Trailer Trash: ‘Mountaintop Motel Massacre’ (1986)

WARNINGBefore you watch the original 1986 trailer for Mountaintop Motel Massacre, please be aware that the following are included in the trailer:

–  terrible car singing

–  a lazy voiceover guy who sounds like he wants to be anywhere but the trailer

–  wet t-shirts with protruding nipples

–  a lot of people just saying or yelling out different names

–  a guy saying the phrase “No way, Jose!” 

–  also, they pretty much give the whole movie away in the trailer

Well, if you still watched despite all of my warnings, then…..congratulations!   You were in for the ‘protruding nipples’, weren’t you?  But anyway – Mountaintop Motel Massacre (I always felt there should be a ‘The’ in the title) is good cheesy 80’s horror fun, and you can now own a sparkling Blu-ray transfer of it from Vinegar Syndrome HERE.  And yes, the ‘protruding nipples’ are included in the price.  Hooray!

WTF Did I Just Watch: Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell (1987)

As I was scrolling through the ‘Horror’ section on Netflix a few weeks ago, I realized that I’m just bored with a lot of the offerings on there.  Then my friend Chris told me about something that he and his son had watched.  Something gloriously bad.  Something from the 80’s.  Something called Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell!  Who’s Mad Ron, you ask?  This is Mad Ron!

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Oh, hi Mad Ron!  He sure looks like a character.  Ok – so what the hell is Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell?  Well, it’s a terribly shot movie from 1987 where a ventriloquist named Nick and his zombie dummy named Happy show the audience in a movie theater (who happen to be zombies) old schlocky trailers and TV spots from various horror movies from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.  While this is going on, Mad Ron is locked up in the projection room (see pic above) for everyone’s safety.  In between the trailers are spoofy shorts involving the zombies in the movie theater that seem to go on forever…..and ever…..and ever.  Oh hey look – that zombie is pouring blood on his popcorn instead of butter!  For 15 minutes.  We got the joke in the first 30 seconds.

This movie screams the 80’s and that’s what I loved about it.  And I actually saw some trailers that I had never seen before, like Three On A Meathook or The Maniacs Are Loose.  There are some old favorites as well like Deep Red, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Black Christmas (under one of it’s original titles Silent Night, Evil Night).  It almost felt like I was watching a snuff film at times, and I may or may have not taken a shower after my viewing.  So, if you enjoy 80’s horror or just really bad movie productions – then please do yourself a favor and seek out Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell on Netflix.  If it’s been taken down from there, then seek it out on DVD on Amazon.  Now take a bow Nick and Happy!

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Reminiscing About The Trailer For ‘The Burning’ (1981)

Quick – who’s one of the most underrated horror villains of all time????  If your answer is the killer elevator from the 1983 Dutch movie, The Lift – I’m sorry to say that you’re wrong.  An ambitious choice, but still wrong.  The correct answer is Cropsy from 1981’s, The Burning!  And for some reason, I was daydreaming about this movie this morning and decided to look up the trailer:

A few things stick out when I watch that.  First being that I love Rick Wakeman’s wonderful 80’s synthy score.  It fits perfectly, as do those amazing garden shears that are Cropsy’s weapon of choice.  Spoiler Alert:  He uses those things to great extent when he butchers a bunch of kids on canoes.  The last thing that really stuck out about the trailer was the classic 80’s voiceover. Aside from sorely missing this aspect in trailers nowadays, I couldn’t help but think of a certain ‘fake’ trailer when I was listening to the guy saying “If you’re planning to go camping…..Don’t!“.

If you think you’ll see a better fake trailer than that one……you won’t!  Ehhh – that doesn’t have the same impact as saying “Don’t!“.  My apologies.