Cavalcade of Awesome

Fangoria always had great ads for new movies and/or home video releases. Many of them in glossy color and many others were awesomely full page.  This year I’ve already showed you full page ads for The Pit & the Pendulum and Zombie Nightmare.  Now let’s take a look at some more of my favorite movie ads  from Fangoria magazine.

A 1988 full page ad for the first Hellraiser movie on home video.  This is truly a gorgeous ad.

Next up is a great color half page ad from 1987 for the home video release of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Fangoria would usually only show movie ads for new video releases.  Only sometimes would you get an ad for a movie that was out in the theater.  This is one of those times and it’s a huge full page color ad for the Tales from the Darkside movie in 1990.

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Fangoria has been doing their Weekend of Horrors conventions for years. One of my favorite video tapes is the officially released recording of the the 85-86 Weekend of Horrors.

I watched that video tape until it literally disintegrated in my VCR.  I’ve been meaning to get a replacement copy on DVD at some point here.

Anyway, as far as I know, I think Fangoria still puts these conventions on, but I can’t really find a lot of info online. It would be a life goal of mine to go to one at some point. Maybe, if they have one in New Jersey take a trip up, meet up with my boy Jay and spend the weekend celebrating horror movies. THAT would be awesome.

Anyway, every year you could find ads for the latest Weekend of Horrors in the pages of Fangoria.  And it felt like they were always mocking me.  Usually because they were in LA or Secaucus, NJ and I would NEVER be able to go there (until many, many years later).  So let’s look at several years of in-house ads for Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors.

I think this ad may be advertising the show that they filmed for the above VHS. I’m not sure because it’s been so long since I’ve seen the video. The video tape was released in 1986, but I’m not sure when in 1986. So there could conceivably been another Weekend of Horrors they filmed instead.  However, I’m fairly certain that this is the show that is in the above VHS video.

Lots of good stuff.  Elvira is always a good, even though the ad says “tentative”.  Plus, Dick Miller, Tobe Hooper, Rick Baker and Robert Bloch!  That’s a pretty awesome lineup, especially in 1985.

This is for the 1989 convention.  It’s an early ad as you can see, they haven’t really locked down any specific guests yet.  The huge blurb at the top makes sure to mention a ton of past guests to the show.  And it seems weird that this one was happening so early in the year instead of around Halloween.

Here’s a great ad for the 1994 convention with a rare LIVE appearance by Jack Nicholson who was very heavily promoting his movie, Wolf.  Fangoria did a heavy push for Wolf that year and even had a special all werewolf issue in Fangoria #134.  Other notable guests include Clive Barker (Rawhead Rex) and Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street).

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