Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell

Next time you have a bunch of guys over for beers, pop this in.

The trailers were excellent. And you'll definitely find a few things you'll want to look for at the video store later.

I think Nick Pawlow's segments were just there to give us the excuse to get another beer. It did slow the fun down a little. I heard those parts were filmed in Philly. (My hometown) And NO ONE will be able to watch this only once.

I'm proud to say I've seen most of these since and now even own a few of them. Great fun here. Some of them are still hard to find though. I'm surprised they didn't have more of the Cannibal-Zombie films here.

It even had Africa: Blood & Guts. Featuring scenes that were missing for years.

Deranged projectionist Mad Ron shows a movie theater full of rowdy zombies a diverse assortment of horror and exploitation film trailers from his private collection while ventriloquist Nick Pawlow and his foul-mouthed zombie dummy Happy Goldsplatt provide lowbrow comic relief.

So, this is completely pointless. A ventriloquist with terrible jokes, and over an hour of trailers from various horror movies. But despite being pointless, it is still sort of fun to see these old trailers, and many of the movies shown are not ones that are commonly known about. Sure, there are some big ones ("Night of the Living Dead"), but plenty of obscure foreign flicks.

Interesting bonus: Jordu Schell (who is now quite famous thanks to "Making Monsters") was involved. He also happens to be a really nice guy.

Hosted by Nick and his demented zombie puppet Happy, they treat a theater full of zombies to 83 minutes of cool trailers from horror and gore flicks from 70's (mostly). Between trailers Nick & Happy tell some pretty lame jokes. Two things would've made this a little better.

1.Less of Nick and his annoying puppet

2.More obscure films

Overall, its one of the best trailer tapes ive seen (and i've seen a few). 8/10

Here's a a few of the trailers on the tape -

I Drink your Blood

Deranged

Three on a Meathook

Love me Deadly

Cannibal Girls

Deep Red

Toxic Zombies

Black Christmas

Blood and Lace

Bay of Blood

Ilsa

Last House on the Left

TCM

Blood spattered Bride

I Dismember Mama

Torso

Beyond the Door

Oh yeah and by the way, Mad Ron is the cannibalistic projectionist chained to the projector.

I was surfing Netflix and came across this streaming. Then it occurred to me that I seen this "box cover" before countless times in the video stores in the late 80s and the 90s. Who would not remember such a wonderfully imaged artwork as he was looking through video boxes on shelves. Those were the days. I love streaming, but I do miss those old-fashioned Mom and Pop video stores that were everywhere. Now, you get everything from home. I digress. This offering has a wrap-a-round story of zombies going to a movie theater to watch prevues from Mad Ron the projectionist, Happy a puppet zombie and Nick - the "normal" gut with the bald head and glasses. The zombie shuffle about, bring goodies to eat, take the goodies there at the concession stand to eat, pour blood over popcorn, shuffle about more, and sit down for some gory fun. The dialog between Nick and his Happy puppet is mostly fairly lame but fun nonetheless. The zombie make up is generally good for something like this. The prevues are all entertaining. I was writing down titles of things I must see - many of these I still have not seen. There is a whole host of various horror movie trailers from the 70s primarily though we get some 60s as well. We get some Mario Bava, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and some pretty famous films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas, and we get some lesser known offerings like Torso, Three on a Meathook(I have seen that one), and Africa: Blood and Guts(looks like a very nasty film). There are a few weird and exploitative ones too like the very uplifting Wildcat Women. The Ilsa trailer is very extensive as is the one for Night of the Bloody Apes, and as another viewer wrote, very, very gory. Overall, I recommend this as a neat little diversion. I enjoyed the movie trailers, the in-between segments, that wonderful artwork, and my brief yet vivid walk down memory lane. I bet the actual video today is worth a bit.

I wouldn't say it's an easy task to do a review of a set of movie trailers, because there is no plot or story to go by. But this particular one has a kind of wrap around story; or better yet it reminded me of the old horror host television movies I used to watch when I was a kid. The movies usually being older than death, or just really bad, you had a host that would make up kooky stuff during the movie breaks to make the experience that much more enjoyable, or laughable depending on the host and your mood.

And that brings us to Mad Ron's Prevues From Hell. A definite tongue-in-cheek trailer compilation. This is probably not the first compilation ever released, but it's from 1987, so it is one of the early ones to be sure. These days trailer compilations are plentiful, and there is no wrap around story, or guest host..... just two to four hours of trailers. Not saying that it's a bad thing, but sometimes you need a few minutes break from the trailers to get a breather in, and Mad Ron's compilation allows that with its silly and irritating hosts Nick (Nick Pawlow) and his demented zombie puppet Happy.

The "plot" of the "film" goes like this: Nick and happy are hosting a series of Mad Ron's (Ron Roccia) movie trailers for a theater full of zombies. Mad Ron himself is chained to the movie projector to be able to show the previews and not hurt anyone. There are some corny, funny and embarrassing gags along the way. Blood-buttered popcorn, arguing zombies, and some horrible jokes told by Happy and Nick. An interesting note: the makeup was done by a young Jordu Schell, who would go on to do makeup effects for such films as The Mist, Cloverfield, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem and Avatar.

As far as movie trailers, if you've seen quite a few trailer compilations, then you've probably seen most of these.... but here is some of what you'll see: Wildcat Women (a 3-D trailer, and I didn't have my glasses handy, so I'm not sure if the 3-D worked or not), I Drink Your Blood, Ilsa, Deranged, Three on a Meathook, Love Me Deadly, Cannibal Girls, Deep Red, Toxic Zombies, Black Christmas, Blood and Lace, Bay Of Blood, Last House On The Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Spattered Bride, I Dismember Mama, Torso, and Beyond The Door. Some of these are shown under alternate titles, which is fun to see.

People should really try to hunt this title down and pick it up. I've seen it quite cheap at different places. It used to only be available as a VHS tape, but it is on DVD now. You'll be able to see an early example of what trailer compilations used to be like before the grindhouse craze came along.