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- Videotape, VHS,

it's the blood line of
movies, the home video market.

- I think the same
way that vinyls have

had a resurgence
recently, that I think

the kind of physical product is

something that people
kind of miss now.

- You put it into a VCR, and
it starts winding its tape out,

and the gears start
going and it's

makes that sound and you
start to watch a movie

come alive on your TV screen.

- I love VHS.

- VHS had this
grainy, smudgy image

that kind of added this whole
other layer to the movie.

The old video transfers
coupled with that

second generation dub quality
and the low resolution.

It really gave it a unique feel.

It's almost like an
old analog color grade.

You can watch it on
an HD TV and an SD TV

and it looks the same.

Plus there were more
titles released on VHS

than any other format
and a lot of those titles

are still only available on VHS.

- I think human beings
by nature respect ritual

and in the VHS era
there was a ritual

to watching a movie on VHS.

You often times had
to go to the store,

select the movie out
of many, pay for it,

bring it home, you know
physically take it out of a box,

and physically put it into the
VCR, and physically hit it.

There was a multi
step process so that

by the time you were watching,
I Spit On Your Grave,

or Deep Rider, or
Earnest Saves Christmas,

you felt like you'd
earned the privilege

and the right to do it.

- I remember just the
classic sort of feel of

watching the tapes, seeing
all the fuzziness on it,

knowing that every
time you put it on,

you don't know when
it's gonna skip or

go a little bit dodgy.

I do kind of miss that.

- Sometimes easiness
isn't better,

it cheapens the experience.

You're watching something on VHS

and this tape itself
that you have cost $70,

because before they were really

available on the market to buy,

to rent something
meant that you were

being trusted with
something that

had X amount of
value to it that you

probably couldn't even
pay if you lost it.

So you had to be careful.

Then afterwards you
have to eject it

and take it back to the store.

Sometimes before
your parents realized

you'd actually rented the
thing in the first place.

I think that just, it
lent a specialness,

a sacredness to the experience

that's quite easily lost now.

- It's like hooking yourself
up to an IV monitor.

It's seeing something
really move,

really have a feeling to
it, a tangible feeling to it

come alive on the TV screen.

VHS lives, it never dies.

- I run Film Trauma.

Film Trauma is a small
video distribution company,

we specialize in VHS, we also
do DVD and other formats too,

but primarily VHS.

- We are sitting inside my
video store, Old School Video.

We've been open
about two weeks now.

Business has been pretty
steady the entire time.

We've been setting up
new memberships every day

which is always awesome.

A lot of horror fans
have been coming

and checking out our horror
wall that we have here.

I'd say that our top renters
are probably the horror movies

and the new releases and
kids and family films.

We kind of cater to
two different crowds.

A lot of horror fans come
here for the rare stuff

that we have and then
there's a lot of the

local families in the
neighborhood that come

to get the new releases
and the kids movies.

It's been a lot of fun really.

I didn't really
know what to expect

at the beginning
of doing this but

it's a lot better
than I anticipated.

The first few days that we
were open we were really busy.

We had an article that got
published in the local newspaper

and there was a lot of hype
I think because of that.

After the first
three or four days

it kind of died
down a little bit,

and we kind of sat
back and looked at

what we had to do
to increase business

and we changed our
hours and our days

and things picked right back up

and we've been pretty
steady everyday.

I've got a two year lease here,

so we have at least two
years of doing this.

Hopefully we stay
successful the entire time

enough that we can continue
after the two years

and keep expanding and keep
adding to the inventory,

and keep introducing the
world to rented movies.

- In 2012 I lost my
day job and that wasn't

really that bad because I was
sick of working retail anyway.

I felt like I could be
making money for myself

instead of some big company.

I wanted to do artistic
stuff for myself

and in my spare time
I was actually doing

VHS releases monthly
with a friend.

That was doing well so I
figured I could do it myself,

and so I went off and I
started King of the Witches.

The first couple releases were
mix tapes that I made myself.

This is the first one, it's
called Party Levitation.

Doing stuff like this led on to

people getting in touch with
me to release their films.

The first one we did was
Emancipation by Ron Decaro.

So we started catering to the
more extreme horror films.

We eventually did Mysterious
First Date by Nick Box,

we did a bunch of
Ryan Nicholson films.

We went on to do Inner
Depravity which is an extreme

really infamous
Canadian gore film,

but I really wanted to
do obscure documentaries

and stuff from the 80s,
not necessarily horror.

We did both of the Desperate
Teenage Love Dolls films

and those did
really well for us.

That led us to doing
The Godless Bunny

which is a crazy documentary.

We did Movie House Massacre.

Most recently we did
Barney the Blob which is a

shlucky throwback to 70s films.

It was kind of like a
wash film from the 90s

that never got a release.

So we did it and

it's become a full
time job fighting with

the rights holders and
filmmakers for these films.

I don't even think about
getting a day job anymore.

- Back in those days
adult titles were

kept on the top two
shelves of the rental racks

and so if you went
up to the rack

and you looked at the movies,

but if you looked
through the rack and up

you could see the
backs of the boxes

of the adult boxes
on the other side,

and so that was great
until the video store

owners got wise to it and
started using the bookcases

or altogether just put
them in different rooms

like whole separate rooms.

- Very very late
1970s and early 1980s

it was pioneered by
the porn industry.

The adult film industry,
the XXX industry,

they were the
filmmakers if you will

that actually first established
that there was a huge

viable money making
market for their products

on home video.

People wanted to see
uncut XXX rated films

on videotape in the
privacy of their own homes.

It was after the porn
industry actually established

that fact that again,
the other non adult film

distributors actually
jumped on the bandwagon

and started releasing a lot
of drive in hits initially

and then yeah, the
bigger studios like
Paramount Home Video

and Warner Home Video, they
jumped on that bandwagon too

releasing their films but

it was actually that
adult film industry

that launched the home
video market as we know it.

- So I remember we rented
Return of the Living Dead,

that was the first time I
had ever seen that movie

and I remember we
were watching at night

and right when Linnea Quigley
starts to take off her top

the dad comes in and goes oh,
oh this isn't appropriate.

And then he shuts
it off and then

I never got to
finish it that night,

but luckily enough
I talked my dad

into letting me watch
that the next night

because he had a copy of
it and he was like okay,

I'll let you watch it.

- So the first porno
tape I ever saw

was this movie called
Beverly Hills Copulator

with Tracy Lords.

We went to my friends
house after school

and his parents were gone and
they left the tape in the VCR.

So of course we watched it
and we watched the whole tape

and he was convinced he knew
exactly where we came in

so he rewound it but I
mean he went way passed it.

His parents came home
and they figured out

we watched the tape and
they didn't really care

so we didn't get busted,

and Tracy Lords hadn't come
out yet as being underage.

It was still pretty cool.

- Don't.

- Don't
look in the basement.

The makers of Last House
on the Left warn you again

to avoid fainting,
keep repeating,

it's only a movie,

only a movie,

only a movie.

The line between sanity
and madness can be crossed

in a single step
and with this step

you enter the nightmare
world of terror.

Judge Caveman, who's earned
self control hides the urge

to kill.

Harriet, a mother's love,

twisted into the
malignant shape of evil.

The sergeant, living in
the hell of an aimless war,

fighting a battle within
himself that he lost long ago.

Alison, in a desperate
need for love,

an obsession that could
drive her to murder.

Dan, who's sense of humor
triggers a violent act of

revenge.

Doctor Masters, who has her
own idea of the gentle art of

healing.

Aunt Charlotte, who left the
world of sanity and security

only to be trapped in the
nightmare world of madness.

A nightmare she cannot escape.

They all met on the day the
insane took over the asylum.

Don't look in the basement.

From Hallmark
Releasing Corporation.

Rated R.

- The first VHS
tape I bought was

actually not a VHS tape at
all, it was a Beta tape.

I had a Sony Beta Max that
I saved my money and bought

back in 1978 and

quite literally, that first
movie that I bought on tape

was Don't Look in the
Basement, a film that was shot

actually in the early 70s,

near where I lived at that time.

Anyway, it played drive ins
and I had seen it at the

drive in actually a few years
earlier, as a small kid,

really small.

