Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Who would have thought that trailers for movies could become as popular as the real thing? But this is exactly what has happened with Nucleus Films release Grindhouse Trailer Classics. Taking a leaf out of US DVD releases 42^nd Street Forever, a series of DVD’s that bought the power of cult, low budget and niche movie trailers into the homes of viewers, themselves inspired by Quentin Tarentino’s Grindhouse movie.

 

Watching trailers for movies from yesteryear may seem like a strangething to do, but if you’re a fan of classic movies of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that were far from blockbusters like myself, two hours of Trailer viewing will be right up your street. Grindhouse Trailer Classics opens a sort of vortex to the past, a glimpse at life before the dawn of the multiplex cinemas of Warner, Venue, or Cineworld.

 

The success of this DVD was so unexpected that Nucleus films headed up by film historian Marc Morris and movie maker Jake West are about to release a second volume of this compilation series.

 

To be honest with you, there is not much you can say about a two hour DVD of trailers, however I can tell you about some of the trailers. The combination of trailers varies from horror movies, thriller, soft porn classics, and sex comedies.

 

Switchblade Sisters sees a gang of teenage girls who have a thirst for blood, and a love for sharp knives. Eyeball offers a red raincoat wearing serial killer as they select a series of victims, “No Suspense has ever gone this far” tells the narrator of the trailer. Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left trailer features footage actually edited out of the UK DVD release for the movie, making this a must for fans of the movie. Italian horror movies are well represented with trailers for Torso, Autopsy, Zombie AKA Zombie Flesh Eaters, and Doctor Butcher MD AKA Zombie Holocaust. How about Deadly Weapons a movie about a female assassin who kills her targets by smothering them with her enormous breasts. They Call Her One Eye features Christina Lindberg in the toned down version of this thriller/porn movie that inspired the Daryl Hannah character in Kill Bill. The Thing With Two heads sees the great Ray Milland near the end of his acting days as a head transplant patient whose head has been attached to the body of a black man who gets to keep his head too, the two headed man has a further issue because Ray Milland’s character is a racist. Pete Walker’s House Of The Whipcord offers British involvement to the piece and looks far sleazier than the reality. Fans of the Blaxploitation era will be treated to Truck Turner starring Isaac Hayes best known now as the voice of Chef from South Park, and Pam Grier movies Coffy, and The Big Doll House.  While more modern movies are featured with the appearance of Death Ship and The Perils Of Gwendoline.

 

Among the 55 trailers featured are some trailers never before seen in the UK. Granted watching trailers might not seem like that much fun, but believe me if you have a good sense of humour and a thirst for movie trivia this DVD will keep you amused for weeks.

 

 

Special Features

 

Bump And Grind – A 17 minute documentary presented by low budget horror actress Emily Booth gives you a look and a taste of the effect these low budget movies had on audiences. In between clips for trailers like Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, Emily tells the story of Grindhouse trailers from their initial conception to their demise at the dawn of the 1980’s after the birth of videotape allowed cinemagoers the opportunity to see these weird movies in the comfort of your own home, rather than in semen stained seats, with audiences that were less than controlled. The documentary is based on the book Nightmare USA by cult movie novelist Stephen Thrower.

 

A series of posters are gathered together for you to get the unique feel of a bygone age, far from the modern politically correct age we now live in the posters could be every bit as shocking as the movies they publicise.

 

Finally there is a list of other movies from Nucleus a trailer for each one is featured the trailers include Between Your Legs, The Ugliest Woman In The World, Gwendoline, Fausto 5.0, London Voodoo, and Death Ship.

Death Ship

It’s been a long time since Death Ship has been seen in the UK, but Nucleus Films Marc Morris and Jake West have pulled another blinder by producing a decent DVD with a scattering of special features and the crispest version of the movie money can buy.

