Synapse Films returns with their latest compilation of exploitation trailers.  All of the trailers come from the folks at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas, who know a thing or two about exploitation cinema.  As with most compilations in this series, it has it’s share of faults (too many dumb trailers in the middle section), but it also happens to be a lot of fun.  Out of the ever growing 42^nd Street line, I think I have to say this one may be my favorite.

The opening sets the tone perfectly for what’s to come.  It’s a MPAA promo designed to explain the Ratings system and it’s hosted by none other than Charlton Heston!  For some reason though, “Chuck” is delivering his lines from a tennis court.  This only adds to the bizarreness.

First up is a chunk of Kung Fu previews.  The highlights include:  A Life of Ninja, The Bodyguard (“Viva Chiba!”), and Mad Monkey Kung Fu.  The trailer that really needs to be seen is the one for Lucky Seven.  It looks like The Little Rascals Take on the Mob.  What’s so great about this trailer is that nearly all the kids look like they do their own stunts and take what looks to be a LOT of abuse.

After a few lame trailers we get into the 70’s sex genre with the likes of Danish Love Acts, Group Marriage, and Caged Virgins (AKA:  Requiem for a Vampire).  The highlight of these previews is Chatterbox (starring Candace Rialson from Hollywood Boulevard).  It’s all about a talking and SINGING pussy!  Man, I have to see that flick!

Next up is a handful of trailers for Sci-Fi movies like Message from Space (which looks nuts), Mind Warp (AKA:  Galaxy of Terror; a movie that pretty much rocks), and awesome looking Megaforce.  (“The good guys always win… even in the 80’s!”)  After a few ho-hum action trailers, we get to Stacey; a movie directed by Andy Sidaris that I’ve always wanted to see.  Boy do I ever want to see it now!  Some so-so trailers follow until we see a trio of black themed previews (Putney Swope, Norman… Is That You?, and Redneck County) that all look pretty great for wildly different reasons. 

Then comes a run of trailers that is definitely the crown jewels of the collection.  These previews are all for family films of the 60’s and 70’s.  If your sanity is intact after you see The Magic Christmas Tree and Pinocchio’s Birthday Party, you’re a strong individual.  However, I guarantee the trailer for The Secret of Magic Island will be enough to make your head explode.  It’s all about puppies and ducks fighting a “villainous space age monkey”.  What’s even crazier is that the film’s stars are all played by real animals!  Unbelievable!

I still say my favorite trailer is the one for Sorceress.  It has everything you could possibly want in a movie.  Topless Kung Fu fighting twins, magic, monkey men, zombies, giant space griffins, witches, barbarians, imps, and even more.  Vol. 5 also features vintage ads for air-conditioned theaters, BBQ, coming attractions, shrimp rolls, and hot dogs too so you aren’t constantly bombarded with nothing but trailers.  Hopefully Synapse will put the Alamo in charge of their next release!

Ah yes, another year, another fun compilation of grindhouse trailers from the good people at Synapse Films.  While 42^nd Street Forever Vol. 4 is just as good as the others in the series, it shares the same faults as well (it goes on too long and features too many lame trailers near the end).  For die hard movie trailer compilation completists (like me) though, it’ll be a must own.

The best trailers are for Lucio Fulci’s atmospheric The Psychic (which features the excellent poster art prominently) and Mortuary (which doesn’t show any footage from the film, but features Michael Berryman WHO ISN’T EVEN IN THE DAMN MOVIE!).  There’s also the gory and fun trailer for Paul Naschy’s The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Women, the moody trailer for The Boogeyman (even though it gives away most of the kills), and the preview for The Jezebels (AKA:  Switchblade Sisters) really rocks.  Bonnie’s Kids (starring Wicked, Wicked’s Tiffany Bolling) looks awesome and features a great tagline:  “Thank God she only had TWO!”, and the Richard Burton action flick, The Klansman will remind you of a time when the name “O.J. Simpson” could bring in an audience. 