When I bought the movie on video
tape, beta tape at the time

I was upset because when
I watched it I found that

they had cut all of the more
graphic sequences out like

the scene where the
young lady inmate

is grabbed by the
back of the head

and she's pushed
down or shoved down

onto this like pointed
letter holder thing

and it poked in her eye socket.

I remembered at the drive
in the scene with her

falling back and this
letter holder or whatever

you want to call it had like
a nail protruding upwards

that you place these
papers down on.

It was gouged into the
eye and there was a scene

of her lying there with it
protruding from the eye.

So I bought this movie
and yet all these scenes

like that were cut
and man I thought

well this, this
really sucks right?

And that was kind
of the beginning of

the video craze for horror.

Initially it was felt that
I guess by the distributors

back then that home
audiences didn't necessarily

really want to see the gore.

They were still editing
some of the films that,

or the horror films
at the very least

that were being initially
released to video tape.

It wasn't long before
there was an outcry

from people left to right
horror fans like myself

letting the
distributors know that

hey, we want our
gore intact at home.

- We're sort of in the beginning
stages of the business.

I think that after
our first year,

things will be a lot
different here than it is now

but right now, I'm just
really having a lot of fun

just getting to know
people and seeing what

it's like running a business
and opening a video store

in 2017, I mean that's
pretty much unheard of.

I just read an article that
there was a video store

I think in Arizona
that actually closed

at the same time that we opened.

So how's that for irony?

- I think you had to be good
to be a director back then.

Although there was of
course the studio system

I feel like a lot of
directors started out

with small budgets
and they got somewhere

by doing these movies
that were released on VHS

and they got out there
where now it's very hard

because we're in
this digital age

where you just got a
guy with a computer

and like a $3,000 camera and
they're doing ridiculous,

they're creating a lot of flash,

and that's something
that I think

is taking away from filmmaking.

With computers there's
too much flash.

You go back to the 80s style,

and like I said
you had to be good,

you had to have a feel
without the computers.

That's impossible for
I think even a lot

of Hollywood directors
now to really do.

- I think VHS is so
important because

it was a time when

once we had VHS and

you started renting movies and
bringing them home and going

like the shot on video stuff,

I could make that, and
so it opened the door

for a whole bunch of people

who would've never
made films otherwise.

Some of them probably
shouldn't have ever made films

but it opened the door
and the flood gates

for tons of people who had
wanted to make a movie,

thought maybe they
could never do it.

It gave us a whole
slew of new filmmakers.

- John Carmander comes to mind.

That's a guy that
creates, or created,

just a feel.

Even the music was
just so iconic.

Camerawork, everything.

That, again, that
encompasses those VHS,

that 80s feel.

It has its own style where
as we talked about like

newer directors just,

it's not like their work.

It's the studio
systems work, you know.

- The first VHS tapes that
I purchased were probably

when the sell through market
started to come into play

where Star Trek Two,
the Wrath of Khan,

I think that was like $39.95,

then later Flash Dance,
and then Staying Alive,

yes, I have really
pathetic weird taste,

and then of course when
all the titles started

coming down to reasonable
prices, anywhere from the

$12 to $20 range,
boy I went crazy,

but I do remember the
first titles I bought were

Halloween on the media label

and then Texas
Chainsaw Massacre,

and then as stuff
started to release

I just would buy everything.

I had a huge VHS collection.

But before VHS I had
even collected beta.

As early as 1983, 84,
I was buying stuff like

Basket Case, and
Pieces on the beta,

on the original beta releases

and those were like
$80 a piece so yeah.

Limited, I was a
dishwasher, in high school.

But I was a purchaser
of those and of course

Pieces just saw the Blu
Ray, 4K transfer Blu Ray

release not too long ago and
it was like $40 for that.

There I was buying
it 30 years ago for

$80 and of course, I've
got the Blu Ray as well so,

the producers of Pieces
should be fairly rich

if there's more people
out there like me

who bought it numerous
times on all these

crazy formats
starting with beta.

- Jim Towns, also I
believe has contributed

to this documentary, he
and I met in third grade

and have been
friends ever since.

Our first experience with
shooting movies on video,

I believe was October,
if I remember correctly,

October 16th, 1987.

We rented with a guy
we knew, Bob Houg,

rented a Sony beta movie

and Bob wanted to make
a Evil Dead sequel

which we had never seen
any of the Evil Deads

but after seeing Evil
Dead realized that

Bob was just reenacting
all of his favorite scenes

from the first two
Evil Dead movies.

But we didn't care, it was our

first journey into filmmaking.

That Sony beta movie
looked amazing,

I wish I'd had one of those

but that was our first
thing and then I think

we both just were bit by the
filmmaking bug at that point.

Couple months later, I
scoured the classified

of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

and found somebody
selling an old VHS camera

and it was really old,
it was one that had

two parts, you had to
carry along the VHS deck

and you had the
camera attached to it

with a cord, it weighed
about 3,000 pounds,

the battery lasted
about 15 minutes,

and then took about
seven hours to charge

so it was not practical.

We usually ended up
running an extension cord

out of the house and
sitting the deck in the

middle of the yard
and everything

had to take place
around the deck.

Panasonic introduces

a new lightweight video system,

that's so automatic,

it works by itself.

The Panasonic video
camera focuses by itself,

adjusts for changing
light by itself,

even works in extreme
low light, all by itself.

This Panasonic VHS recorder

connects almost by
itself and plays back

a jitter free picture in
slow motion and stop motion.

- Put the DSL hour
away you know?

Because it's not needed
to make a good movie.

- My early days of
being a videographer,

I was a wedding videographer
with the really big cameras

that sat ginormously
on your arm,

you had to hold
it all night long,

and you had to lift
it up to get the shot

because you always
have to get the shot.

By the end of the night,
my arm would be dead,

I could not drive with this arm.

Granted driving's a
lot with your foot but

when your car has the
gear shifter on this side,

it's kind of hard to drive,

and you hope you're
not stopped by a cop.

- Big movies but
they're shot now,

with the equipment
and effects we have,

yeah, if you put
some grain in them

they almost look like
something from the 80s.

Just put the effects.

People say that all the
time to me as a director,

they're like how do your movies
look like the fucking 80s?

Why don't you just use
some depth to field,

and I'm like fuck you.

- I think that we're
gonna do really well,

I think enough time has passed
since Blockbuster has closed

that it gives the mom
and pop stores a chance

to breathe again, to try and
give it a second opportunity.

A lot of people really miss it,

and people that were my
age renting movies then

are adults now with
kids and they want to

have that experience again,
and introduce their children

to renting movies, and
relive their childhood.

So it's not only good for them,

but I mean it's also really
cool for college kids.

Sort of the new
vinyl, VHS has kind of

come back in a way,
a lot of movies are

put out on VHS now, there's
a lot of collecting,

there's a lot of interest again.

I think we cater to a
lot of different crowds

and it's a really
smart time to do it.

I think we're riding the wave.

Hopefully we're not
the first one to do it

in the new era, I'd
like to think that

maybe we're paving the way that

if we prove to be
successful that

other video stores
will take note

and open up and give
it a chance like I did.

- I went to the School of
Visual Arts in Manhattan, 1994,

class of 98, New York City,

and I would be editing with

VHS three quarter inch
beta 16 milometer.

We also shot on high eight

which was all the rage
when I started working.

- For video
reliability and performance

trust VCRs built by Hitachi.

Look at Hitachi's warranty,

a full 24 months on
parts at no extra cost

and double the competition.

Hitachi precision
engineers the luminar video

with the latest in extra
durable space age materials.

Better engineered,
best warranty.

Hitachi, science for the senses.

- Some of my all time
favorite tapes are

the Film Trauma tapes, the
ones I put out which are

The Legend of Boggy Creek.

This is, you know,

the 1972 classic.

Comes with a poster
and a lobby card set

and a cool red label because

everything should
have a red label.

What else?

Dawn of the Dead
on VHS, on special

red tape, comes with
a bunch of extras.

Hm, smells like plastic.

And of course you
can't go wrong with

another zombie
classic Necro Files.

This one comes on a green
tape because why not?

- So showing off some of my
nice picks of my collection.

I'll start with actually
one of my own films,

this was more of a recent,
it was 2010 this one.

This is the original
videotape release I did

of Easter Bunny Bloodbath.

This one actually is
quite rare because

it has an early cut of the film.

