Coming Soon (1982): John Landis’ Nostalgic Dumpster Fire in a Tuxedo

🧛‍♂️ Monster Mash by Way of a Half-Assed Promo Reel

The title “Coming Soon” is a lie. Nothing is coming. It already came. Most of it came in the 1930s and 1940s, and what didn’t come then comes off as rehashed schlock dressed in a black-and-white tuxedo of nostalgia. This film is less a retrospective and more a mixtape made by someone who didn’t listen to the tracks.

Sure, you’ll get glimpses of Karloff, Lugosi, and Chaney doing their thing—but they’re dropped into the edit with the care and precision of a teenager making a TikTok at 2AM. There’s no insight. No context. Just a smattering of horror trivia delivered like it’s being read off the back of a cereal box.

📼 It’s a VHS Commercial, Not a Documentary

To call “Coming Soon” a film is like calling a screensaver a painting. This is promotional fluff, likely conceived to fill airtime on a Sunday afternoon or run before E.T. in some dingy theater hoping to trick kids into watching “old-timey horror movies.”

There’s no host. No talking heads. No interviews with the filmmakers or historians. Just narration that might as well be coming from your dad after his third beer, telling you how scary The Wolf Man was “back in the day.” It reeks of studio interference. Landis—who once had vision and bite—seems neutered here, chained to a desk at Universal and forced to make a montage while a guy in a Dracula cape supervises.

🎙️ Narration by Dracula’s Accountant

The narration (by Jamie Lee Curtis’ dad, Tony Curtis—yes, really) is flatter than Kansas. He delivers every line with the enthusiasm of a man describing oatmeal. Phrases like “terrifying tales of yesteryear” are tossed around like candy at a funeral. It’s like listening to someone read the TV Guide listings from 1963 while slowly dying inside.

Even worse, the narration commits the gravest sin of horror: it tries to be funny… and fails. It’s like being tickled by a corpse—awkward, grim, and vaguely illegal. You want the narrator to either lean into the horror or bail out completely. Instead, you get a tone-deaf shuffle of corny jokes, whispered reverence, and middle-school-level puns.

🎬 No Blood, No Brains, Just Boredom

Landis directed An American Werewolf in London. He knows horror. He knows comedy. So what the hell happened here? Did he owe Universal a favor? Was he blackmailed by the Invisible Man? “Coming Soon” lacks everything that made his early work sing: tension, wit, irreverence. Instead, this feels like it was ghost-directed by the Crypt Keeper’s understudy during a coffee break.

The editing is clumsy. Scenes are randomly spliced in with zero connection. You’ll go from a screaming woman in The Mummy to a trailer for Creature from the Black Lagoon with all the fluidity of a car crash. There’s no narrative, no momentum—just a Greatest Hits compilation assembled by someone who’s never actually listened to the band.

🕸️ For Hardcore Fans Only (and Even Then, Maybe Not)

Sure, if you’re a Universal monster junkie, this might tickle your nostalgia bone. You’ll see old trailers. You’ll get some behind-the-scenes stills. But if you’re looking for actual analysis, appreciation, or depth, this movie offers all the insight of a tombstone.

It name-drops Frankenstein and Dracula like a nervous intern at a horror convention trying to fit in. It offers nothing new. No rare footage. No juicy behind-the-scenes gossip. Just a parade of clips you could’ve watched on YouTube in higher resolution and better context.

🧟‍♂️ A Landis Autopsy

Let’s talk about the real horror: John Landis. This is a man who once knew how to mix terror and comedy like a fine cocktail. With Coming Soon, he hands you a warm glass of flat club soda and tells you it’s champagne.

This thing is lifeless. It has no bite, no pulse, and barely a reason to exist. You can practically hear Landis sighing between edits. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a band releasing a greatest hits album two years into their career. It feels like Universal shoved a camera into his hands and said, “Make the old monsters sexy again.”

And he didn’t even try.

🧨 Final Thoughts: Less “Coming Soon,” More “Should’ve Stayed Buried”

This is a commercial in a cape. A eulogy for horror delivered by someone who never met the corpse. It has all the passion of a late-night infomercial and none of the charisma. For 55 minutes, it tries to resurrect the golden age of horror, but ends up digging a shallow grave and calling it a mausoleum.

Final Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 Universal logos)
Because if this was a mission from God, even He gave up halfway through and went back to watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.