Deep Red Deluxe

Deep Red Deluxe compiled by Chas Balun (1991).

Just like the famed Skunkape trailer for Contamination that I’m about to paraphrase goes “You’ve seen Son of Deep Red Deluxe and you’ve seen Bride of Deep Red, but have you seen the one that started it all”? This time to procure a rare copy of this tape, I excavated the Atari E.T. landfill, ran over some hipsters with a bulldozer and low and behold this video dupe fell into my lap. Oh, and I also wrassled with one of those scissor wielding Hands Across America soulless doppelgangers. And lastly I bargained with the Asian man from Hellraiser that sells the Lament Configuration and he scored me this mind bender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9h0kUcfGBM

As you can tell, I was maimed in the accident, my limbs were torn off! I had some robot arm technology (used in Empire Strikes Back) performed by an android surgeon and he hooked me up with these handy dandy new didjits. So that’s why it took 3 years to write this.

Once you pop in the tape into the metaphorical VCR It emerges from a door of TV static with a blindingly white trailer for John Carpenter’s The Thing. That aforementioned flick has a noggin scratching tagline, I overlooked before that says “Man is the warmest place to hide”. So, we’re just here to be split open pig on a spit roast style and “Turduckened Taun Taun style?”

I'm so offended!

The Dr. Butcher trailer is another highlight, it features a trailer voice champion, like Don Lafontaine and Percy Rodriguez (the voice of the Loc-Nar) and that’s the criminally under mentioned Adolph Caezar. Adolph is most famous as the Dawn and Day of the Dead trailer voice. He’s also an acclaimed actor in his own right who appeared in The Color Purple and A Soldier’s Story. During the Dr. Butcher trailer, they even play that 8-bit style casio music by Walter Sear from the Snuff Maximus cut.

Remember this Intellivision Dr. Butcher Micro-Surgeon edition?

I’m getting all kinds of flashbacks of the 9^th grade when I first ordered Deep Red Alert #1 from Fantaco, because this tape is the visual equivalent of that issue! There's even a Jim Van Bebber promo reel ad in that zine (most of that cassette is included on this one, so it's a bargain)!

Prior to Jim Van Bebber’s film Manson Family eventually being released on Blu-ray by Severin, this was thee only way you could see a trailer for Charlies Family. It was also released in illustrated script form by Creation books in the UK. I enjoyed it as a solid parody of the Laurence Merrick Manson documentary (which it lifts whole re-enactments from). Check out the review for the Manson film here.

No room for me in that new Tarantino Manson flick?

Marcello Games who plays Charlie and was in one quick moment in Deadbeat at Dawn and vanished before the film was completed. The same thing apparently happened to the actor in Roadkill : The Last Days of John Martin. Van Bebber went through miles of hell to get the film off the ground and it’s commendable. There's something going on with him lately and noone but the man himself can figure it out and I'm not going to try to either.

This VHS compilation might’ve knocked Mad Ron’s Prevues down a peg, had Chas not dubbed trailers from that aforementioned tape he sold separately into this new mix. How can I tell? The shroud of Happy Goldsplatt is hand spliced in periodically.

My Fuggin Weeny fell off again!

The Martin trailer is a great one and shows the flashback footage from the final cut in color.

Patton Oswalt is constantly complaining about how Criterion should re-release that Romero classic with extra features and I couldn’t agree more.

Criterion will put out Tiny Furniture but not add this one to their roster?

Balun and Van Bebber’s trailer for the unreleased Chunkblower is here once again. If only that one was funded to completion. Claude the gear jammin, meathook swingin CB radio psycho could’ve gone down in history as a cross between Red Sovine and Leatherface, but sadly only the trailer remains. His Krueger-esque quip is “There is no why”!

Three on a Meathook is a trailer and film that sadly never surpasses the great title of that dull splatter flick. We get a segment of pre Miramax copyrighted Jackie Chan and or Chinese action cinematic gun and chop em up battles.

The quality and VHS haze makes me grateful but also sad that most of this is up on YT or Amazon in superior HD format.

Some sadistically demented and just plain nasty water sports and Japanese sex footage set to "Ride of the Valkyries" is here for your viewing pleasure. I like the repeated image of a tied up woman in a cage hurled off a building (it’s out there man)! Make sure you light up for maximum viewing!

I'm confused!

More Mad Ron stolen moments ( Thankfully Chas’ head never erupted in brain matter and skull cavity fragments, like that dude who booted the end of video).

He chose Torso and Deep Red just before some choice clips of Mad Dr of Blood island.

Here we get the unfiltered version of the Skinny Puppy vid for "Warlock" that uses footage from a trillion horror movies. Someone on YT actually remixed the video to update it in HD.

If you don’t know the footage they used like Bad Taste or Henry, turn in your horror nerd card forever. It’s fun to see how many you can name.

There's an exploitive local news 2 part segment about how horror films warp teens minds and Chas is interviewed. Most of the interviews are with real kids just after they went to see Hellraiser 2 in the theater. I'm glad my parents never saw this expose about how kids get desensitized because they're able to rent gore movies without adult consent. I snuck watched most of my favorite horror classics!

They also interview Linnea Quigley and Brian Yuzna. Quigley thinks it's bad for kids to see them at an early age. The most appalling scene is where they get a family health center guy (who probably works for Trump now) to show a clip of Ted Bundy. He basically says that if you watch horror movies you'll turn into a serial killer! A lot of that bullshit propaganda was going on up until the early aughts.

there's that accurate journalism for ya!

R.I.P. videostores 

More gratuitous Argento and Fulci trailers are on here even if they are a welcome sight. I have yet to watch that recent Suspiria remake and I'm dreading it. A trailer for The Nesting is here (they do a great job making the movie look good, but I didn't really like the end result). Shadows Run Black (which is a Troma movie) is on prime in HD and Walking The Edge was super boring. The cast in that aforementioned film has Joe Spinell and Robert Forster but it didn't add up to much sadly. Then there's "What Waits Below" and Night School, which I bought from Warner Archives. that last film I remember seeing in flashes on WDZL. All I recalled about it was there was a waitresses decapitated head in a soup pot and people were eating it. This ghastly, through ally enjoyable trip down memory lane is just one of 3 party tapes I've reviewed in the past. They don't make em like this anymore.