Thanks to Trailers from Hell for sending me a review copy of Volume 2 of their B-movie-trailers-with-commentary.
So here goes:
Trailers From Hell! Vol. 2 starts and ends too quickly.
What I mean is: I expected a little intro by Joe Dante — “Welcome to Trailers from Hell! Here’s what’s coming up…” Nope.
The DVD starts off with Brian Trenchard Smith talking about an example of one of my two of my least favourite things: Hammer and pirates. But T-S is so, well, British that he’s fun to listen to, and has some great production stories.
Here are some highlights, but there are more commentators and movies on the disc:
- Witty and articulate Guillermo Del Torro shares his personal favorite, Deep Red
- Did you know Donovan’s Brain has an “anti-IRS villain”?
- Jack Hill should really be as famous as Roger Corman. He talks about his personal fave of his own films, Pit Stop — which sounds like a proto Fast & Furious, except with Sid Haig. I gotta see this now.
- Josh Olsen tells us stuff we don’t know about Jaws (no Bruce-the-shark stuff). Like that the movie owes its humor to the sit com writer hired to “punch up the script” and ended up writing the whole thing. Landis also says he’s heard that there’s a Gilligan’s Island episode with a shark, and that if you listen closely… well, buy the DVD!
- Watching the trailer for Don Siegel’s early film The Line Up, and you’ll notice how long San Francisco has been the muse of the Dirty Harry director. There’s even a scene showing cops with guns drawn next to a schoolbus.
- Ever heard of filmmaker team Eleanor and Frank Perry? Me either, but they directed an American Jules & Jim looking thing called Last Summer that I’ll probably never watch as anything more than a period curio
- “Nobody does it to you like Roman Polanski…” Ooops. The Tenant is still cool, mind
- I practically lived at the rep cinema down the street from the “family” “home” in Hamilton, and I never bothered with Flesh Gordon. Mick Garris almost has me convinced to watch it.
- 7 Days in May has never interested me before either, but I may give it a spin sometime. What looks interesting is the sight of stock footage of early 1960s protests outside the White House.
- Ski Troop Attack: filmed in 10 days by Roger Corman, staring two local high school ski teams who started taking their US/German roles a little too seriously. Corman was forced to play a German skier even though he isn’t German and couldn’t ski.
And yeah, Trailers from Hell Volume 2 ends to soon. About 90 minutes later, it’s over!
So the next Volume should be twice as long, and have little intros and extros.
And I hate Little Shop of Horrors so it having an improved version of it doesn’t really count as a bonus for me, but that’s just me.
Trailers from Hell Volume 2 would be great as a starting point to your next trashy “movie night.” If you’re hoping for a selection of truly awful trailers you can make fun of, this isn’t it. But even movie buffs will learn a lot and get lots of ideas for additions to their NetFlix cue. Fun and a must-own for any movie nut!
