Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 4

At last, with volume four in the series, we get to one of my favorite trailers, Orgy of the Living Dead. We see a disturbed man in a straight-jacket. The voice-over informs us that the man is John Austin Frazier, once normal like you or me. Then, he attended the triple horror bill Orgy of the Living Dead, and, now, he is in this pitiful state. Therefore, the film company has set up an insurance policy. The insurance (free in the theater lobby) will pay for the commitment to a state mental hospital of any person driven mad by attending this triple bill.

What horror movie fan could pass up such a challenge? The three films playing are: Revenge of the Living Dead (aka The Murder Clinic), Curse of the Living Dead (aka Kill Baby, Kill), and Fangs of the Living Dead (aka Malenka), all three are good movies if memory serves me. However, in this case, the movies are somewhat less interesting than the promotion, which is a work of genius. I would be happy with volume four even if this trailer was the only one on the disk. It is not.

There are other worthwhile trailers here. The trailer for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is fast, furious, and quotable ("Don't turn around, you won't like the view"). The trailer for Cut-Throats Nine promises a terror mask for patrons, so when the violence becomes too much, patrons can put on the mask (why wouldn't they just close their eyes?). The trailer for Detroit 9000 has blood squibs flying. The kung-fu film The Screaming Tiger has a nifty fight on a moving train. The Three Tough Guys, an Italian crime film featuring Isaac Hayes, uses a piece of Hayes's music later reused in Kill Bill. Finally, The Loch Ness Horror proudly passes off some large, inflatable dinosaur toy as the title creature.

Oddly enough, the film I most wanted to see because of this trailer collection (aside from the Orgy of the Living Dead triple bill) is the 1970 student radical film The Strawberry Statement. The trailer features good music, and the film looks to have good performances. By the way, speaking of music, the Weekend Rebellion preview is silent. Although Iron Butterfly and Grand Funk Railroad songs are promised, the viewer hears none of them.

To end, I must offer my sympathies to John Austin Frazier.