I personally worked to
get this one put out

on our videotape, we did sales,

we did 100 copies of this
one, it did sell very well,

but again this one
is very rare because

it's an earlier cut of the film.

Not my favorite cut, I think
we got a definitive one later

but this one is a
quite rare tape.

- Scarlet Fry's Horrorama,

which is the first
movie I ever made.

Which was actually, I put out
about 60 of these in the 80s

and there's only one that
I know of that survived

and it was in
Scarecrow video which

now belongs to a
fellow collector.

But to finally get
like legit distribution

and they actually did
a really cool package.

They put a little lobby
card, had me autograph it,

it came with a poster so.

How many people could say they
have a poster of themselves

so that was awesome.

- It's nice to see the
physical copies of things,

to have it in your
hand and tangible,

you could look at the art.

- VHS for me kicked off
my first ever experience

was actually in a hotel
in a jungle in Indonesia,

and my parents dragged
me there on holiday.

Really weird place,
like a five star hotel

in the middle of a jungle.

We got to the bar and
there was a Hammer film,

the Seven Golden
Vampires playing there,

I think it was VHS, it
might've been a beta max.

This was like 1980.

- Kind of similar.

You can stick tapes in there.
- Yeah, yeah.

But that was it really,
that's the first time

I'd seen anything that
bloody and extreme

because being a home
video release in 1980

there was no censorship
on it at all.

So it was all the
blood and boobs

and that kind of freaked
me out completely.

My family were attacked by
leeches the next morning

so that kind of
cemented my horror love

at the tender ago of eight.

- I think one of the hardest
parts of collecting these tapes

isn't necessarily
that some of them

are so hard to get ahold of,

it's just trying to
explain to other people

who aren't interested in
it, quite why you do it.

Sometimes I have some of
these tapes turn up at work

and my other work
colleagues will be like

well, why are you
buying VHS tapes still.

It's like well, many after
so, certain types of wine

these ones which are
like pre certificates

and they formed a
list, what list,

and it's like there's a
list by the Department

of Public Prosecutions
that came up

towards the end of 1983, 1984,

certain films can be prosecuted.

Now some of them are really rare

and really hard to get ahold of,

I'm trying to collect all
39 that are on the list.

And it's like why would
you want to do that?

But to me, it's kind of like,

it's the same as antique
collecting really, isn't it?

It's like you're trying
to keep hold of something

which isn't really
available anymore

and it's kind of part
of film history really.

- In about 83, I think
83, beginning of 84

we got our first VHS player.

I don't think it was a
recorder, I think it was just

a player that we had, one
of the big, top loading ones

and there was a
couple of shops that

had opened up in
my area and sort of

it was a family,
started getting them out

on Fridays and Saturdays,
and I was allowed

my one choice, and it started
off with fantasy films,

a lot of the Italian
exploitation fantasy films

like Death Stalker type films.

- My brother used to
have to hide his from me,

which was Blockbuster, I
think it was Ritz at the time,

or was it Hollywood Video,

yeah my brother used to go
down and hide them out from me

because I was too young.

Love Barbarian films,
absolutely loved them.

- Again it was like
quite booby as well.

At that age I was
already sort of taking

an interest in
that sort of thing.

But I think the first kind
of really extreme film I saw

was this film that was
called Superstition.

Or The Witch, I think it
ended up on the banned list,

but I saw an uncut copy.

- At Blockbuster
we believe that everyone

should be able to take
home the film they want.

That's why we promise
to have more copies

of the latest films
than ever before,

so you can take home any one
of this week's new releases

or rent it free next time.

Blockbuster, bringing
entertainment home.

- We kind of double
as like a museum

as well as a video rental store

because of our
collection that we have,

all the different
rare horror movies

and things that you just won't
find on Netflix and Hulu,

people come in here for

big box horror movies, stuff
that you've never even heard of

or was only available
in other countries,

you can come and get at our
store for a dollar a day,

I mean nothing beats that.

It's been tough for a lot
of the horror collectors

that come in and they want
to buy all my horror tapes

but if I did that, I wouldn't
have the stuff to offer,

that's kind of what
draws people in for us.

The new releases do really well,

but definitely our bread and
butter is the horror movies.

I mean people have been
coming in from all over

to rent our movies, and
it's been pretty great

meeting a lot of
different horror fans

and hearing that they like
and what they don't like

and just getting to know
a lot of cool new people.

- My dad used to run
a video horror shop

so there's old mom and pop
shops and I lived in one.

It was a side arm
business for him

and he had ordered
classics, he had Howie,

he had Ghoulies, he had Madman,

which are still three films
to this day that freak me out

because he always said
you watch what you want,

but if you have
nightmares don't blame me

and Ghoulies, oh god,
I've got it on DVD now,

and if I watch it,
or look at the cover

going to the toilet I
still have issues with.

It just freaked me out,
absolutely freaked me out.

- Some of my memories though,
I remember that when I was

preteen, between 10
and 13 my mother and I

had this ongoing project
where whatever movie we rent,

we'd record it onto
a blank VHS tape

and I specifically
remember doing it with

The Dead Zone with
Christopher Walken.

I don't remember why I remember
doing it with that movie,

maybe I think I was
sick and I rented it

and watched it several times.

Whatever the reason may
be, that's what I remember

is recording The Dead Zone
onto a blank VHS tape.

- Look at me.

Do you like what you see?

Good, because it's not me,
it's a recording of me.

On new Memorex video tape.

This remarkable tape has
been recorded and rerecorded

100 times, but I'll bet
you still couldn't tell

if it was Memorex or me,

which really isn't
me, it's Memorex.

New Memorex videotape.

Even after 100
recordings you'll wonder

is is live, or is it Memorex?

- Stand out memories in
a video store, oh yeah,

I have many memories
in the video,

I lived in a video
store in my youth

that was just the thing.

Video was the rage
whether it was beta,

I was in one of the first
beta only video stores

that rented primarily
horror titles

and pornography of
course, way back

even when I was in high school.

Those were like the staples when

beta was first coming into play.

Man, I have so many good
memories of renting movies,

discovering new ones,
discovering the ones

that I had been reading
about in magazines

for the last five or 10 years
before they would hit video

like Last House on
the Left, Maniac,

Dawn of the Dead, all
those great titles.

I would find out the release
dates the day a date releases

and I would call the
owners and they would

reserve the title for
me so I would have

them behind the counter waiting

the minute they were released,

whether I got out of school
or work or whatever it was

I'd be racing to video
stores all over the place

trying to catch up with
things that were released

like The Toxic Avenger or
any numerous Troma releases

or again anything that was
really classic coming out

that had not seen
release and I was there

when all of it was actually
released for the first time

on beta and VHS, so it was
just an incredible experience

after becoming a horror
fan probably and like

a diehard horror
slasher type maniac fan.

Psh.

Probably when I saw
Halloween in 1978,

and the poster and then
on the TV broadcast

and then being able to
finally rent all these movies,

and see them uncut for the
first time on beta and VHS

was just incredible, Dirty Harry
compared to the TV version,

Halloween even compared
to the TV version.

Seeing it on beta
for the first time

and then being able
to buy the VHS later

was just incredible
going into these stores

and the owner always had
a popcorn machine going,

a big pipe in his
mouth and you could

talk to him about
movies and all the stuff

that was going on, so just
really really wonderful

experience socializing
with other renters

while you're in the stores
and perusing aisles,

discovering new things,
and timidly going up

with a box art of something
like I Spit on Your Grave,

putting it on the counter there

and the owner just rents
it to you with no problem.

- Some of my memories
from watching

videotapes and going to the
video stores back in the day,

we would get together,
when I say we,

myself and many other
people my age at that time,

teenagers, okay,

and we would have three and four

and five new horror
films to watch.

Man it was great, it was great.

We would usually go
up and party a bit

drinking and smoking, not
regular cigarettes at that time,

and towards the end of
the evening we would all

end up somewhere watching those
horror films on videotape.

- Back in the 80s, bear
in mind I was born in 82,

so I was quite young when I was

watching a lot of these films.

I had a little scrapbook
and I used to go

to the local video store,
got a little catalog

that had the different
VHS tape covers on,

and one thing I vividly
remember was seeing the

artwork for Nightmare
on Elm Street four,

and remember
absolutely loving it.

