In honor of Nick’s announcement, I started doing a little extra research on Tombs of the Blind Dead for another article I want to write (more on that tomorrow, maybe). What I found were barf bags. Lots of barf bags. It turns out, retitling the film wasn’t the only marketing masterstroke associated with everyone’s favorite handicapable undead. There were also barf bags.
This wasn’t specifically a Blind Dead thing, of course. Barf bags have a longstanding tradition with low-budget horror; the idea being that the movie was so scary, it would completely ruin your evening. Most evenings were ruined for other reasons, often still associated with the movie in question, but the barf bags remain a wonderful relic of a time in horror when producers dared you not to get physically ill as a result of what they were putting on the screen and the audience (mostly teenage boys) accepted the challenge.
What would a list of barf bags be without an H.G. Lewis flick?
“Fright bag”!
When you need to regurgitate the nipple you just swallowed.
A newer, gorgeous entry!
There was apparently no shortage of barf bags for Blood Feast, appropriate given its status at the first “gore movie.”
Not a movie, still great.
An extra nerdy barf bag with Weird Al roots!
“Do not re-use.”
Rated “V” for violence.
Along with Cannibal Ferox, probably the film most deserving of one of these.
And finally, Mark of the Devil, which is both rated “V” for violence and requires a barf bag to be seen in the theater.