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"You will be astounded! You will be aroused! You will be shocked! You will be involved!"
Some genuinely rank sexploitation features dominate the rest of the comp; lowlights include the infamous Thriller/They Call Her One Eye, here called Hooker's Revenge ("The most cruel sights you have ever seen can't match the shock of this motion picture experience!"), the obscure hillbillies-in-heat grinder Shantytown Honeymoon ("Abounding in brutish immorality and unrestrained violence!"), School Girl Bride ("The story of today's bored school girls, with time on their hands and sex on their minds!"), and a bad-vibes lovefest called Josie's Castle, which features a blotto biker intoning, "Go and shoot, you shithead! I'm too pissed to care!" If I had a nickel for every time I've said that... Trailer addicts (like myself) will appreciate the relative obscurity of most of the previews on Volume 1, as well as the excellent quality of the prints (a rarity with most comps) and the option to select and view individual trailers or play the entire program. If I had to make one knock against the disc, it's that the Food of the Gods pressbook featured in the Extras is far too difficult to read (a more easily viewable gallery of other press material, including lobby cards and ad mats, is also included). But you know what? This isn't the Mobius Home Video Forum, so I'm simply gonna say that if you love exploitation, you'll want this disc in your collection. And make room for more, 'cause Ban 1 is already hard at work on a new compilation of European and Asian movies called World Wide Trash, Volume 1 (a sneak preview is included) As Sammy Davis, Jr. so succinctly puts it in the spot for the lunatic acid comedy Skidoo, "Anybody who don't like that, baby, don't like chicken on Sunday."
-Paul Gaita |
Trailer compilations were a staple of every mail order and bootleg tape
outfit back when VHS was the primary method of getting your Garbage Island
fix. But now that DVD rules the trash movie roost, it seems that the
trailer comp has gone the way of the dinosaur; of the many digital and VHS
companies devoted to horror and exploitation features, only Something
Weird Video remains dedicated to producing new compilations on a regular
basis (their Extra Weird DVD, a bargain at $5, is a must-have for any
self-respecting sleaze beast). And now freshman company Ban 1 Productions
steps up with their own digital trailer compilation, devoted exclusively
to exploitation previews, and it's a winner. Though 42nd Street Forever!
Volume One is subtitled Horror on 42nd Street, the 40 theatrical spots
compiled here are really a mix of all the genres that stained grindhouse
screens across America in the '60s and '70s. Monster pics and slasher
titles are well-represented (The Mutations, Black Christmas, Food of the
Gods, The Legend of Boggy Creek), but you also get sadistic Eurowesterns
(The Animals), revenge pictures like Vigilante Force, with narration by
Ernie 'Ghoulardi' Anderson ("They called it God's country...until all hell breaks
loose!"), kung-fu (the incredible Crippled
Masters, which the trailer's French subtitles list as The Monsters of
Kung Fu! ouch), redneck action (Dixie Dynamite with the great Warren
Oates), and blaxploitation (the death-by-dick freakshow Soul Vengeance).