Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell (1987)

*** (out of 4)

If you grew up in the 1980's and remember the great time when you could walk into a Mom and Pop video store and walk out with all sorts of goodies then you'll probably also remember the various trailer collections that were out there. The most popular with the likes of FILMGORE and THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE (hosted by John Carradine) but this one here was also quite popular and to this day it still has a rather strong cult following.

As you can tell from this list of trailers below, there's quite a bit of great stuff on here. These trailers were made during a time where you really had to sell the picture with a great title, a catchy tagline and of course hints at the depraved and gory things that they'd be seeing if they bought a ticket. Just check out the trailer for the double feature of I DRINK YOUR BLOOD and I EAT YOUR SKIN where the second feature has zero clips shown because it was a B&W film. NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR has to be the highlight since they don't show any clips from the movie saying that they would be too shocking. Obviously a great way to get people to buy a ticket to see what's so shocking.

The movie has a projectionist and his zombie telling a few jokes and doing some skits in between all the trailers. Usually this type of thing is quite annoying but I thought it was rather well-done and funny here. The highlight has to be a sequence where the zombie talks about his girlfriend. There's also some gore in these scenes to go with what we see in the trailers.

If you're a fan of these type of trailer compilations then this here is certainly one of the best. The trailers shown include:

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD-I EAT YOUR SKIN, THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, DERANGED, THREE ON A MEATHOOK, THE CORPSE GRINDERS, THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS, LOVE ME DEADLY, CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, THE MANIACS ARE LOOSE, CANNIBAL GIRLS, TORSO, THE BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE-I DISMEMBER MAMA, THE GHASTLY ONES, THE WIZARD OF GORE, BEYOND THE DOOR, DEEP RED, SISTERS, DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM, LADY FRANKENSTEIN, FLESH FEAST, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, THE VAULT OF HORROR, HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES, BLOODEATERS, ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD triple feature, THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z, Africa: BLOOD AND GUTS, NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR, SILENT NIGHT EVIL NIGHT (BLACK Christmas), THE MUTATIONS, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED, BLOOD AND LACE, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, GOD TOLD ME TO, HORROR ON SNAKE ISLAND, ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE SS, MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, CARNAGE (A BAY OF BLOOD), COLOR ME BLOOD RED, MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, SILENT NIGHT BLOOD NIGHT, BLOODY PIT OF HORROR, NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES,