Cavalcade of Awesome

In the late 80s-early 90s I was a big horror fan. I watched all the slasher movies and I bought and read Fangoria magazine every month. For a while, it was my favorite magazine. I even still have a bunch of my original issues.

Surprisingly, Fangoria didn’t have a LOT of ads, but every issue there was at least 1 big ad for some movie that was either about to come out in theaters, or getting ready to hit VHS and Laserdisc. They are glorious full page color ads. And I loved them. Here are a few of those ads I still have.  You can click the images to see them BIGGER on Flickr.

Since my theme this year is zombies, I’ll start with a zombie movie. This ad is for Zombie Nightmare from 1987.  It stars Adam West (yes, THAT Adam West) and Tia Carrere. A youth is killed by a group of rampant teenagers. A voodoo priestess resurrects the youth to enact revenge on his killers so he can rest in peace.

Here’s another 1987 ad for the first sequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The bottom of the ad includes mail away offers for 3D posters, 6 ft cardboard standees and t-shirts.  I love that they “suggest” you use a chainsaw to cut out the order form.

And here to finish off the 1987 hat trick is an ad for David Cronenberg’s The Fly.  I love this image.  I don’t think they needed the image of the Brundlefly in the upper left, I wish they would have left that out.

VHS ad for Return to Horror High.  This somewhat spoof stars Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady) and a young George Clooney.  A lot is made of Clooney’s early appearance in Return of the Killer Tomatoes. However, this movie was made one year before that. This movie was filmed during Clooney’s tenure on The Facts of Life.

Here’s an ad for the 1986 film Vamp starring Grace Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer’s hot younger sister, Dede.  It’s a terrible vampire movie in every respect, but it’s still better than Twilight.

An ad for the VHS release of Dario Argento’s Demons from 1985. This ad would have been around the time that the sequel, Demons 2, was released.

Here’s an ad for a Starlog/Fangoria video documentary series called Scream Greats. As far as I know, only two volumes were produced. Volume 1 documented makeup artist Tom Savini (on the left in the ad). Volume 2 delved into the subject of Satanism & Witchcraft in popular culture (on the right in the ad).  I actually had the Tom Savini video.  It was pretty good.  I never got to see Volume 2.  I love that the “new low price” is $39.95.  For a VHS.  I wouldn’t pay that for a brand new Blu-Ray!

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

This entry was posted on October 28, 2013 at 8:00 am and is filed under Fangoria, Genres, Halloween, holiday, horror, magazine, movies, nostalgia, pop culture with tags advertising, AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazines, monsters, movies, vintage, zombies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.