I cut that out.

- It's sort of because
I had nothing to do.

- You found that
often the covers had

another version of the
cover on the other side.

Opened up the sleeve
you could see.

There'd be one with
an artist's impression

and the other one with
actual clips from the film.

So you could quite often go,

that looks fantastic, just
check what the other version is.

Alright, nevermind.

- Video store memories.

Yeah, I have a lot actually.

I pretty much grew up
in a video store but

we had at least a half
a dozen stores near us

and everyone of them
had different movies.

This was before Crotch
buster and Hollywang video.

So some of the stores were tiny,

I mean like living room sized.

Some collectors I
know have more tapes

than some of those
old stores did.

A lot of the times the owner
was working behind the counter

and he knew the movies,
you could tell the guy,

hey what's that movie with,

and then he'd be like oh
yeah, that's this over here

and take you to it.

Those were pretty great days.

- You knew the people
who owned the stores.

You basically frequented
a store in specific,

usually you found
the one you liked

and they grew to know you.

And they knew your taste,

and in my case, they knew
that I loved horror films.

- I know back in the 80s I
used to quite often go to

a local video store and
buy X rental VHS tapes

and I had a whole collection
of them, mostly horror,

had a whole host of Arnold
Schwarzenegger films as well,

as well as the entire back
catalog of Bruce Lee movies.

I did speak with my
mother though recently,

because when I had been
quite young when I first

started watching VHS tapes

and she said that the
first film that I would've

been there to watch on VHS was

actually Texas
Chainsaw Massacre.

- If we were driving around
and we saw a new video store,

we'd go check it
out the following
weekend, didn't matter.

- We used to go everyday.

A pound to rent.

- Yeah.

- They had a E
four sheet of paper

on the wall, written on,
what had just come out,

and everyday I
would look at that,

it would never been, we
used to wait weeks for it,

because they only
had one copy in,

because it wasn't like
Blockbuster's or Ritz Video

or Global Video or whatever.

I just used to rent like
Calhoun's and stuff like that.

But, fortunately, my parents
did used to rent for us

Predator, Robocop,
and things like that,

as long as I didn't
repeat the swearing

and I never did
in front of them.

- One of the stores
by my house had this

bright red carpet
in it and it always

smelled like mold in there.

And it's weird because I always
got nosebleeds in that store

and that's really weird
because that's the

only time I've ever
had nosebleeds.

That was also the only
video store in the area

that had the original
Truth or Dare tape

so that was a reason to go there

regardless of nosebleeds or not.

- I think my standard
memory for VHS

would have to be the
first time my brother

brought home Dario
Argento's Suspiria

because we'd never experienced
anything like that.

We were just kids,
we were like 12 or 13

and suddenly we
were putting on this

amazing Italian operatic
vision from this director

whom I came to loved
called Dario Argento.

In Ireland especially
at that time,

you would've experienced
nothing like that.

There was also a great
deal of censorship

in Ireland at the time,
so you were looking

at a cinema that was
either strictly 18

and there was no chance
of getting into it

as a young teenager, but
also the VHS's that you got

were strictly limited
in Ireland too.

So when suddenly we saw
this incredible film

by Dario Argento, and it
was the dubbed version,

which kind of added an
extra eerie quality to it.

It was just, I don't
know, I never forgot it

and from that moment
forward, I had this

huge love of Italian
cinema which has never

weaned in any way shape or form.

So thank you, Dario Argento.

- The Toxic Avenger is
a movie that as a kid

I remember the cardboard
cutout in the rental store

how awesome it looked,

and I remember I had
seen that with my uncles

when I was really
young, and I remember

having my mind twisted
by the fact that like

the monster was like the
good guy in the movie,

I thought that was really weird,

and I vividly
remembered being a kid,

the scene where
he takes the girl

and he sits her on like
the steam room coals,

and that whole leading up to it

coming down the hall,
that weird segment.

Yet I didn't know
the name of it,

and then later in
life, I seen it on

USA's up all night, and that
kind of put it together for me.

Then I had to go get
it, to fully watch it.

- So wild stories of VHS.

I grew up with videotape,
I grew up in video stores,

I used to think that
when I got married,

I would probably have to
do it in a video store.

We would walk down the
aisle, down the drama,

we would maybe curve
over in the comedy,

and end up in the horror section

and that's where
we'd say our vows.

Well, it didn't happen,
I did get married,

but no way in hell my wife was
gonna do it in a video store.

Anyway.

Growing up in video stores,
living in video stores

essentially going everyday to
get new movies and old ones,

you really got a feel
for the selection,

and pretty soon, within
just even a month or two,

you would totally
rent out a store.

You would have all the titles
that they had in the stocks

that you would just have rented.

So you'd have to go from
one video store to the other

and I had memberships
all across the place.

Different towns, I would
take 40 minute subway transit

to get one place to get
to another video store.

- The Shining was the first
horror VHS that I ever owned.

That I actually personally
went out and bought.

I guess my uncles got me
into horror movies and VHS.

When I was younger, me
and my mother lived with

her brothers and
sisters and her mother.

My uncles, her brothers,
were pretty wild teenagers.

So they showed me a lot of
crazy movies when I was younger

like I Spit on your
Grave, I seen very young.

The Wall, Pink Floyd's The Wall

I remember seeing really young.

House, Motel Hell.

I have vivid memories
of all these movies.

- One of my fondest VHS
memories is a bunch,

but one of the ones
that stick out is like

the time I got this right here,

when I found Deadly Prey,
it was about over a year ago

at some little mom and pop
shop up in the LA area.

I was looking around,
asked the gentlemen

that owned the shop, hey you
guys got any tapes in the back

and he pulled out a
bunch of boxes of VHS,

like about seven
or eight of them.

I was looking through
them and I found some

pretty cool things
but in the last box,

he's like you know what I
got one more box in the back

and he went in the back

and he came up with this
little small crumbled up box,

and he pulled out the
box and I didn't think

that nothing much would be in it

because the box was all tore up,

but inside the box,
I opened it up,

and I saw this on the top.

Deadly Prey and I was
like holy crap, no way.

Deadly Prey, this was
only a dollar, right here.

Only one dollar.

And this tape goes for
like 80 bucks to 100 bucks.

- I'll tell you I remember
being gutted about

when you rented a movie out if

could you imagine
getting it home

and somebody hasn't
rewound the tape,

and you had to put in the video

and you had to rewind it and you

couldn't watch it straight away,

and then there
was the other time

where it got played
and played and played

because it was a rental
and when you got it back

the screen was like lines.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah and you had to track it,

or it won't always work and
then you had to take it back

and get, you know...

- Or people just
didn't look after them.

- Yeah, didn't clean the video,

cause you have the
videotape head cleaners,

like you could put the liquid in

and play it for so
long, like five minutes

and then yeah...

Oh, that was annoying.

- Well there's actually two
things that really stand out

when I think back
on the VHS era,

the first is walking into
a video store as a kid

and the bombardment of imagery.

I mean, the distributor could
only sell the damn movie

with their artwork so
usually when it's all out,

when it came to nudity
or explosions and

maniacs with chains
and all that stuff,

and the second thing
that really stands out

is this whole air of
forborne video had,

it was so many people that
really hated this format

and took every opportunity
they had and believe me

they had a lot of them, there
was a lot of lot of space

in this country to spew their
vitreal about the format

and the low culture it offered.

So imagine an impressionable
kid seeing the imagery,

the tantalizing imagery
and then hearing

the people in the
know telling you that

well this is really bad for you.

I mean, come on.

As a kid, you're there.

It's like this is
the best thing ever.

I mean it looks cool and if
it pisses off your parents,

what else do you want?

- My favorite ever
film of all time,

Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

Put behind me, toys behind
me, absolutely love it.

There was a scene in
that where the things

came out of the popcorn, that
thing came out of the toilet.

And plainly fucking spat me out

because it was,
reminded of Ghoulies,

because Ghoulies really
threw me sideways as a kid,

and then I just
couldn't hack it.

And because of that
it stuck in my mind

and then when VHS
stops, they used to have

these big mom and pop
shops site shutting down,

Blockbuster kicked
in, had massive sales,

and it was this massive shop,

and it was there for
like five or something

which even back then was
ridiculously cheap for VHS.

So I bought Killer
Klowns from Outer Space

and that sort of
just started my oh.

I think I was only about
14, 13 at the time,

but then I started thinking,

oh, I can start
collecting, that's when the

collector genes
started kicking in

because before when your
parents buy you toys,

you don't need to collect stuff,

but when you're that
age you kind of,

you can pick what
you want to buy,

you don't have to buy
it with your parents.

Then I started going
to places like Camden,

and Camden was this
magical world of

back streets and dodgy copies
of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

which at the time was
then completely legal

and yeah that's what really
kicked off the collection.

It was Killer Klowns
from Outer Space.

My fear of Ghoulies transferred

to Killer Klowns
from Outer Space

and the closed down
mom and pop shop

is why I have such a
massive VHS collection.

- I remember going around and
my cousin had got a hold of,

he'd rented this
tape and everybody

was copying it in those days.

I had seen some before
but he had a copy of ET

and this was a few months before
it came out at the cinema.

I went back to school saying
oh I've seen this film

ET, it's great.

And they were going
oh yeah, yeah.

I've heard of it.

Couple of weeks later everybody
else had seen it as well.

Oh, I was nearly crying.

For a 10 year old boy
to say that was crazy.

- Well I can't say it
was a favorite as a kid,

because it scared the
bejesus out of me,

Mausoleum.

Most definitely one of
the among three titles,

the first horror
movie I ever saw.

This one pretty
much traumatized me,

the transformation
scene in the bathroom.

Jesus.

That one really scared me.

Found it in a thrift
store years later

and well, it doesn't
quite hold up.

Totally worth watching for a,

if you appreciate cheese,
Wisconsin sized cheese.

You have a good time with
this movie, good time.

- I asked my dad, I saw
a preview for Superman

and I said dad, dad can you
get me Superman on video

to watch because I
really want to see it.

So my dad, being my dad, I
wasn't with him at the time

when to go around
and get Superman.

Come back, I thought
oh great, right.

Popped the videotape in,

what came up, a
film called Superman

about some karate people.

Not Superman the super
hero and I'm like

what do you call this, you know?

I was absolutely gutted
because I wanted to

watch it with Christopher
Reeve and see the movie.

- My stand out VHS memory.

I remember years ago
going to my local library

and renting the Evil
Dead, the original.

I wanted it on DVD, but
they only had it on VHS

so I brought it home
to put into my player

and onto my TV and
made some popcorn

and to my surprise, I enjoyed
seeing it on VHS format

because the quality
was so intense,

so real, I saw it later
on DVD and realized

the VHS aspect captured
the realism of the movie.

It's also one of my favorite
horror films of all time.

- Yeah, I think the
first VHS I bought

probably always popped up
on me when I was a kid,

and I was trying to think
of what it would be because

if I've got a VHS, I was
looking for them for Christmas.

But one I seen it for was

the return of Optimus
Prime, from Transformers.

- Yeah.

- I think that may have been
the first VHS I ever bought.

- Although I now have
it on DVD as well,

but a movie that I owned and
watched endlessly as a kid,

animated was
Transformers the movie.

The tagline was beyond good,
beyond evil and it was.

That movie was
like mind blowing.

It was so dark, it's like
you just never see that

in a cartoon, like it
actually freaked me out

when I was a kid because
I'm like is there

robots in space that could
come and eat the earth.

That's like a type of fear
that a kid shouldn't have

but that movie
instilled that in me.

Here it is.

Imagine that.

- When you've got the banned
ones, it's like why's it banned

I must see it, so then,

you didn't mess up
Necromantic one and two

because they're
illegal, oh my god,

they're fucking
dead people in hell.

So then your collector
thing started going crazy,

you've got to have
the next little thing,

the next tweak or the next...

- Yeah, I mean I
remember at the beginning

there was no real sell through,

you just had what was
available in the shops to rent

and then as they got sort
of worn out or less popular

the shop owners would
sort of just sell them off

and there was a market
across the road from me,

Saturday market, and they
had a bunch of tapes there

that would sort of revolve

and new ones would get
added to the pile every week

but there was a couple of
guys that were basically

doing rental from a
store, so you paid in

one pound 50 or what
it was and every time

you took a tape away it was 50 p

so it was actually super
cheap and affordable for me

and then any tapes
that I really liked

I just kept them and then
I went back and restarted

with another pound 50.

I think it was like one
pound 50 or two pound 50

if it was something quite
new and sought after,

but up to that point I'd
been doing a lot of trading

with my mates at
school and it was all

pirate stuff basically
and a lot of it was

trying to hunt down the films
that everyone talked about

at school like Driller
Killer or Zombie Flesh Eaters

and you know you just
couldn't get them in the shops

because by then they'd been
pulled out of the shops.

I remember getting Zombie Flesh
Eaters and I was so happy,

my mate's uncle did me a copy.

I just watched it and
watched it and watched it.

- Okay,
my favorite VHS

titles I have any number of,

I have The Gates of Hell,

I have naturally
Friday the 13th.

Hell Night, Media
Home Entertainment.

See here's the great thing
about that era of the early 80s,

you had so many companies
that popped up naturally,

Paramount had their own line.

I mean, anything they
released to theaters

they were gonna
release under their

Paramount Home Video line but,

you had other companies like
Media Home Entertainment,

and obviously there
was Paragon Home Video,

there was Vestron as well.

God knows they released one
of my other favorites, Pieces.

Let's face it, you don't
have to go to Texas

for a chainsaw massacre but
by God I always say it helps.

- Now you've got Rocky
Horror Picture Show.

Superb.

This one is a Princer x rental.

Small box one.

Original cover, look
at the cover on that.

Superb.

I love the old Graham
Humphreys artwork covers

that he used to do
here, so we've got

Nightmare on Elm
Street, I think this one

is an actual
original preset one.

You got that?

And one of my favorite pieces
of cover art, Spookies.

Fantastic that one.

- Analog video
and it just looks beautiful.

Oh, Nick Malard,
what do we got here?

.357 Magnum baby.

Yeah, that's before he kicked
into his shot on video stuff.

That's a great
flick right there.

Oh, Shrek, what do we got here?

No big ogres.

Nope, we got Shreck, the killer
Nazi shot on video movie.

That's a great one.

Ha, can't go very
far on this shelf.

Born Killer, that's a Ted Prior.

Yeah there we go, that's a
great one right there too.

Gosh, I love those guys.

Anyway, let's move it on.

Kindred, we got the Fright Show.

Oh this was great,
this actually,

I used to rent this copy
when I was about 12,

this very copy and when
the store was selling out

I came to the person working,
I said I gotta buy this,

sell it to me, and they did,
so they sold that to me.

Oh yeah and here's
another beauty.

I mean look it's a
Paragon, it's cut,

but hell look at
that mongrel man.

That's great.

So I've got quite a bit.

Junior, that's another one.

No Arnold Schwarzenegger, nope.

That's a much better
movie, Junior.

Dabbling in the rape revenge
a bit with that one there.

Oh a beauty, Victims,
that's a great flick.

Yeah, yeah, girls in the desert.

These movies I grew up on so
I don't watch them a lot now,

I've got kids, you know,
but just to have them.

I used to rent those
like 15 years ago

and I still got them here.

Oh some newer ones, Palone
Brothers Lethal Nightmare,

it's the remake
of Hallucinations.

The original cut of Feeders.

This is a nice one and
this stuff is limited.

They've got right there 47
of 50 signed by Mark Palone.

That stuff's great.

Moving on, this was a
nice box cover for it,

East End Hustle.

Cindy used to be a hooker.

Yeah, that's just a great movie.

They just don't make box covers
like that anymore nowadays.

We've got Blood Shack here.

Check that out.

I know it's all cut, there's
the old Rodgers Video logo.

I know it's a cut box
but it's still beauties

like these ones I used to rent,

and they're now just
sitting here on my shelf.

You got the classics.

Oh, more beauties
here, we've got some,

old school as they call
it Evil Night, a classic.

Yeah, that's a great one,
and of course the remake

I've got down
there, Chris Sever.

Some of these from
the 90s came out,

and they're just the DVD's
transferred to videotape really.

Anchor Bay releases.

Just kept for the hell of it.

Got some Troma videotapes there.

Toxic Avenger, the unrated
and R rated versions.

Of course I got the
director's cut too.

So those are great.

Home Sweet Home, this is another
beauty that's not on DVD.

Thanksgiving slasher from
Media, that's just wonderful.

Had a couple copies of
this, sold one a while ago.

Howling seven, I think that's
one of my most favorites

of the Howling series, it
just feels so bad, it's great.

Reminds me of a shot on video
movie even though it's not.

Moving on, we've got a great
load up of Vestron's here.

I somehow got those Vestron's
in order but there they are.

Oh, Last Slumber
Party, what a beauty.

That's a classic, I
remember buying this

when I came back
from a camping trip.

What was the price on this?

Do I even have it?

No, but anyway there's
the sale tag number.

But yeah, just a beauty.

More Paragons we got
here, Doctor Butcher MD.

Medical deviate.

Always liked Savage Weekend.

This is a really old tape,
you can tell by the box cover.

This is an original release.

Just beauties to
have on my shelf

because otherwise they'd be
gone, they'd be in the trash.

Mayhem.

Not the best movie but
still pretty damn good

and I like the box cover.

First it was the child
molesters, the dope pushers,

and the pimps, now it's
the police, can he survive?

Mayhem.

And lots of gory good
pictures on that one.

Just stuff that isn't even
on DVD, never came out.

I got a couple
Boarding House's here

because I knew that, this
is an original release

of Boarding House from the
shot on video video transfer

and this one which was a
later printing from Paragon

is actually struck from
the 35 millimeter master

so it's very interesting
to compare the two.

Got a lot, oh Creep in there.

Yeah, Tim Ritter, what a
beauty in that one there.

My Splatter Farm, I've
got a sealed Saurians.

Got that in a nice deluxe
package from SRS cinema.

Thank you guys.

Skullduggery.

Great cover, always
loved that cover.

Original labels there.

Moving along, Hollow Gate.

Halloween time guys.

Hollow Gate.

There's a nice wizard for
you, Carnival of Blood.

This one I haven't
even seen yet but

Twiggy, W, starring Twiggy.

Werewolf, don't know,
haven't seen it.

This is a great one
actually, comedy movie,

Blue Movies, a couple of guys
that want to make a porno.

It's just hilarious,
Chris Stone is in this.

D Wallis, her old husband.

Great movie.

Boogeyman Two,
Pumpkinhead, Blood Rage.

A lot of people love Blood Rage.

Came out on Blu Ray recently.

It's a great new release.

It actually was
from Blockbuster.

You can see there it
was 94 I bought it, eh?

Nice.

- Okay so here are a few of my

favorite tapes in
no particular order.

We'll start out with
Night of the Zombies,

that's a great one.

I got a good deal on
it, I don't remember

even where I got it, I
just remember I was like

oh cool tape.

So Night of Zombies.

This one The Devil Master, aka

Demon Lover is just constantly
in my VCR right now,

I just can't get
enough of this movie.

The versions are
slightly different,

this one has all the gore, and
less of the hippie partying

and the other one has like
extending hippie partying

and no gore, it's weird,
so between the two,

you get a really good
version of the movie.

Next up is Yeti, ah,
the Italian movie

where he's like giant and
like King Kong's size.

This is great, this was
really hard to find.

I don't remember how
much I paid for it.

It was you know
not super expensive

because it is slightly trimmed

to fit into a smaller clam, but

other than that pretty good.

Here we have one of
my all time favorites,

can you see that
it's kind of glary.

Night of the Demon
in a heavily cut,

heavily, heavily cut box, but,

Night of the Demon, 1980,
the bigfoot horror movie.

Actually even though
this is cut to pieces

I did pay like 50 bucks for it

and it was actually a good deal.

This is really rare.

- Another one, you know,

good favorite of
mine, Bigfoot 1970,

can't go wrong with this.

This is the cool one.

Actually, I think
they're all the same.

My all time favorite,
Doctor Butcher MD.

That's kind of glary, but
yeah Doctor Butcher MD.

This is a really great movie.

Though this is cut
to fit in a clam

so I got it at a
pretty good price

but it is still just a great
movie and a great tape,

it's got the cool
red label on it.

- We've got Basket
Case, the Evil Dead,

Godzilla, Bigfoot,
Zombie Holocaust,

Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We've got some other ones here.

Now these are the covers I
actually have on display.

Everyone's got to
have Dawn of the Dead.

Nightmare City Alien Terror.

Media, I bloody love Media.

Everyone's got to have
Hollywood Chainsaw Hooker

and Deadly Prey.

Okay, some other classics here.

We've got Exterminator films.

Oh my god, there are two.

- I started collecting
tapes in high school.

It was while DVD was coming out

so all the tapes
were going on sale

and after school
everyday I would go to

one of the local video
stores, there was probably

three or four at the time, and

I would just try
to buy everything

I could out of the
horror section.

There wasn't really
ever anything that rare,

it was always stuff like
Nightmare on Elm Street

or Friday the
13th, common stuff.

But I still had to
have everything and
I became obsessive.

That was the gateway for me,

I never really
stopped after that.

- I began collecting VHS tapes
honestly not that long ago

because I grew up with
them and when the world

made the switch to DVDs I was

kind of oblivious to
the whole aesthetic and

vintage aspect of the VHS,

the significance of it
being one of the first,

well pretty much the first
major home video medium.

- Oh, I do enjoy an evening with

a little light entertainment.

But when your video heads get
dirty, you lose your picture.

Not a pretty sight.

Happily this new Polaroid
Video cassette will help you.

It actually cleans
your heads as it plays

so dirty heads
needn't haunt you.

New Polaroid Video cassettes.

Get the picture?

- Many people have a
list as I've found,

which I found only from
collecting VHS tapes.

I'll go into a store, or
a vendor at a flea market

and there will be, I'll
have my list with me,

and someone will walk in and say

oh you've got a list,
I have a list too

or the owner, the
vendor himself will come

over and say oh you've
got a list, I have a

few more customers with lists,

so I guess I'm not alone,
I didn't think I was alone.

I thought it was a
pretty standard thing
for VHS collectors.

- I don't know whether
I would consider

the VHS collection I
have to be valuable

but to me, personally
it's a collection

that I would never get
rid of because they're

early VHS releases of some of my

favorite ghost
stories for example.

A ghost story for Christmas
released by the BBC in the 70s

was released by the BFI on VHS

so I was one of the first to
go out and purchase those.

Also even have a collection
of Charles Bronson films

like Cold Sweat which
is an excellent film.

And also The Woman in Black,
when that was released on VHS

after its run on U TV or I TV,

that was a must have,
an absolute must have

and actually I
remembered the time,

I found the VHS itself
in a bargain bin

but there was no cover
so I nearly missed it

and then I said that's
The Woman in Black.

And then a couple of weeks
later, somebody was throwing out

a case for a film
and I looked at it

and it was the case
for The Woman in Black

and there was no video in it.

So I felt the two were
meant to be married so

I took that and I've held that
in my collection ever since.

Also films like Nicolas
Roeg's Don't Look Now

which would be one of
my all time favorites.

In fact pretty much anything
that Nicolas Roeg did,

Walkabout being another classic.

Even though walkabout
isn't a horror movie,

it has horrific elements and
it's a disturbing picture.

- My most valuable tape,
or how much did I pay,

I'm a bargain
shopper, I'm thrifty.

I'll sit and spend months
getting a good deal on a tape,

I'm just, I'm like that.

On average I pay 30 to 50.

For me the most expensive
tape I ever bought

was probably my Night of
the Demons from 1980 box

because I paid 50 for
it and it's cut to shit,

but it's actually a
pretty good deal because

I don't see them for
less than $100 normally.

You know, whatever.

- I didn't really aggressively
start collecting tapes

until maybe six years
ago and since then

I've probably spent
something ridiculous

like at least $15,000 on tapes.

Somewhere along the way
I got into collecting

exploitation films and
that led me into collecting

adult films, and it's been
all downhill from there.

- So rare and valuable tapes.

I imagine I have a few.

From a collector's
point of view,

I would say America's
Deadliest Home Video

which I found for a
dollar at a Vineland

you sell flea market
in Vineland New Jersey

right near my hometown.

This flick is pretty rare.

I did reanimate with
Cat Motion Pictures

so now you can get it.

