By RUE MORGUE STAFF
“Mad” Ron Roccia, the projectionist and film collector who lent his name and trailer collection to MAD RON’S PREVUES FROM HELL, passed away Monday, August 4 at age 74. The cause of death is listed as a heart attack.
Roccia achieved cult fame with generations of horror fans with PREVUES, one of the first-ever horror-trailer compilations, which was released to VHS and Beta in 1987. Featuring a framing narrative shot on location at the historic Lansdowne Theater in Pennsylvania, PREVUES depicts comedian Nick Pawlow and his zombie sidekick Happy entertaining hordes of the undead as they descend upon a grindhouse after hours. Roccia appears as “himself,” depicted as a feral monster who must be kept chained to the projector.
PREVUES was conceptualized by Roccia along with producer James F. Murray Jr. and Pawlow. At the time, Roccia was employed as a theater projectionist in Pennsylvania but would regularly travel to Times Square and New York’s infamous 42nd Street, where he collected discarded trailers from fellow projectionists. A lifelong horror devotee, Roccia owned what was, in 1986, the largest collection of horror trailers in America–and possibly the world.
“I used to build up reels [of trailers] in the theater where I was working, and then run them after hours. And that just kept escalating,” Roccia told FANGORIA magazine in 2019. “I was buying trailers from every place I could… On the Deuce, the advertising office in the Lyric, you walked up those steps and they had everything up there. It was stacked with features they had never sent back, cabinets full of trailers, tons of printed material.”
Following the success of Ken Dixon’s genre trailer compilation THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE, Murray, Pawlow and Roccia decided to put the latter’s collection to good use, with the trio crafting a story for Jim Monaco to direct. The compilation featured an intentional mixture of previews for popular genre titles and lesser-known, obscure productions, with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and BAY OF BLOOD living alongside THREE ON A MEATHOOK and GOD TOLD ME TO.
The VHS proved successful for the group that was later dubbed “The Mad Ron Quartet” in news articles. In the age before the Internet, PREVUES formed a sort of checklist for horror-movie fans eager to broaden their horizons. To Roccia and co.’s chagrin, it became one of the most pirated tapes of the early ’90s, and he and Murray had to begin traveling with cease-and-desist letters when they attended horror conventions in order to seize bootleg cassettes.
“Ron Roccia was my good friend for almost 60 years,” says Murray. “He and I were lucky to have quite a cool history together. Writing and producing PREVUES FROM HELL was a supreme moment in both of our lives. What a time we had on that… I will especially miss his awesome sense of humor and his love for all the right horror films! RIP ‘Mad’! Love you, brother!”
Roccia was born September 22, 1950, and spent 35 years as a projectionist. Following his retirement, he became a dealer in film prints, memorabilia and trailers, eventually selling a large portion of his collection. A lifelong lover of horror and exploitation cinema and all things macabre, Roccia found his work on the Deuce putting him into contact with some of 1970s New York’s most notable figures, including Andy Milligan and Sleazoid Express founder Bill Landis, who cited Roccia in the 2002 film guide SLEAZOID EXPRESS: A MIND-TWISTING TOUR OF THE GRINDHOUSE CINEMA OF TIMES SQUARE! (coauthored with Michelle Clifford).
“So saddened by the tragic news that old friend Ron Roccia has suddenly passed away,” wrote film historian and Rondo Hatton Monster Kid Hall of Famer Steve Vertlieb. “A genuine character, Ron was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known. He was a true original… I first met Ron somewhere around 1967 [and would] often travel to Ron’s home in Yeadon back in the day and watch 16mm movies… Ron was controversial to say the least, but we always had a great time together. Jimmy Murray was about to invite Ron and another old pal, Jack Polito, over to my place in Northeast Philadelphia for a gathering in September… I am deeply saddened by this terrible news. Ron was, indeed, a character and one of the most entertaining and fabulously original individuals I’ve ever known. An era has passed along with Ron. He will be forever missed…but the memories happily remain.”
Roccia became a regular fixture at horror conventions throughout the 1990s, including Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors, enjoying his newfound celebrity and the influence PREVUES had on generations of both fans and creators. Among those inspired by it was horror scholar and Ultra Violent magazine editor-in-chief Art Ettinger. “PREVUES FROM HELL was the most influential videotape of my childhood, serving as the foundation for what would become a lifelong obsession with exploitation cinema,” Ettinger says. “I first met Mad Ron at Chiller Theatre in 2004, after being a fan since 1987. It was like meeting Elvis… PREVUES FROM HELL had a greater impact on me than any teacher or professor ever did.”
“I actually met him by chance when he was working at a theater in the King of Prussia Mall back in 2011-12,” recalls horror author Lucas Mangum (THE FINAL GATE). “I didn’t know who he was at first, despite having seen PREVUES… When he told me, I had a fanboy moment. He claimed to have an as-of-yet unseen cut of A SERBIAN FILM. RIP to an unsung hero.”
In the DVD era, Roccia became highly sought out by disc companies wishing to include trailers as special features. Most notably, Roccia’s trailer for THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE has been featured on numerous releases. In 2019, Roccia and the rest of the Mad Ron Quartet were briefly launched back into the spotlight when they were interviewed for the aforementioned Fangoria retrospective (featured in Vol. 2, Issue 6).
“Ron became something of a cool late-in-life uncle,” recalls Preston Fassel, who wrote the retrospective. “His stories about 42nd Street in the bad old days were unmatched. I loved putting him on speaker and listening to him talk about his experiences being chased by rabid dogs in Hell’s Kitchen or seeing a theater manager survive a stabbing on The Deuce. He was one of the last of the grindhouse old guard. I’ll miss him.”
Following the COVID pandemic, Roccia became less public, although he still regularly corresponded with fans and occasionally served as a consultant on projects related to 1970s Times Square. He was last credited as a historical and technical consultant on Fassel’s 2023 novel BEASTS OF 42ND STREET. No information about Roccia’s funeral arrangements is currently available.
