Spook du jour

An unexpected review about a compilation of movie trailers.

The movie trailer. As a society we are obsessed with them. You’re as likely to be asked if you’ve seen the latest superhero movie trailer that Marvel has shat out, as you are to hear “How ‘bout that there Tom Brady!?” while you avoid eye contact at the water cooler. In many cases the trailer is better than the movie because it is an art all its own—an appetizer designed to grab your attention and get you horny for the next new thing, and a delicate balancing act between hype and not giving away the whole pum.

When I see a new movie trailer, a series of events occurs. First, I pee a little. And I don’t apologize for it! The anticipation is just overwhelming! Then my body opens up and an organic shell unfurls around my pale body, creating an armadillo shield of protection. My eyeballs and tongue moisten while my ears dry out. My toes fall off and finally I either smile or give a fat raspberry, depending on the quality of trailer.

It’s come to a point that we even have numerous releases of trailer compilations to enjoy or throw on during your weird Jenga and pasta fetish parties.

There’s volumes of Trailer Trash, Fantastic Movie Trailers, and Trailer Trauma. Drafthouse released a compilation called Trailer War. There are even compilations of movies from the AGFA archives as bonus features on many of their discs! What I like about Prevues, is that the compilation has an original wraparound with a cast of characters that turns the whole thing into something like a child’s TV show for adults. Allow me to explain.

The wraparound takes place in a theater after hours. Cheap zombies have entered the cinema and are  looking to have a good time. They grab their popcorn, top it with blood and take their seats. Meanwhile, up near the projection booth we have the host who is a sad looking ventriloquist named Nick Pawlow and his terribly unfunny wisecracking dummy zombie sidekick Happy Goldsplatt. So who is Mad Ron? He’s the projectionist!  With a cast of characters established, Prevues is free to pop in for a short skit every couple trailers or so to break up any monotony that could otherwise take hold.

The movie trailers featured follow a natural progression with each sort of flowing into the next like the colors of some diseased rainbow. There are trailers of the familiar, such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Last House on the Left, and Tales from the Crypt, but there are also some deeper cuts with the mondo film Africa Blood & Guts, The Diabolical Dr. Z, The Undertaker and his Pals, and my personal favorite trailer of the whole shebang: 3 on a Meathook (I’ll include the full list of trailers below). With this pleasing array you get all the lovely voiceovers promising horrors and terror like you’ve never seen, alerting the squeamish, and warning the faint of heart.

Overall, Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell serves as a fun little time capsule hors d’oeuvre of horror and exploitation from the 60s-80s. I’ve spent my time doing worse, and it may or may not have involved pasta and/or Jenga.