Tuesday, August 21, 2012

TV Spot Not on the DVD: Heavy Metal (1981, Gerald Potterton)


"This weekend, check newspapers for a midnight metal theater near you."  Percy Rodrigues, who voiced the evil Locnar in the film proper, also voices this rare television spot for Heavy Metal
Unfortunately, the spot is cut off at the beginning by about 5 seconds.  I sure do wish the DVD or Blu-ray of the film would have included an original theatrical trailer for the film (not the 1996 reissue trailer, which you can find on YouTube).  There are probably not too many other examples of the trailer v.o. artist also appearing in the film, also in v.o. form.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This ad may have run in the late 80's. I recall watching a midnight showing of Heavy Metal in 1989 at a twin theater in Westbury, LI. That theater's long gone now.

Ned Merrill said...

This is a television spot from the original 1981, first-run release.

There were midnight shows of HEAVY METAL throughout the '80s, as there were for so many cult favorites of the era.

It would highly unusual, however, for the studio to run a tv spot advertising an older title playing the midnight / repertory circuit...perhaps for something like ROCKY HORROR, which was a phenomenon on a much higher level than HEAVY METAL and which had regular midnight engagements for years, there may have been retrospective tv ads.

Ned Merrill said...

Also, the studio was promoting this as a midnight movie from the start, as evidenced by the above tv spot. This was well before the VHS heyday, which effectively killed off most of the repertory / midnight film culture. In '81, most cities and college towns still had at least 1 theater where one could see recent and older cult titles, particularly on weekend nights.