 

Made in 1980 this incredibly low budget horror movie did reasonable business in the American box offices coming second place to the Oscar wining Kramer Vs Kramer. Despite doing good business Death Ship also managed to win out amongst the smaller “cult” theatrical cinemas like the grindhouse or drive in movie style.

 

On his final voyage Captain Ashland (George Kennedy) is showing rookie Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) the ropes, rather begrudgingly I should add. Over the course of the night tensions rise as the retiring captain grows increasingly impatient with events going on around him. This soon becomes the last thing on everyone’s mind after the ship is rammed by another vessel and begins to sink. A handful of survivors make it off the sinking ship only to find salvation on a passing deserted vessel, but it soon becomes evident that the deserted ship is the very one that sank their ship, and as time passes by it becomes apparent that the ship wants to kill its new passengers.

 

I cannot begin to pretend that Death Ship is a particularly good film, there is nothing wrong with either the cast or the special effects, simply the story feels after a promising build up to be a little hollow, amongst the hollow moments however are a few scattered moments that qualify to be classed as movie gems or at least gems in this movie. The biggest flaw I personally feel was that there was no opportunity to form any bonds with any of the characters, gigolo character Nick (Nick Mancuso) is practically nonexistent in respect of his story input, while Richard Crenna spends a portion of the movie with his head in his hands. George Kennedy turns in a dark performance, but again never at any point can you make a connection with the character.

 

The big fault I suspect is that the story was written by Blaxploitation director Jack Hill, then parts re-written by David P. Lewis in order to comply with requests from the producer, director and the budget requirements of the movie. It is quite often the case that too many cooks spoil the broth, and while Hill was at no point involved after the initial screenplay something was most definitely lost in translation.

 

Faults aside there are a couple of genuinely good points, one of the characters has a grisly end in a net full of sharp human remains, while another gets a little too close to the mechanics of the death ship. In with this is a hidden story about the holocaust and a Nazi controlled ship, that just so happens to be the “Death Ship” of the title.

 

Balancing the good with the bad Death Ship sits middle when it comes to rating the movie, I neither loved it or hated it, it’s just average. To be honest with you I have tried to watch the movie over several years and never quite have the patience to watch it to the end, its only real interest this time round was the fact that Marc Morris a master historian in the horror/cult genres does magnificent work when it comes to restoring movies for DVD.

 

While the movie is average the special features on this Nucleus release are far from average, there is an excellent documentary called Stormy Seas which is the best feature on the disc. Stormy Sea’s spends a lot of time talking with George Kennedy, Nick Mancuso, Jack Hill and director Alvin Rakoff. There are some great stories that are discussed, chiefly coming from the mouth of the incredibly interesting George Kennedy, while Mancuso’s comments are kind of cryptic, Kennedy elaborates and adds a great spin to stories. You really get to hear not just about the movie but about the way of life for the actors, both Mancuso and Kennedy talk about the water they are forced to swim in apparently said to carry Hepatitis B. While both talk about the joy of working with the late Richard Crenna (Best known as Trautman in the Rambo movies) and Kate Reid (Who played Aunt Lil Trotter in Dallas). This is not a short five or ten minute documentary as featured on most DVD’s but adecent length documentary nearly 50 minutes in length.

 

Other additions include deleted scenes thought not to even exist that were featured in a Canadian TV showing some years ago preserved from an old Betamax recording. A series of pages from Jack Hills original screenplay entitled Blood Star. There are also a series of trailers not just for Death Ship but for other Nucleus releases. Strange though it might see one of the most interesting special features is a simple page of writing that talks about the preservation of the movie, one thing you get the feeling about with this DVD is that the best stories all took place off screen.

 

Apparently there is also an audio commentary with Alvin Rakoff but to be honest with you my workload prevented me the time to investigate.

 

Death Ship is available to buy online from £12.99.

Bloodbath At The House Of Death

It was a little seen movie 24 years ago when it was released, but since then has been equally elusive. Thankfully film historian Marc Morris and filmmaker Jake West have finally bought Bloodbath At The House Of Death to DVD for the first time anyway (Legally) in the world, courtesy of their niche market DVD label Nucleus.

