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Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell (V)

“Frankly, Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell is the perfect disc to have running in the background of your next Halloween party. So then why the mediocre rating? Well, it’s worth noting that the previews vary considerably in terms of quality, both in regards to the original trailer, and the digital transfer.”

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Back in the 90s I was briefly employed by The Wilshire, an old-school movie theater in northern Utah boasting an expansive 830-seat big house. The building was eventually demolished in 2000, but back in the day it was managed by a guy named Dave, a cine-phile in the truest sense of the word. Over the course of many years in the theater management business, Dave had amassed a respectable collection of 35mm movie trailers, despite the studios’ best efforts to retrieve them. Late one night after a particularly slow shift, Dave threaded a reel of horror trailers he had spliced together, and we watched it after closing in the dark, damp, nearly empty 800-seater, camped out on the carpeted aisles between the rows of seats. Over an hour’s worth of shit. It was glorious.

Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell takes a similarly sentimental, movie-loving approach to the art of the film trailer. It’s an affectionate mix-tape of 1960-80s-era horror film previews buffered by lame ventriloquist bits that were originally shot in 1987. Nick Partlow, a hyper-nerd ventriloquist of the pre-Bill Gates variety, comes complete with dork glasses, a fierce comb-over, and an ADD-afflicted corpse puppet named Happy Goldsplatt. Together they fill the space between previews by farting out a series of agonizingly bad skits that were probably totally rad in the late eighties.

Thankfully, the puppet filler starts to wind down after the first 30 minutes, and the focus turns to the trailers. It’s an admittedly diverse and entertaining collection, with nuggets like Deep Red, Sisters, Last House on the Left, and Black Christmas (under the alias “Silent Night, Evil Night”), buried in a pile of amusingly lowbrow exploitation.

The disc features 47 previews in all. A handful stuck with me:

Wildcat Women

Flaunting 3-D titties 35 years before the Piranha remake, the Wildcat Women trailer is packed with an admirably wide assortment of naked boobies…even a pair featuring grossly inverted nipples. Check your inhibitions at the door.

Africa: Blood and Guts

Essentially a montage of clips of African wildlife being slaughtered and/or mutilated. Presumably for those animal snuff purists who dug all the possum torture in Cannibal Holocaust, but wished the animals involved had been more endangered.

The Mutations

This preview is pretty damn awesome, if only because The Mutations is one of the few movies to feature actual freaks. But if you’ve seen the film you know that much of the running time is devoted to Donald Pleasance fucking around with plants. So, whatever.

The Maniacs Are Loose

Promises “hallucinogenic Hypno-Vision” that will put you right in the “middle of the picture with bloodthirsty maniacs all around you”. All that’s missing from this trailer is a phone number for a local ‘shroom hook-up.

Three on a Meathook

Probably my favorite preview of the bunch, it’s cursed with some highly bizarre and convoluted voiceover narration, which comes across like William Shatner orally translating a book of Asian poetry:

“A picture you won’t ever forget because it touches the full spectrum of the bizarre, the forbidden, the twilight areas of a life destined to be spent in shadow and agony. The screen may never again relate to this subject matter. It will certainly never again approach this treatment…The only ones left to mourn, the last witnesses to the execution, suspended in time by a puppeteer with blood on his hands, little broken dolls that go on dancing after the music has stopped…Three on a Meathook.”

I mean, WTF?

Frankly, Mad Ron’s Prevues from Hell is the perfect disc to have running in the background of your next Halloween party. So then why the mediocre rating? Well, it’s worth noting that the previews vary considerably in terms of quality, both in regards to the original trailer, and the digital transfer. A few are letterboxed, but most are cropped. The audio warbles. Nicks and scratches abound. It’s unseemly. But still a disc worth checking out.

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‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Adds “Chucky” Actor Teo Briones and More to Lead Cast

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Chucky Actor Teo Briones
Pictured: Teo Briones in "Chucky" Season Two

The Final Destination franchise is returning to life with Final Destination: Bloodlines. With filming now underway, THR reports that three actors have joined the lead cast, including “Chucky” actor Teo Briones.

Brec Bassinger (“Stargirl”) and Kaitlyn Santa Juana (The Friendship Game) join Teo Briones, who played Junior Wheeler in season two of “Chucky,” as the leads in the sixth installment of the horror franchise.

Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein (Freaks) are directing the fresh installment that also includes Richard Harmon (“The 100”, Grave Encounters 2), Anna Lore, Owen Patrick Joyner, Max Lloyd-Jones (The Book Of Boba Fett), Rya Kihlstedt (Obi Wan Kenobi), and Tinpo Lee (The Manor) among the cast.

Production is now underway in Vancouver.

What can we expect from the upcoming Final Destination 6? Speaking with Collider, franchise creator Jeffrey Reddick offered up an intriguing (and mysterious) tease last year.

“This film dives into the film in such a unique way that it attacks it from a different angle so you don’t feel like, ‘Oh, there’s an amazing setup and then there’s gonna be one wrinkle that can potentially save you all that you have to kind of make a moral choice about or do to solve it.’ There’s an expansion of the universe that – I’m being so careful,” Reddick teased.

Reddick continued, “It kind of unearths a whole deep layer to the story that kind of, yes, makes it really, really interesting.”

Final Destination: Bloodlines is written by Lori Evans Taylor (“Wicked Wicked Games”) and Guy Busick (Scream), with Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home) producing.

Producers on the new movie for New Line Cinema also include Dianne McGunigle (Cop Car) as well as Final Destination producers Craig Perry and Sheila Hanahan Taylor.

This will be the sixth installment in the hit franchise, and the first in over ten years. Each film centers on “Death” hunting down young friends who survive a mass casualty event.

The latest entry is expected in 2025, coinciding with the original film’s 25th anniversary.

 

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