Other highlights include trailers for (It Came) Without Warning, No Blade of Grass, the immortal Yor:  The Hunter from the Future, Schizoid, Tender Flesh, New Year’s Evil, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, and Humongous.  Fans of Michael Biehn, Bo Svenson, Cameron Mitchell, Lee Marvin, and Ben Johnson will have fun spotting them in multiple trailers and for those who can’t get enough of director Charles B. Pierce, you’ll love seeing the trailers for The Legend of Boggy Creek, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, and Greyeagle back-to-back-to-back.  There are also plenty of bad trailers for bad movies like Simon:  King of the Witches, Die Sister Die!, Rituals (AKA:  The Creeper), and Best Friends in there as well. 

As with the other volumes in the series, the trailers are more or less grouped by genre.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  It’s fine when you’re getting a string of stellar horror movie trailers, but it’s kinda irritating when you get stuck with eye-rolling trailers for stupid comedies like Americathon, Can I Do it ‘Til I Need Glasses?, and Die Laughing  (Starring Robby Benson!).  When it looks like things are getting back on track, courtesy of  a nice run of revenge movie trailers (Breaking Point, Fighting Mad, Moving Violation, and Part 2; Walking Tall), Vol. 4 quickly goes back to the shitty comedy trailers again (like The Chicken Chronicles starring a young Steve Guttenberg).  There’s also an odd trailer for an obscure Foreign Legion movie starring Gene Hackman called March or Die that sticks out like a sore thumb too. 

If Vol. 4 didn’t have so many cringe worthy trailers near the end, it would’ve been the best of the series.  As it is, I like ‘em all about the same.  One thing is for sure, I can’t wait until next January for Vol. 5!

The legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs hosts this awesome “Awards Ceremony” that was originally a Pay Per View Special, that is just an excuse for some of the finest 90’s scream queens to get naked.  Joe Bob interviews several B Movie actresses, shows clips from some of their films, and then they do a little striptease.  Viewers then call in and vote on their favorite babe.

First, Joe Bob talks to Julie K. Smith from The Dallas Connection about her career and being a consultant on Showgirls.  She says she’s using B Movies as a stepping stone to something else, but her career never got out of the straight-to-video market.  Next, the relatively unknown Steen talks about her one and only film credit Turnaround (Directed by Jeff Mandel from Elves fame!), which she also wrote.  Then Julie Strain shows up wearing an amazing metal brassiere and discusses her work in Andy Sidaris films.  And yes, the infamous scene from Fit to Kill where she has an orgasm on a boat and screams, “Anchors away!” is shown.  Afterwards, Michelle Bauer (who wins) appears and talks about Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and being a body double for famous stars.  Finally, Joe Bob talks to Linnea Quigley about Return of the Living Dead and Linnea’s classic “Dance of the Double Chainsaws” is shown.  When Linnea does her striptease, she caresses a severed arm.  While the votes are being tabulated, the two Julies engage in a Sapphic hot tub dance. 

Briggs’ conversational interviews are excellent and the girls all look great.  Even though the striptease scenes are brief, they show more than enough skin to give you a chub.  There’s no real way to review this show.  If you’re a fan of Joe Bob, or any number of the gals featured on the show will definitely want to check this out.  I love both, so it’s Four Star City all the way.

The one and only Johnny Legend scraped together a bunch of anti-drug propaganda, movie trailers and short subjects about the dangers of pills, pot, and heroin and put them all into this compilation.  Like most of these collections, it’s fairly hit and miss but there’s some pretty priceless stuff here and there to make it worth a look. 

There’s a short about how poppy seeds are turned into opium and a police training video on how to spot a doper.  (“Pot smoke has a musty odor that’s easy to identify!”)  We also get to see trailers for such drug scare films as Marihuana (featuring scandalous nude bathing), Assassin of Youth (“People say it’s suicide, but to me it’s murder by marijuana!”), Smoke of Evil and Mary Jane (starring Fabian!) as well as a montage of people having hallucinations from similar grade Z anti-drug pictures. 

The filmstrip about a guy who moves up from “Bennies” to weed to heroin runs way too long but the public service announcement featuring Sonny Bono is worth the price of admission.  We see the fuzz busting a bunch of hippies having a pot party; then Bono is seen wearing golden pajamas and dispensing advice and anti-drug sentiment.  I don’t know about you, but hearing “Just Say No to Drugs” from Sonny Bono is like kind of like learning Driver’s Ed from Jayne Mansfield.

Scenes from Mondo Keyhole and a silent western serial featuring Yakima Canutt called “Weed of Death” (“If you smoke that, you’ll go bughouse loco!”) rounds out the collection. 

