Mad Ron's Prevues From Hell

 

Directed By Jim Monaco trailers from the Mad Ron Archives (1987)           

        I remember being ravenously excited to find a copy of this bootleg after reading The Dr. Cyclops review in Fangoria describing it as the ultimate party tape! None of the videostores I knew of in Florida had a copy, so I went to the black market I’m not ashamed! When I got the tape from Chas like many ghoulish films I’d seen before, I had that familiar mixed feeling of foreboding dread and excitement as I popped in the tape. The creepy Lansdowne Pennsylvania theater showed up as I watched a goofy devil in a Halloween mask introduce me to the comedy stylings of Nick Pawlow and his dummy Happy Goldsplatt in a theater of hungry zombies. At first it didn’t register how awful the ventriloquism comedy was, then it got to the point where he makes jokes about his rotting “weenie” and emits that infectious cackle (whenever Skunkape and I greet each other on the phone we do an impression of it). It’s bad comedy on a pre-Steve Brule or David Liebe Hart level, or what fastfoward buttons were invented for. 

I'll be here all week folks

              I’ve watched this tape a trillion times and have made it my life’s mission to watch every film at least once (Mad Dr. Of Blood Island and Horror on Snape Island I have yet to tackle)! Me and this tape have been through a lot over the years and there are so many trailers of influential films that have effected me in a positive way. It’s funny that when they put this out on DVD they didn’t bother to update the scratchy, cigarette burnt filmstock at all even though most of these trailers have been cleaned up since. I appreciate that Mad Ron still relishes the trashy integrity of the original trailers.

Bootleg of a Bootleg

            There’s so many incredibly rare trailers packed onto one tape at the time (1987), it was pretty tough to find a trailer compilation this mindblowing! There are some strange mixtures going on too, at first they hit you with the supremely catholic double feature (stole that joke from Joe Bob Briggs): I Drink Your Blood/ I Eat Your Skin, that Clay Pitts electronic wavering music turned my stomach in a good way! Although the mixture from H.G. Lewis or NOTLD straight into Mondo territory like Africa Blood and Guts (now in pristine condition c/o Blue Underground under Africa Addio) is pretty damn alarming!

Robster Craw

Every scene spits in your eye

BFF's

This is where I first learned about the famous Giggly Guy the cackling maniac who lost his mind while watching I Dismember Mama/ Blood Spattered Bride one fateful night!

Double features and triple features (like The Living Dead Orgy) are paraded around (many of these were in the Deep Red catalog) and it made me want to check them all out! I would make video comps for people and always include the ultra psychedelic Carnage (Bay Of Blood) trailer.      
This is the first time I’d ever heard of a GP rating and there were a few titles with that rating included (Black Lace being one). The Mutations (or The Freak Maker) is an underrated classic and there are so many films I would have never heard of, if it wasn’t for this trailer tape! The comedy is appallingly bad and the sequel (yes there is a sequel) to a trailer comp with a puppet monologue is called Celluloid Bloodbath and it’s not as special. Mad Ron has that gleeful and grisly unawareness of its own triumphs and flaws, Celluloid was made just to appeal to the new breed of horror nerd (which I should include myself in), I appreciate it, but it just didn’t have the same effect that the first comp had on me. There are so many trailer compilations now (and Something Weird should also get credit for having some brilliant ones in the past) that it’s hard to find a rare gem, one that not many horror fans have already seen. Mad Ron however was the first that really affected me and this collection of amazing trailers still holds up, the comedy not so much! The oddest part of the tape is the ending where a bootlegger's brain explodes as punishment for selling or dubbing the tape, by that account all the of our collective eyes should've melted a long time ago!

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Take your puppet and leave!

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Happy Goldsplat: puppet intellectual