This latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers was meant to have a theme.  I was only going to include trailers of films that have been reviewed on the Hysteria Lives! website.  Unfortunately, I ran in to some trouble with the New Year’s Evil trailer and I ended up going with a different trailer of a movie that hasn’t been reviewed on the site.  So, yes, the theme kinda falls apart at the end.  But anyway, let’s get things started…

1) The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1970)

Sergio Martino doesn’t get as much attention as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava but he made some giallo classics and this is one of them.  Yes, the trailer’s in Italian but stick with it anyway.  Also, the person who uploaded this to Youtube, included another trailer — this one for Lucio Fulci’s Lizard In A Woman’s Skin — after the end of the Mrs. Wardh trailer.

2) Happy Birthday To Me (1981)

You can tell that this trailer from 1981 isn’t messing around because the birthday cake gets it!  I saw this movie on TV a few years ago.  The brain surgery scenes really freaked me out.  Another thing that freaked me out was a scene where all the high school snobs decided to spend their night at a special showing of High Noon.  Why couldn’t I have gone to high school with a bunch of film snobs?  Seriously, life sucks.

3) Don’t Open The Door (made in 1975, released in 1979)

All together now: “Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t…”  With all due respect to the very hot Eli Roth, that was my favorite of the fake trailers from Grindhouse.  Anyway, Don’t is not a real film but Don’t Open The Door is.  Exploitation film of the 70s and the 80s were always trying to tell us how to live our lives.  Don’t stand by the window, don’t look in the basement, don’t go in the house, don’t go into the woods…alone, and now, apparently we can’t even open the freaking door.  This actually reminds me of this time that we were visiting my grandma and I was up in the attic exploring and I heard my sisters downstairs calling out my name because they couldn’t find me so I tried to open the attic door and I accidentally yanked off the door knob.  Agck!  That was scary.  But I survived and here’s the trailer…

4) Body Count (1987)

I haven’t seen this one so all of my information on it comes from what I’ve read online.  Apparently, this was Italian director Ruggero Deodato’s attempt to make an American-style slasher film so, of course, it takes place at a summer camp.  David Hess is in this one and apparently, he’s not playing the killer for once.  Former Russ Meyer star Charles Napier is in this one too.  As for why I love this trailer, just listen to narrator at the end of the trailer when he starts tossing out various taglines.  It’s as if the film’s producers were arguing about which tagline to use and finally someone said, “Fuck it, just toss them all in there!  Now, shut up and behave!  It’s time for dinner!”

5) Scalps (1983)

Horror will surround you … and we’re not just talking about the acting.  I love it when trailers dare you to actually sit through the entire movie.  (And, I should add, that I own Scalps on DVD and, bad acting aside, it’s actually a surprisingly effective little horror movie.)

6) Bloody New Year (1987)

I wanted to include the trailer for a film called New Year’s Evil here but the only one I could find had this huge advertising logo across the bottom of it.  But while I searched, I came across the trailer for another New Year’s horror film, Bloody New Year.  And you know what?  I’ve seen New Year’s Evil and it sucks and it had a really nasty sort of sadism to it that makes you feel dirty after you watch it.  So, fuck New Year’s Evil.  Now, let’s all have a Bloody New Year!

Finally, since that Lizard in a Woman’s Skin extra actually means that there were 7 trailers in this edition as opposed to 6, I’m going to add one more bonus trailer so that we can end things on an even number.  There’s no way I couldn’t take the opportunity to include Edgar Wright’s brilliant fake trailer, Don’t.