If you enjoyed such anti-pot classics as Reefer Madness and She Shoulda Said No, then you will no doubt enjoy this compilation immensely.  Just try to watch it straight, okay?

Exploitation guru Johnny Legend pulled out all the stops this time with this compilation, giving us a taste of sex education of yesteryear, spanning from the 20’s all the way through the 60’s.

It all begins with some silent footage of a guy helping a naked girl by removing a pesky rat from out of her shower, but he turns out the be a rat himself.  Next is a Navy enforced VD filmstrip where we see slides of gonorrhea germs under a microscope, a discussion about “blue balls” and the dangers of “Clap Doctors”, as well as a model of a penis.  Then there’s an unintentionally hilarious short about syphilis in which a gratuitously Italian (his accent is about as believable as Chico Marx’s) shopkeeper’s newborn son dies because of complications from the deadly disease.  A social worker tells him:  “With proper medical treatment you can be cured and you can have all the little bambinos you want!”  Things kind of go down hill from there as the filmstrip about teenage marriage (from the 50’s) and the short about teenage pregnancy (from the 60’s) aren’t all that entertaining, but the final short about “photographer’s models” ends things on a high note as this segment has plenty of nudity to keep any heterosexual male happy.

Interspersed between the various shorts are clips from silent stag reels that help spice things up.  We also get to see a trailer for the nudist colony/artist’s rights picture, The Naked Venus as well. 

Like most of these compilations from Johnny Legend, Sex Mania is a little on the uneven side, but at least it makes up for it with a generous heaping of female flesh.  Although some of the shorts tended to drag, I definitely enjoyed the “Rent-A-Girl” portion of the flick and the Naval short was a hoot.  (It was also responsible for the funniest line of dialogue:  “Wearing a rubber is like taking a shower with a raincoat on!”) 

AKA:  Rhino’s Guide to Safe Sex.

Remember the days before Ralph Nader when a commercial on television told you that something was good for you and you actually believed it?  Well you can now relive those wonderful days with this fun compilation of old timey commercials from Johnny Legend. 

Naturally the best commercials featured are the ones for cigarettes that boast things like “More throat comfort!” in their ads.  There are also commercials for Frisbees (“By Whammo!”), cereal (Frosted Flakes) and the famous Hai Karate after shave ad is also in there.  We also get celebrities such as Ronald Reagan (soap), the Marx Brothers (shampoo), the Three Stooges (car wax) and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez (cancer sticks) hawking products.  The best part for me though was the insane Smokey the Bear ad and the positively nutty venereal disease PSA.

Also featured on the disc is Bloopers and Beyond, which includes flubs from the cast of Gunsmoke (See James Arness mutter the word “Motherfucker”!), Rod Serling, Ronald Reagan, Mickey Rooney, and Jayne Mansfield (who almost loses her top).  The best blooper comes from Red Skelton who performs a live TV show with a cow that ends up shitting everywhere.  The first chapter of the Steve Reeves serial, Kimbar of the Jungle is also tossed in there for some inexplicable reason. 

I’ve always said that old commercials are a heck of a lot more fun than old television shows and this compilation proves my theory to a tee.  While there are one too many bland toothpaste ads in there for my taste, there’s enough random goofiness here (like the ad for Sloppy Joes) that make this collection worth a look. 

My man Johnny Legend compiled this uneven but nevertheless fascinating look at awful TV shows from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.  Hosted by Skip (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) Young, we get to see everything from lame variety shows to boring sports programs to goofy commercials.  (The Belly Bongo!)  I don’t know where Johnny Legend found most of these clips, but be glad he did!

There are scenes from an obscure all-kiddie cowboy show where the lone grown-up in the cast is the villain and the children all have their voices dubbed over by adults.  Also featured are also a handful of failed pilots like Suicide Theater (starring a pre-Star Trek DeForest Kelley!), which if ever picked up by a network would showcase a lonesome individual killing themselves every week!  But the highlight of the compilation is a crazy ass ad for the United Fund entitled, “The Meanest Man in the World” about a guy doesn’t pledge to charity.  That night he goes to sleep and in his dream, we see him kicking the crutches out from crippled kids, slapping milk out of the hands of hungry orphans, and cutting the IV’s from hurricane victims!  All of this just because he didn’t pledge 50 cents for charity?  Amazing!

