LARPing Real Life: It is 13 October. There are 18 days until Halloween.

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

It is 13 October. There are 18 days until Halloween.

Last week, I had a good time looking at the lost art of the TV spot – those stripped-down movie trailers that played during the commercial breaks. These 30-second ads were a cacophonous feast for the eyes and ears. They used their limited allotted time to the utmost in order to convince you to take a trip to a multiplex near you and plunk down your hard-earned cash on new fright flick. Oftentimes what you saw in the TV spot was very different tonally from what you saw on the big screen. Sometimes, you saw shots and scenes in the TV spot that never made it into the finished movie. You may have felt like the victim of a bait-and-switch, but you had to admit that the TV spot was an artform in its own right.

But what if you weren’t in front of a TV? What if it was summer, and you were at the beach of the backyard catching some rays? What if you were working your shift at the local pizza joint, and all you had to pass the time (aside from making free food for your friends) was a radio? How are you gonna know what movie to go out and see come the weekend?

Well, just like TV, radio needs advertisement dollars to stay on the air. So, in between blasts of Kim Carnes and Rick Springfield, you got to hear ads for the latest flick via the radio spot.

Radio spots were great – especially for horror films. Thirty-second symphonies of screams, growls, and revving chainsaws. They made even less sense than the TV spot, but like their visual cousins, radio spots were toe-tapping ditties in their own right.

Let’s take a listen to some radio spots from the 1980s. Just imagine that you’re lying on a beach towel at the shore wondering what in the heck you’re gonna do with the ten bucks burning a hole in your Jamz...

Friday the 13th, dir. by Sean S. Cunningham