 

Taking a nod from the often ludicrously titled horror movies of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s; this 1984 movie takes a series of good hard stabs at the horror movie in this off the wall spoof that later inspired a dozen horror spoof movies. Unusually based in the UK and penned by Ray Cameron and Barry Cryer, Bloodbath At The House Of Death will ultimately be most favoured by fans of the 70’s and 80’s sitcom; and as if to solidify this fact gathers some of the best known comedy names of that period to carry the movie forward. Headlining the picture is Kenny Everett of all people, as Doctor Lucas Mandeville a rather wacky boffin who has gathered a team of the best phenomenon experts in the world to Headstone Manor the site of 18 possibly 19 gruesome deaths on one night somewhere back then; date never clearly revealed.

 

As the movie unfolds you discover that the events all circle around a strange cult led by character credited as “Sinister Man” but best placed as the devil’s right hand I guess; this character is played by none other than horror legend Vincent Price in yet another suitably bizarre role (if you have not seen the actors horror comedy movies check out Theatre Of Blood, and the Doctor Phibes movies).

 

Like a football match, Bloodbath is a game of two halves the first half being ultimately superior to the second. Starting with a lot of genuinely funny gags including Vincent Price’s “You Pi** Off!” statement, Kenny Everett ridicule and subsequent intestine flinging, and the crazed mother complete with built on pope style booth; probably best not asking too many questions.  But after some really good laughs it turns into a down on its luck sitcom, with apparent jokes that just are not funny and a bizarre woodland encounter straight out of a bad Monty Python sketch. Towards the end of Price’s role the sort of lines initially funny just start to annoy “Good job I wore my old robe” he shouts as he gets a little inflamed. Although I did have one last giggle near the end as the teddy with a flick knife made an appearance.

 

Bloodbath spoofs a large chunk of popular horror movies of the time Carrie, Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, and The Entity being prime targets, but unlike the less subtle Scary Movie movies it does allow a certain amount of subtlety, yes if you look at them deeply they are direct spoofs, but given that there is a little unique British humour chucked in, the rip offs are far less obvious.

 

The movie is like a who’s who of British comedy culture of the 70’s and 80’s Everett is joined by Pamela Stephenson, Don Warrington, Cleo Rocos, John Fortune, Gareth Hunt, Sheila Steafal and Pat Ashton; all of whom revel in their big movie offering being actors who were mainly found on television.

Everett really hams it up for the movie, but then what can we expect from the comedian who’s ridiculously funny TV (in a variety of form) ran from 1970 to the late 1980’s; there are lots of preposterous dialogue scenes where Everett clearly knows what he is gabbling on around while the rest of us are without a clue, as well as the usual Everett confusion as he argues in the local pub about the amount dead in the past massacre. Yes he was silly, but when you watch Bloodbath you realise that now a generation have been deprived of his unique sense of humour.

 

The movie is rather unfairly in my opinion given a 15 certificate in the UK, there is little here to justify the certificate, with a brief scene of sexual pleasure courtesy of a supernatural entity that shows nothing, and a few minor swear words I have heard and seen far worse in lower certificated movies. Don’t let the movies horror aspects put you off; there are far more scary things in your own home.

 

On the special features front things are a little thin on the ground, Running The Bloodbath is a great little documentary that looks at aspects of the movies making with interviews by producers Laurence Myers and Stuart Donaldson, there are some wonderful moments of old footage featuring Everett included which make this a really great to watch feature. The theatrical trailer pays an important part, so much so there are two versions. And for those that have a DVD player in your PC (pretty much everyone really) an additional gift of the movies script for you to peruse at your convenience.  Not being on the Nucleus list of preview disc recipients I had to borrow the DVD to view it, so sadly my review does not grant it the attention it deserves.

 

You can purchase Bloodbath At The House Of Death on DVD now.