Sure, there are a few bits that aren’t very funny and go on for too long, but I have to say that I was thoroughly amused by this collection of some of the oddest TV oddities ever seen.  Any fan of Legend’s previous compilation releases such as Sleazemania, Teen Mania and Weird Cartoons will definitely want to check this one out!

AKA:  TV Mania.

Cheezy Flicks, one of the leading manufacturers of cult movie trailer compilations, brings us yet another flawed, but entertaining hour of vintage science fiction previews. 

This time out we get trailers for:  The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Flesh Eaters (“They kill anything that comes between them and their meat!”), The Brain Eaters (“It will burst your blood vessels with suspense!”), The Atomic Man, The Last Days of Man on Earth, Day of the Animals, Invisible Invaders, Empire of the Ants, The Day Mars Invaded Earth (“Marked for Martian vengeance!”), Superargo and the Faceless Giants, Barbarella, Enemy from Space, Rollerball, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Planet of the Vampires, Invaders from Mars, Futureworld, The Day of the Triffids, Silent Running, The Navy vs. The Night Monsters, The Time Machine, Message from Space, Death Race 2000, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.   

Even though this volume features trailers for four films that wound up playing on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (The Giant Spider Invasion, Women of the Prehistoric Planet, Laserblast, and Phase IV), there’s also a preview for 2001:  A Space Odyssey, which I wouldn’t really call “cheezy”.  Oh well. 

Like most of Cheezy’s comps, it’s got a lot of trailers previously featured in their other collections (The Thing from Another World, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Return of the Fly, Forbidden Planet, Fantastic Voyage, and Five Million Years to Earth), but I guess they needed the padding to jack up the running time to an hour.  It’s not perfect, but if you’re a sucker for hour long trailer compilations (like me), you’ll definitely want to check it out. 

Cheezy Flicks returns with yet another hour long compilation of movie trailers, this time focusing on the science fiction genre.  Despite the name “Cheezy”, there are plenty of flicks featured here that are considered classics.  While this compilation suffers from some of the same problems the other comps in the Cheezy line have had (namely the fact that some trailers are repeated), it’s still a damn good time and any fan of 50’s sci-fi will want to check it out.

The trailers include: Fantastic Voyage, Thunderbirds are Go, War of the Worlds, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, Five Million Years to Earth, Them, The Giant Behemoth, It Came from Outer Space, The Love Factor, Barbarella, Konga, Attack of the Puppet People, Phantom from Space, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Unidentified Flying Objects.  There are also trailers for FOUR Ray Harryhausen movies (First Men in the Moon, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, One Million Years B.C., and Mysterious Island) as well as FIVE movies that would later appear on Mystery Science Theater (Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Gorgo, The Green Slime, The Phantom Planet, and The Incredible Melting Man). 

Although some of the trailers have been carried over from previous Cheezy offerings, there’s still enough cool new stuff (The Love Factor trailer is a doozy) to warrant putting this on your Netflix Queue.  Vol. 2 quickly followed. 

Here’s yet another in a seemingly unending line of Johnny Legend compilations.  This time the subject is juvenile delinquents and in addition to the usual collection of movie trailers, this one features condensed versions of JD movies, theatrical ads, government short subjects, and church messages too. 

First up is “A Boy in Court”, a fairly accurate look at the juvenile justice system in the 40’s and 50’s.  Next is a WWII era government sponsored film called “The Birth of Juvenile Delinquency” that actually BLAMES juvenile delinquency on the war effort!  (Must’ve been their attempt at reverse psychology.)   J. Edgar Hoover of all people actually shows up during this short to try to set the record straight on juvenile delinquency.  Then we get a pair of movie trailers for the JD flicks Teen-Age Crime Wave and Curfew Breakers (“Shocking But True!”).  Next up is “Satan Was a Teenager” a church film about some rich parents who turn to their black nanny for guidance about how to handle their delinquent son.  She suggests turning to God for the answers.  Then there’s condensed versions of a Teenage Devil Dolls and High School Caesar (the rocking theme song is heard), that tells you everything you need to know in about three minutes or so.  Trailers for Ed Wood’s The Violent Years and Married Too You are next, followed by Arch Hall, Jr. singing a song from Wild Guitar and another condensed version of a teen flick, this time Roger Corman’s Carnival Rock.  Then there’s a trailer for The Giant Gila Monster and Teenagers from Outer Space intercut with spook show ads and Tab Hunter talking about mental illness.  Trailers for The Night Holds Terror and Rock Baby Rock are next, and a recapping of The Violent Years rounds out the collection. 