But this original
copy is pretty rare.

- So a couple of my
prized possession tapes.

The first on the list would
be Wet Wilderness on VCX.

There's only two of these
known in collector's circles

and this is one of them.

It's a crazy
backwoods slasher and

there's a ski masked killer
running around in the woods

raping and torturing people
and forcing incest on families.

There's gore and it's insane.

I can't even really
explain it that well.

I spent $600 on this and I
know that's a crazy price

for a single tape but
it's worth every penny

as far as I'm concerned.

Like I said, there's only
two in collector's circles.

This is one.

And there's the other one.

- Another is

this copy of The Sorcerers
on Allied Artists.

These tapes are
really hard to find.

They're just rare like as
a collector's standpoint

point of view.

They're just a
hard tape to find.

But a different kind
of rarity for me

is stuff like Learn the
Easy Art of Needle Tatting

with a gate fold sleeve that
has an actual needle in it.

Now how many of these do you
really think have survived?

Who really gives a
crap about these tapes?

Probably not many so there's
probably not that many of these

and that's a different
kind of rarity.

On the same page, how
about the Eye Improvement

System Home Video, I
mean like what is this?

You ever seen this before?

I mean, is this rare, I mean
that makes it rare I guess.

Probably many of
them didn't survive.

- So my second favorite
tape is Water Power on VHL.

Unlike Wet Wilderness
on VCX, VHL released it

several times in different
covers and variance.

There's several clam
shells, there's a big box,

there's a small carton
and there's Beta
Max releases of each

and so I spent
$250 on this tape,

but I've been trying
to get every other tape

and those $250 add up
and I'm at six now,

and close to $2,000 in
on Water Power tapes.

But again, I don't
really regret that

because this is the only
one of these I've ever seen

and I've been keeping an
eye out for four years now.

So yeah that's Water Power.

- And on that suit,
how about a video tour

of your new Meyer's
store in Ontario.

I mean this is
probably pretty rare,

how many of these did they
make and who really cares?

Who didn't just throw this away?

And you gotta think
when's the next time

you're gonna find
something like this

and that's the
type of rarity that

I'm really interested
in stuff that

really wouldn't exist anymore.

Because it gets thrown
away or you know

just nobody cares about it.

It's not like a
collector's piece.

It's not like a hot horror tape

or like a sexy
exploitation tape.

- So aside from
collecting adult tapes,

I've also been collecting
copies of X rated films

from around the world
for about four years now.

They range from this American
tape from Wizard Video

to this Israeli tape.

This one's cool, I never
thought I would own this.

I saw one sell for $400 one day

and the next day I
found one for $100.

To copies from South Korea
and several countries

that released it and it looks
nothing like the actual movie.

To copies like this
one from Sweden,

and it's from a company
called Viking Video which was

apparently co distributed or
licensed under Wizard Video

and if you collect
tapes from America

you know that Wizard
Video's important

because they released
all the big boxes

and those were some
of the flashiest

covers that there
was in the 80s.

As far as these
X rated tapes go,

I've probably got like 40 now.

I hate to think about
how much I spent on them

and how much I'm going to
spend on them in the future

because only rare and
rarer ones out there.

But it gives you something
to look forward to

finding new tapes like that.

- I love the fact that it's
kind of part of history really.

It's kind of these
tapes all came out

sort of 1979, 1980
and were available for

three, four years until
1983, 1984 when the

VRA act came in.

They weren't produced
in massive numbers

and now they're just
kind of part of history

and part of a time when you
could go to the video store

and pick up a tape and
not have to have ID.

Just go to a video store really.

- But I think the most
valuable tapes in my collection

are the tapes that I have
from when I was a kid.

My original copy of
All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Or The Sandlot, or the home
videos of me and my dad

rough housing in the living room

or like playing in the yard,

or like my third
grade holiday play,

those are one of ones.

- So again some of
my more rare tapes,

we'll just take a quick peak.

Now this one is not as rare,
rare, rare as you've got

but Blood Lake is
a damn classic,

in fact, it's one of
my most favorite films

perhaps the most favorite film.

This I bought many times.

I had a few copies of
it and what I was doing

when I was buying multiple
copies of Blood Lake

was I was creating
a composite because

it's not on DVD and I wanted
to have the best quality

I could get, so I had
two or three different

quality copies and I
was taking the video

from parts if there
was a video dropout

I'd switch to another
copy and use that video

and I took all the sounds,
so we've got nice hi-fi

quality stereo sound.

It just sounds beautiful.

Transfer that to a digital copy.

So Blood Lake videotape is one

of my most prized possessions.

I think the most valuable
tape I have right now

because I've sold off so many

is Splatter Farm, the
original Splatter Farm.

I did pay a pretty penny
for this a few years ago

but I'm a Palone lifer
and just had to have it.

Even though I had already
gotten copies of this

first edition of the
movie because it's

not the same as
what's on the DVD.

The original video cassette
release is just a treasure.

I always say it's kind of like
owning a negative of a movie

because it was shot on
video, it's on video,

yeah it's an editing
later generation,

but to have an original, yeah,

I think that's probably my most

valuable tape I have right now.

- I quite like this
Evil Dead version.

You've got the palace
logo on the inside.

I've got this off a tractor.

Other tapes, I think my
two kind of prized items

is SS Experiment Camp,
because it's kind of

one of the core titles in
the whole nasty scandal

and you've got the
great cover there,

that nasty looking
woman upside down.

Actually this copy's
really really nice quality,

and if you open inside,
you've got the original

kind of Go Video case there.

The kind of gold
Go label on there

and the take itself is
really nice condition.

For that I paid 100 pounds for

off of a private
seller through Facebook

which is quite a lot of money.

But I think they're kind of
worth around about 200, 250 now

if you try and get one on Ebay.

Another tape I
really like is Snuff.

Another tape I like to
own, not actually watch

because it's actually a
terrible terrible film.

But this was quite a hard one

to get ahold of back in the day

because as far as I understand,

Astro Video who had
I Spit on Your Grave

they had the rights
to put this out

and they actually
had covers printed up

and they had others
printed up for it

and then for some
reason they withdrew it

and they said they
weren't gonna release it,

but shortly after that
tapes came onto the market

and I think the
official explanation is

there was an underground
pirate company or something

which were putting
these tapes out.

But they're very good
quality and I think

I honestly think
the real reason was

that Astro put these
tapes out themselves,

the reason why they didn't
put their name on their

and the reason they left
the actual tape itself

pretty blank with just
a basic sticker on it

is they were trying to sort of

play on the whole mythology
of this being like

a real life Snuff
movie and this is like

something you shouldn't have.

- This is an original
VHS, if you can see it,

big box of Nightmare.

I love this over art because
it says clearly on here

that it contains the
effects work of Tom Savini.

This tagline was later removed

because I think there
was some disagreement

between Tom and the
filmmakers as to

whether or not he actually
applied the effects

or just consulted, but
claimed, it boasted anyway

that the film itself
and the effects,

the effects in the film
were done by Tom Savini

when in reality Tom said
no, I was a consultant

but didn't actually
do the effects.

- Well I don't monitor value,

has very little to do with
my collecting of VHS tapes.

There's definitely
a limit to how much

I'm willing to pay for a tape,

and if I don't like the
movie, I'm not gonna buy it.

I couldn't care less.

But I checked around
online and apparently,

this one is sort of
valuable, I don't know.

It's an Australian edition.

A semi legit edition apparently

of George Romero's
Dawn of the Dead.

- Let's just see, this
one is quite rare.

It is the Massacre Up
North original release,

it's a Canadian shot
on video slasher.

It was funny because it's
put out by Rodgers Video.

For a while they were doing
their own label of releases

called the first rights
and it was meant to be

for the independent
films so that

the independent films that
did not have a distributor

at the time, Rodgers Video
which was a video store

and a cable company
were dabbling

in releasing their video line.

So this is from
early 2000 release.

It's a late 90s shot on
video slasher Canadian,

Massacre Up North, that's
one of the valuable ones.

- The most I spent on a
VHS is a Korean version

of Monster Dog with Alice
Cooper, cost 100 bucks.

And it's in the mail.

- Well I think this
one's kind of nice.

First it's like a
double value for me.

It's Fart, the movie.

Great flick.

It's really interesting
though because like they say

it's the movie they said
could never be made.

