ventriloquist | Camera Viscera

With 13 Days of Shot On Video I’ll be reviewing a new shot-on-video horror film every weekday for the last two weeks of October. You can view all entries HERE.

Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell is such a singular, unique film that of course it could only be birthed during the ’80s shot-on-video boom.

In fact, it’s not much of a movie at all: in reality, it’s 90 minutes of exploitation film trailers from the ’60s and ’70s hosted by a man and his zombie puppet. The trailers are film stock, but the interstitial wraparound segments featuring the ventriloquist and his dummy are pure shot-on-video awesomeness. Continue reading MAD RON’S PREVUES FROM HELL – 13 Days of Shot on Video! (#5) →

I only recently saw this film, but I remember the unforgettable VHS box from when I was a kid: a creepy ventriloquist dummy, with bugling blue eyes and a distorted resemblance to Anthony Hopkins, peering over the simplistic title on the front… Magic.

This is more of a psychological thriller than flat-out horror, but the inclusion of the dummy is what makes it so damn creepy. Anthony Hopkins plays a nervous ventriloquist who is usually at odds with his puppet “Fats”, whether it comes to their performance, fame, or women. It’s this latter element that causes the greatest disruption between Hopkins and the dummy. When Ann-Margret, an old high-school crush of Hopkins’, comes into the picture, Fats becomes increasingly jealous.

This one was directed by Richard Attenborough. You may remember him from Jurassic Park as the jolly John Hammond, coaxing a tiny raptor from it’s egg by repeating “Come on, love. Come on, love.” At least, that’s how I like to remember him.