As much as I enjoy these Johnny Legend compilations, I have to admit, this one left me a little cold.  I liked seeing the government shorts and some of the trailers were really cool, but I didn’t like the condensed three minute movies.  I’d rather watch the whole movie than to see it edited down ADD style and randomly tossed in.  This brings me to another gripe I had with Teenage Confidential:  The editing.  The flick was edited so haphazardly that you never knew what was what. 

The trailers were easily the best part of the compilation for me.  If Legend had loaded the flick with movie trailers (I could’ve even handled more shorts because they were entertaining too) instead of peppering them throughout, this could’ve been a lot of fun.  Next time Johnny, drop the three minute summations of the movies and just give us the whole thing.

The incomparable Johnny Legend, the man who brought us such immortal compilations as Weird Cartoons and the Sleazemania saga, brings us this hour long hit-or-miss assemblage of vintage movie trailers featuring juvenile delinquents (The Flaming Teenage, Motorcycle Gang, High School Hellcats, Johnny Trouble, Teenage Gang Debs, and The Thrill Killers), hot rodders (Hot Rod Gang, Wild Ones on Wheels, and Hot Rods to Hell), and rowdy teenagers (Lost Lonely and Vicious, Young Willing and Eager, Mondo Teeno, Teenage Tramp, and The Young Runaways) of the 50’s.  We also get a look at trailers for teenaged themed horror movies like Curse of a Teenage Nazi, Teenage Torture (AKA:  Teenage Zombies), and Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory. 

There are also trailers for musicals such as Rock Around the Clock (“Go, Man, Go to This Real Gone Show!”), Rock Around the World, Rock! Rock! Rock!, Rockabilly Baby, Hey Let’s Twist, Ring-A-Ding Rhythm, The Big TNT Show, and for plenty of movies that ended up on Mystery Science Theater like I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Teenage Caveman, Horror of Party Beach, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, and Teenage Strangler.  Legend even gives us a few trailers showcasing the teenage antics of the 60’s like Disk-O-Tek Holiday and The Hallucination Generation (“Do You Know the Taste of Purple?”), but the most fun comes from seeing soon-to-be famous faces starring in low budget potboilers like Cry Baby Killer (Jack Nicholson!), The Proper Time (Tom McLaughlin of Billy Jack fame!), Key Witness (Dennis Hopper!), and The Explosive Generation (William Shatner!).

At just under an hour, this comp is just the right running time for JD fans looking for a quick fix, but unfortunately a lot of the trailers aren’t the complete versions.  I know Legend was trying to cram as much stuff as he could into a short amount of time, but I’d much prefer to see the full trailer and not just a 30 second truncated version.  Also, these trailers are kinda tame and while some people will definitely get a kick out of them and feel some sort of nostalgia for them, I personally prefer a little bit more sleaze in my trailer compilations.  The best part of the DVD though is the in-theater ads promoting spook shows and free Fabian photo giveaways as well as a hilarious Vespa ad.  It’s no Sleazemania, but Legend’s legions with an hour to kill will definitely wanna give this a look see.    

When I think of the term “fantasy” I think of stuff like wizards and shit.  There’s about two or three trailers here that I’d call “fantasy” oriented, but most of the movie trailers featured in this collection fall squarely into the Sci-Fi category.  I guess Cheezy had already released a collection of “Sci-Fi” trailers and didn’t want to flood the market so they labeled this thing as “fantasy”.  Having said that there’s a lot of great trailers here.  Some were recycled from Cheezy’s other collections, but they come so fast and furious, you probably won’t care too much. 

