All).  The collection eventually concludes with a trio of trailers for “respectable” ‘70s horrors like The Stepford Wives, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Amityville Horror.  

All in all, Volume 4 is another typically entertaining trailer compilation from Sinister Cinema.  It features a good mix of black and white (Night Tide, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and Dead Eyes of London) and color (The Gruesome Twosome, Creature with the Blue Hand, and Night of the Blood Monster) films.  Since I’ve been watching so many compilations lately, there were more than a few trailers that I have seen in other collections.  Despite that, there are just enough distinct trailers here to make it recommended.  For example, Alfred Hitchcock pops up in so many compilations in the trailers for The Birds and Psycho, two of the most famous trailers of all time.  Because of that, it was nice seeing him introducing the trailer for the lesser-appreciated Family Plot in this collection.  

As per usual, this volume is supplemented with lots of great old-timey commercials (for Dr. Pepper), coming attraction interstitials, and concession stand ads.  (My favorite was the one for candy bars that proclaims they are “Delicious and Nutritious!”)  I also found a couple of bonkers looking movies to add to my watchlist like Crash! and Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (which has the great tagline, “It will turn your blood to ICE… for the Devil’s cocktail!”).  If it can introduce me to WTF movies I’ve never heard of, then that means Sinister Cinema Classic Horror Trailers Volume 4 has done its job.   

The full line-up includes:  Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, A Bucket of Blood, Face of the Screaming Werewolf, Black Pit of Dr. M, Night Tide, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Dead Eyes of London, The Ghost, The Devil’s Bedroom, The Horror of It All, The Black Cat, Nightmare Castle, Something Weird, Targets, The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Alabama’s Ghost, Night of a Thousand Cats, The Flesh and Blood Show, Crash!, The House on Skull Mountain, Family Plot, The Worm Eaters, The Medusa Touch, Silent Scream, Bloodlust!, The Devil’s Hand, The Dead One, Tormented, The Shadow of the Cat, Dr. Cadman’s Secret (AKA:  The Black Sleep), Ring of Terror, The Mad Executioners, The Black Torment, Curse of the Voodoo, A Study in Terror, The Vulture, She Was a Hippy Vampire (AKA:  The Wild World of Batwoman), The Gruesome Twosome, Creature with the Blue Hand, Night of the Blood Monster (AKA:  The Bloody Judge), Disciples of Death, Mark of the Devil Part 2, Don’t Open the Window, Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary, The Stepford Wives, Shadow of the Hawk, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Amityville Horror.   

SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC HORROR TRAILERS VOLUME 3 (199?) ***

Sinister Cinema is back with their third collection of classic horror trailer goodness.  Overall, it’s a fun mix of genres, decades, and stars.  (Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee all appear.)  It also clocks in at under ninety minutes and moves along at a relatively brisk pace.  The occasional appearance of drive-in snipes, concession stand ads, and spook show trailers also help to perk things up along the way.   

William Castle’s filmography is the focus of the first batch of trailers (House on Haunted Hill, Macabre, and I Saw What You Did).  Castle himself is even prominently featured in the previews for 13 Ghosts and The Night Walker.  This stretch culminates in the nightmarish, atmospheric, and effective trailer for the Castle-produced Rosemary’s Baby.

Next up is a string of trailers for films from Hemisphere Pictures (Vampire People, Mad Doctor of Blood Island, and Brides of Blood).  We also get a lot of ads for double features, such as I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin, The Fog and Phantasm, The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover, and even a triple feature of The Vampire, The Return of Dracula, and The Monster That Challenged the World.  In addition, there’s a run of Hammer trailers (House of Fright, The Terror of the Tongs, and The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb) as well as a trio of German Edgar Wallace adaptations (The Phantom of Soho, The Monster of London City, and The Devil’s Daffodil).

Other highlights include:  Veronica Lake slumming in Flesh Feast (“What’s the matter?  Don’t you like my little maggots?”), The Eyes of Hell (which is nothing more than a spinning hypno-wheel accompanied by the voice of an obnoxious narrator), the trailer for Chamber of Horrors showcasing “The Fear Flasher” and “The Horror Horn” gimmicks, and the preview for Voodoo Heartbeat, which is unfortunately considered a lost film.  It all concludes with the hilarious trailer for Nightwing (that compares the movie to Close Encounters of the Third Kind!?!), which is about as good as a closer as they come.  

In case you’re wondering, the complete line-up is as follows:  House on Haunted Hill, Macabre, 13 Ghosts, The Night Walker, I Saw What You Did, Let’s Kill Uncle, Rosemary’s Baby, the double feature of I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin, Vampire People (AKA:  The Blood Drinkers), Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Brides of Blood, Brain of Blood, Blood Demon, The Phantom of Terror (AKA:  The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), Flesh Feast, The Oracle, Trick or Treat, The Tempter (AKA:  The Antichrist), a double feature of The Fog and Phantasm (two trailers all told), Dawn of the Dead, The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover, Eyeball, Seizure, Curucu:  Beast of the Amazon, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, Horrors of Spider Island, a triple feature of The Vampire, The Return of Dracula, and The Monster That Challenged the World, House of Fright (AKA:  The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll), The Terror of the Tongs, The Eyes of Hell, The Devil’s Daffodil, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Phantom of Soho, The Monster of London City, Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Chamber of Horrors, The Sorcerers, The Naked Witch, Beast of the Yellow Night, Voodoo Heartbeat, The Gore Gore Girls, The Vampires Night Orgy, Devil Times Five, The Omen, Meat Cleaver Massacre, Piranha, and Nightwing.

SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC HORROR TRAILERS VOLUME 2 (199?) ***

Sinister Cinema returns with another solid trailer collection chockfull of old school horror.  Things kick off with a bunch of ‘50s horror trailers (The Zombies of Mora-Tau, Voodoo Woman, and The Bride and the Beast) before delving into the ‘70s (Don’t Look Now, The Exorcist, and The Devil’s Rain) and ‘80s (The Howling, Friday the 13th Part 2, and Ghost Story).  Boris Karloff is well-represented as there are trailers for Corridors of Blood, The Haunted Strangler, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.  Fans of the lovely Hazel Court will enjoy seeing her pop up in the ads for Ghost Ship, Doctor Blood’s Coffin, and The Masque of the Red Death.  There’s even a trio of trailers for films from Grade-Z schlockmeister Jerry Warren too (Terror of the Bloodhunters, Creature of the Walking Dead, and Curse of the Stone Hand).

Some of the best trailers are for flicks that feature great promotional gimmicks.  Both The Screaming Skull and Castle of Evil have a fun gimmick where the producers offer free burial services if you die of fright while watching them.  For The Embalmer, audience members must sign a "Certificate of Assurance” to prove they are of sound mind before entering the theater.  Something tells me the producers never had to make a claim on either policy.  At any rate, the gimmick alone is pretty amusing.  (I wonder if anyone out there still has their Certificate of Assurance from The Embalmer.)  

I especially loved the ads in which the narrator insists there’s something wrong with you if the movie doesn’t scare you.  For They Came from Within, he says, “If this picture doesn’t make you scream and squirm, you better see a psychiatrist… QUICK!”  In the ad for Phantasm, he insists, “If this one doesn’t scare you… You’re already dead!”  There are also plenty of drive-in snipes, intermission ads, and countdown animations sprinkled throughout, which helps to make this one another winner from Sinister Cinema.  

The complete line-up includes:  The Zombies of Mora-Tau, Voodoo Woman, The Bride and the Beast, The Screaming Skull, Terror-Creatures from the Grave, She Freak, The Undertaker and His Pals, The Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Embalmer, a double feature of Night of the Witches and Dr. Frankenstein on Campus, Castle of Evil, Night of the Living Dead, Spirits of the Dead, Kiss or Kill (AKA:  The Blood of Fu Manchu), The Thirsty Dead, Nightmare in Wax, Ben, Don’t Look Now, Tales That Witness Madness, The Exorcist, The Devil’s Rain, Burnt Offerings (two trailers), Nosferatu the Vampyre (which features a disclaimer stating there are English subtitles), The Howling, Friday the 13th Part 2, Ghost Story, Creepshow, Ghost Ship, Gorilla at Large, Curse of the Demon, Corridors of Blood, The Haunted Strangler, Doctor Blood’s Coffin, The Haunting, The Masque of the Red Death, Terror of the Bloodhunters, Creature of the Walking Dead, Curse of the Stone Hand, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, The Bloody Pit of Horror, Blood Bath, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, The Devil Doll, Mad Monster Party, The Legend of Hell House, Willard, They Came from Within (AKA:  Shivers), Squirm, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Love at First Bite, The Evil, Phantasm, and Up from the Depths.

TRAILER-A-RAMA VOLUME 3: 78 MINUTES OF SLEAZE! (2015) ***

The third collection of sleazy movie trailers in the Trailer-A-Rama franchise just might be the best one yet.  Once again, the shortened running time helps make for breezy entertainment for trailer compilation fans.  If there is one minor quibble to be had, it’s that there’s a couple of trailers here that were already seen in the first installment in the series (Hitcher in the Dark and SS Experiment Love Camp).  There’s also at least one newer movie in the mix (Run!  Bitch!  Run!).  However, since it’s done in the old grindhouse trailer style, it looks right at home.  

This collection really brings on the sleaze, which is much appreciated.  The highlights this time are the foreign language trailers for German sex comedies such as Carnal Campus, 14 and Under, and Love in 3-D.  There’s also a heavy concentration on the Schoolgirl Report series and its many imitators.  In fact, there are so many Schoolgirl Report trailers that it made me hopeful we’ll see a full trailer compilation for the series somewhere down the road.  Speaking of foreign language trailers, there’s also a trailer for a badass looking Japanese action flick that I have no idea what it’s called because the entire thing was in Japanese.  

Non-German sexploitation is represented by the likes of Love Camp, Schoolgirls in Chains, and The True Story of the Nun of Monza.  If you came to the party looking for horror trailers, don’t worry.  There are still plenty of those too (like Doctor Death, Love Me Deadly, and Nude for Satan).  There’s even a smattering of action trailers in there as well to appease action fans (like Choke Canyon, Power Play, and The Last Grenade).  

This seems to be the final installment in the Trailer-A-Rama series.  That’s a shame too.  Even though it got off to a rocky start with the uneven first entry, the franchise really seemed to find its footing with Volume 3.  Hopefully for trailer compilation enthusiasts, there’s another chapter in the series lurking somewhere on the horizon.  

The entire trailer listing is as follows:  The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, Carnal Campus (AKA:  Schoolgirl Report Vol. 12:  If Mom Only Knew), Choke Canyon, Love Camp, Doctor Death, Follow Me, 14 and Under, Goodbye Gemini, Hitcher in the Dark, Love in 3-D, Love Me Deadly, Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly, Nude for Satan, Payday, Power Play, some Japanese action flick, Run!  Bitch!  Run!, Say Hello to Yesterday, Schoolgirls in Chains, Schuler Report, Schoolgirl Report Part 2:  What Keeps Parents Awake at Night, Schoolgirl Report 8:  What Parents Must Never Know, St. Pauli Report, Stunt Rock, The Chilling, The Dark Ride, The Internecine Project, The Last Grenade, The Redeemer… Son of Satan, and The True Story of the Nun of Monza.  

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).