If you don’t know what a red band trailer is, you have been missing out on some great adult previewing. A red band trailer is deemed to mature for general audiences, such as a trailer with nudity, blood, gore, cursing or – in the case of the below – desecrated human corpses.

This week, Regal Entertainment Group, the largest theater chain in the nation has decided to let red band trailers back into the theaters before R-rated fare, allowing filmmakers to directly market adult entertainment to adults.

The Hollywood Reporter explains the ins and the outs:

The MPAA’s Advertising Administration, which oversees the advertising materials used by its member studios, approves two types of trailers for use in the theaters. So-called green band trailers — also known as green-tag trailers — open with a green advisory card that reads “the following preview has been approved for all audiences.” Red band trailers, which only can appear before R-rated, NC-17-rated or unrated movies, warn that “the following preview has been approved for restricted audiences only.”

Studios once used red band trailers routinely, but theaters dropped them like hot potatoes after a 2000 Federal Trade Commission report criticizing the entertainment industry for marketing violent entertainment to children.

Exhibitors cut back on red band trailers out of fear of offending patrons and also out of a concern that in handling the dozen or so films screening in a modern multiplex, a red band trailer could be attached inadvertently to a G or PG movie.

Like this trailer we are about to show you. Imagine if this was showing in front of the packed houses that made Horton Hears a Who a big hit this weekend.

Here’s the very Not Safe For Work Or Any Public Environment trailer for Pathology, about a group of young doctors who kill people in interesting and impossible to detect ways.

Did we mention that this was a red band?

Good. Go see it after the jump, plus more on Regal’s awesomeness.

See, that basically tells you what the movie is about. There’s Milo Ventimigilicutty who gets involved in a sadistic game of killing people, etc.

It seems like a pretty decent slasher/suspense film.

But let’s pretend we never got to see the red band trailer. We’d just have this eerily disturbing teaser to go off of:

The point being is that red band trailers allow studios to bring audiences what they want and market it to them directly.

Universal president of marketing and distribution, Adam Fogelson, agrees completely: “I couldn’t be happier or more grateful to the people at Regal for continuing the dialogue that has led to this decision…This is going to be hugely helpful for us when we want to give targeted moviegoers a true sense of the kind of movies we are offering.”

It’s a great day for R-Rated comedies and horror, and at least a red letter day (rimshot!) for film censorship.