The trailers are more or less split evenly.  The first half covers mostly nothing but giant monster movies such as King Kong vs. Godzilla (there are two different versions), Konga, Gorgo, Return of the Fly (“The Thriller Chiller That Will Really BUG You!”), The Giant Behemoth, Godzilla King of the Monsters (which is shown twice for some reason), The Valley of Gwangi, Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Abominable Snowman, Them, The Cyclops, Valley of the Dragons, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Rodan, Mysterious Island, Monster from Green Hell, and The Monster That Challenged the World.  The second half is solely comprised of sword and sandal epics (most of which star Steve Reeves) including The Giant of Marathon, The Slave, Samson and Delilah, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, Mighty Ursus, The Secret Seven, Goliath, Gold for the Caesars, Sign of the Gladiator (“Pagan in it’s pleasures!”), Atlantis the Lost Continent, Captain Sindbad (not my spelling mistake), Fury of the Pagans, Jason and the Argonauts, and Samson. 

Along the way we also get trailers for creature features like The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Women (“This is Satan’s Favorite Mistress!”), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and Creature of the Black Lagoon as well as Sci-Fi flicks such as The Thing from Another World, The Astounding She-Monster (“Here is a power that frightens the deer of the forest!”), and Forbidden Planet tossed in for variety’s sake.  There’s also a lot of trailers for movies that would later turn up on Mystery Science Theater such as  The Giant Gila Monster, The Mole People, Hercules, Hercules and the Captive Women, and Sword and the Dragon (“106,000 actors!  The largest cast ever in a motion picture!”). 

Most of the trailers are in good shape, but a lot of the toga-fest trailers are pretty jumpy.  While this isn’t Cheezy’s best collection of trailers (there are far too many sword and sandal trailers for my liking), it’s still another solid installment in their trailer compilation line and it’s definitely worth a look for all you movie trailer enthusiasts out there. 

The good folks at Cheezy Flicks have outdone themselves again, giving us another memorable collection of great grade B trailers.  This compilation is more or less divided into two halves.  The first half mainly focuses on Adults Only Road Show attractions of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s like Assassin of Youth, She Shoulda Said No, and Sex Madness while the second act gives us nothing but the best from the drive-ins of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s including The Student Teachers, Swamp Girl and Reform School Girls. 

My favorites include Rat Fink, His Wife’s Habit, I Passed for White, Supervixens and Weekend with the Babysitter.  It was fun seeing a bunch of obscure trailers for the older flicks, but I wish more time was spent on the later era.  Oh well, there’s plenty of great stuff here.  Most of the hallmark genre categories are represented like the scare films (The Cocaine Fiends, Slaves in Bondage, Tomorrow’s Children, etc.), the biker movie (Bury Me an Angel, Angel’s Wild Women, The Glory Stompers, etc.), psychedelic flicks (The Trip, Psych-Out, etc.), sex change movies (Glen or Glenda and Let Me Die a Woman) and women in prison films (Black Mama, White Mama, Caged Heat, etc.).  Not to mention several Roger Corman flicks. 

If you’re a fan of exploitation movie trailer compilations, you can certainly do a lot worse.  Although not quite up to par with the stellar 42^nd Street Forever series, any exploitation fan worth his salt will want to check this collection out.

Anthony Perkins hosts this 90 minute collection of clips from old monster movies.  If you’re a sucker for horror movie compilations like me, you won’t mind seeing such time honored clips from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (monster eating the police officer), The Phantom of the Opera (the famous unmasking scene) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (creature coming up out of the water) trotted out for the 40,000^th time.  It’s no Terror in the Aisles, but it’s definitely worth a look for any horror fan. 

Everything is covered from the silent era (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Nosferatu, and The Hunchback of Norte Dame) to the more recent fare of the day (The Omen, The Car and Colossus:  The Forbin Project).  Vampires are represented by Bela Lugosi in Dracula (“Listen to them, the children of the night!”), Lon Chaney, Jr. in Son of Dracula, John Carradine in House of Dracula, and Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula.  The Frankenstein monster is seen in Frankenstein (“It’s alive!”), Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein.  Werewolves are portrayed by Henry (Werewolf of London) Hull and Lon (The Wolf Man) Chaney, Jr.  Killer animals include the birds from The Birds, the rats in Willard and the shark from Jaws.  Monsters of the Atomic Age like The Incredible Shrinking Man, Them, The Deadly Mantis are also featured, while UFOs are seen in War of the Worlds, The Thing from Outer Space and This Island Earth.  Other classics such as The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and King Kong are also discussed but the best part about this comp is seeing rare footage of Lon Chaney Sr. without make-up.

