In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

HMG: The Best of Sex and Violence

The next entry in the Horror Movie Guide was a title I was actually shocked I was able to find. It was Ken Dixon's Wizard Video trailer reel entitled The Best of Sex and Violence.

On those two things I can safely say it delivers, showcasing the goriest and sleaziest bits and pieces of Wizard Video's catalogue circa 1981. These were the early days of Charles Band before he moved onto greener(?) pastures with Empire and Full Moon. What's amusing is I think that's Brinke Stevens on the poster and she's not even in this...

As a trailer reel, it serves its purpose, but as a spectator, it doesn't have the prestige of Terror In The Aisles which followed three years later or even the entertainment value of watching dtunk Cameron Mitchell cosplay it up with Michelle Bauer in Continental Video's Terror On Tape the year after that. 

Let's face it, the only thing breaking up the trailers in The Best of Sex and Violence are awkwardly cheesy asides from John Carradine. He's slumming here and considering we're talking about John-fucking-Carradine, THAT is really saying something. Jesus, some of these one-liners were cringe even in the eighties.

On the bright side, my takeaway here is being introduced to some lovely ladies like Dixie Peabody and Phyllis Davis (whom I guess I did see in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls). Everything about this is the epitome of thrown together, but hey hope they sold some tapes out of it. The Guide had some understandable disdain for it;.

As for admonishing people for watching ninety minutes of trailers, they obviously didn't foresee the YouTube generation. or the Trailer Trauma or Video Nasties DVD compilations or five-hour long documentaries like In Search of Darkness. Different strokes (stabs?) I guess...

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