Since Perkins is the host, there are plenty of clips from Psycho and Perkins even does an intro at the famous Bates house.  Some facts are fudged (Perkins says Frankenstein came out in 1930 and Bride in 1936), but the clips come so fast that you probably won’t care unless you’re a real stickler for that sort of thing.  Perkins more or less refrains from cracking bad jokes, but every now and then he’ll say something extremely silly like “Dracula was a jugular Don Juan!”

The good folks at Synapse Films deliver yet another indispensable collection of B Movie trailers.  Some of the highlights include:  The trailer for Sudden Death, which features more alliteration than you can shake a stick at.  (“A Pair of Panthers on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge!”)  The Jaguar Lives preview features not one, or two, but THREE former James Bond villains (Christopher Lee, Donald Pleaseance and Joseph Wiseman).  There are also trailers for low budget rip-offs galore:  Beyond the Door (Exorcist rip-off), Jennifer (Carrie rip-off) and Shark’s Treasure (Jaws rip-off).  Some of the best trailers feature narration by the stars of the films themselves like Burt Young (Blood Beach) and Jerry Reed (High Ballin’).  Even though a lot of the trailers are surprisingly light in the gore and sex department, the nudity in the trailer for Prison Girls (which originally was in 3-D) alone more than makes up for it. 

Like the other volumes in the series, the trailers are more or less organized into genres.  There’s kung fu (Enter the Ninja, Five Fingers of Death, and The Stranger and the Gunfighter), killer animal movies (The Uncanny, The Pack, and Alligator) and the ever popular nurse films (Night Call Nurses, The Young Nurses and Candy Stripe Nurses).  We also have some classic examples of exploitation advertising at it’s finest.  Particularly, the trailer for Gorp in which the producer informs us that he can’t show us anything from the movie because it’s too offensive, and Chain Gang Women’s trailer which cleverly hides the fact that the chain gang is entirely comprised of MEN! 

As with the other 42^nd Street Forever compilations, this collection can get a little numbing for one sitting, so it’s recommended that you watch five or six trailers at a time right before you watch an exploitation movie, so you can get the full 42^nd Street grindhouse experience.  There’s also a bonus feature of rare television spots that add to the fun. 

The Tromadance Film Festival is held every year at the same time and city as the Sundance Film Festival.  It is run by none other than Lloyd Kaufman, President of Troma Studios; the purveyors of bad taste.  Unlike Sundance, Tromadance doesn’t charge entry fees for the filmmakers and there is more of an emphasis on blood and guts, which is Troma’s bread and butter.  This collection of short amateur movies that debuted at the film festival is kinda like most Troma offerings:  crude, cheap, and gross, but those aren’t necessarily bad things. 

The quality of the short films is highly erratic, but there’s a few here that are definitely worth a look.  Easily the best is “The Strange Odyssey of Richard Chase”, which is like a City Confidential episode played with Barbie dolls.  “H.R. Pukenshette”, about a stoner loser whose vomit turns into a French hand puppet is closest to Troma’s sensibilities and is a lot of fun.  Probably the most interesting short though is “Please Kill Mr. Kinski”, which is kinda like a low rent My Best Fiend, in which director David Schmoeller recounts his difficulties with the deranged (albeit brilliant) actor Klaus Kinski during the filming of Crawlspace. 

The rule of thumb we learn from watching these shorts is that shorter is better.  Some films (like “Harry Knuckles”, a James Bond parody) run over a half an hour long, and are so boring that it feels like you’re watching a two hour movie.  Some are so bad that it’ll give prospective filmmakers courage to submit their own work to the festival.  

All in all, if you’re a Troma fan with a short attention span, you’ll probably groove to this uneven, but sporadically entertaining compilation. 

This 45 minute compilation shows the evolution of the Batman character through his creation by Bob Kane for Detective Comics in the 30’s, 15 chapter serials in the 40’s, the campy TV show in the 60’s and the blockbuster Tim Burton movie of 1989.  Some of the serial footage is shown as well as some Kane art, but most of the time is spent on the TV show.  There’s Batman commercials (one with Milton Berle!), promos, and behind the scenes footage but no scenes from the actual show.  There are no scenes from the Burton movie either, but a lot of the merchandising is shown.  The best part is seeing Adam West in full costume at a convention signing autographs.  Worth a look for any dyed in the wool Batman fanatic.