Well, I guess they caught
the Fart on camera,

but anyway, what's cool
about this release is that,

this movie I actually like 90
minutes long, or 80 minutes,

something like that
but this release itself

is only 30 minutes, says
so right on the back there.

It's a 30 minute tape.

It's actually a condensed
version of the movie.

You can see the
big wheels there,

it only has a
little bit of tape.

It's a 30 minute long
from Wavelength Video.

I kind of had to
read about this a bit

but it seems like this
version, the 30 minute version

was released straight
to the distributors

or companies or something
but it was for them

to get just basically a
condensed version of the movie.

- One of my favorite
VHS as a kid was

this is one of those ones
that I rented so many times,

lucky enough I have
a copy of this one.

This is a very rare one to find.

This is Popples Funhouse
Folly and Other Stories.

This is basically, the only
reason that I love this one,

is not just cause
it's the Popples,

it's because it has the live
action Popples pilot movie

that Shelly Duvall produced.

It's supposed to I think
be a pilot TV series,

they were gonna pilot it
and see if they actually

continued it on to
do a series of this

and it didn't work out
or something like that

so they put this on this VHS
and it had this great music.

♪ This popples magic popples

I don't know, as a kid, I
absolutely loved this one

so much, I would rent
this one so many times.

This, and one I don't
know where it is anymore,

was My Pet Monster, live action.

Those two are some of my all
time favorite things to watch

but this one is probably my
top favorite one of all time

especially as a kid's rental.

- Maniac.

Maniac on VHS, I think
I bought this where a

a video rental store in
Cambridge, Massachusetts

was going out of business.

I think this is one of the
films that I bought there,

and I only think that because of

the dot of the price sticker.

- First laser disc I ever
purchased was The Lost Boys,

I still have it.

I was so excited because I
hadn't seen this in the theater,

I got to finally see
it widescreen because

at that point,
laser disc was the

only way to watch
anything widescreen.

Yeah, this was the first
one, I think I ordered

the Star Wars Trilogy
from Columbia House

but that hadn't arrived yet.

I drove out to a store
and purchased this one

just because I had
to watch something,

I had a laser disc
player sitting there

with nothing to play
on it, that can't go on

so I picked up The Lost Boys.

- Yes, I can understand you.

I'm Leonard Nimoy.

Interesting.

A record player that
produces beautiful sounds

and pictures through my TV.

- One thing that I really
loved about laser discs,

that you really
couldn't, I guess,

actually I never
tried but I don't know

that it was as prominent
with VHS tapes,

but with laser discs
it was always fun to

look for the import movies,

alternate versions
of movies on import.

One of my favorites is,
what they called in Japan,

Captain Supermarket, which was
the uncut Army of Darkness.

This one was pretty hard to get.

I really enjoyed at that point,

not that I knew
I would enjoy it,

but looking back I
enjoyed the fact that

it took some effort
to get these movies.

You couldn't just download it,

you couldn't just
buy the DVD that had

11 different versions
of the movie on it,

you had to actually, and
you couldn't even look

them up on the
internet at that point.

- At first glance this player--

Excuse me, Magna vision,

gives the appearance of a
highly stylized record player.

However, I notice the absence
of a stylus or needle.

An optical laser scanner?

And Magna vision was
the first consumer

product in our galaxy to use it?

Now that is an entirely new
dimension in entertainment.

- But yeah, that's one
thing I really enjoyed

about laser discs
was just the effort

and the struggle
and the research

and just all the
detective work it took

to pick up these unavailable
movies in the states

on laser disc in Japan.

I just still have my
collection in my room

with all my stuff, so it's not,

I don't think it's
in any danger.

I didn't stuff it in
a garage or something.

Laser discs, they
don't get mold,

but they do get
what's called disc rot

which is a rust that develops
between the layers of the disc

if it wasn't air tight when
they glued them together

and that you can
do nothing about.

That is dreaded and
that will ruin a disc,

it looks like
little colored blips

that just go all
over the screen.

It's a nightmare.

Once that happens, you're done.

I had heard that you
have to play your discs

at least once a year because it

redistributes the glue
inside when they heat up

and start spinning, I don't
know how true that is.

Did not have time to
play everyone of my
discs once a year.

- So, VHS was a big big
part of my life for about

I guess 10, 12 years,
something like that.

And then of course we
had laser discs came out

but I never really...

- No, I never got
the laser discs.

- It was just way
out of my price range

and most of the stuff that I
really wanted to get ahold of

never really came out,
it only seemed to be

the bigger films like I don't
Aliens or something like that.

- Pretty much anything on
DVD was gonna be printed

and printed and printed with
obviously some major exceptions

but for the most part,
they're still being made.

VHS tapes, again
with some exceptions,

are not being made anymore.

What is out there is
what is out there.

There's nothing else
being fed into the pool

into the population.

So if you find a VHS tape,
it's one of a limited number.

For some reason,
that attracts me.

There's something about it.

Whereas a DVD if I buy
a copy of Friday on DVD,

and then I buy the other
million or so copies

out there of Friday,
they're gonna make more,

or they'll make Blu Rays but
they're still making DVDs

so they're gonna
make more of them.

That makes it so that owning
Friday isn't that special

because truth be
told, I'll never

watch most of
these movies again.

Why, because my 1500 movie
long movies to see list

is gonna keep
growing faster than

I can re watch
movies that I love.

- You will find a
selection of coming attractions

available on the
VRO network labels.

- There's a lot of films,
I think My Lie was one

which was one of the
first, if I remember,

I could be wrong here,
one of the first found

footagy of the recent period

where they kind of took the
whole big brother thing,

and I didn't like
it until the end

and then once the
end hit, I got it,

and was ah, that's amazing,
and then I loved it.

So with Netflix
and that sort of,

because they're so blood,
even love film which I love,

and I use because it's cheap,
it's efficient and it's easy.

I'm a film person,

we make films ourselves,
and people sag off my films,

some people love them,
some people hate them.

But I know how much
effort I've put in

and so I know how much effort
someone else has put in

so I feel I should at
least give the film,

it's entire chance,
so when you've got the

disposable ness of it,
sometimes you don't.

- I think because of
that a lot of people,

a lot of my friends when
I ask them what they watch

they just watch series
because it's easier,

because they don't
want to sit there

and sort of go through
the first two minutes

of each film before they decide.

If they know whatever
series, whether it's Dexter,

or if they know that
they kind of like that

and they don't want
to think about it

so that's what they put on,

and they just watch one
series and when that finishes

they watch another
one, they don't really

watch films that
much on Netflix.

That's generally what the
people give me as feedback.

I mostly watch DVDs
and Blu Rays, still

but we do use Netflix.

My partner particularly
likes Netflix.

I often find that
there's nothing

that I really watch
to watch on it.

- Quality's fantastic
on Blu Rays but I'm

unamused that yet another
technological advance in media

when VHS is fine with me,
I like the rawness of it,

I like how it's a
little bit dated.

Why keep printing the same
things over and over and over

that are just a little
bit better each time.

You know, obviously
it's for money

and frankly, I just I have
no desire to get Blu Rays,

to watch Blu Rays.

- So the point being, this
whole tangibility thing

brings us back to VHS
and why we collect them,

because we've gone
from big chunky things

to nothing.

So I think that's
where VHS lies now.

Why are we still collecting?

Because we like going
back to the days which

it was an adventure,
going to the shop

and looking through those
rows and rows and rows

and trying to look
at the horror ones,

and the ones with horror
ticks on the front

which you're not
going to look at

when you're with your
parents or when you're

a bit older, with your Misses

and you're kind of
like just trying...

There's a whole thing to
it which you don't get now

and I think that's what
a lot of collecting is.

Other people collect
antiques or anything

you're harking back to
something you're enjoying.

That was such an
enjoyable experience.

I think holding the VHS
you are getting that again.

- Exactly, picking
up some of the,

I've still got some of the
big box soft cover ones.

They're a bit squiggly.

- Clam shells?

- Clam shells, that's it.

And when you open that
up and inside you've got

the stamp of the video shop
over the film title label

and all of that,
they're so beautiful.

If you do have the
space to display them

I think they're just
valued works of art

because as you said the
posters are incredible.

You generally very rarely get

real posters on films nowadays.

There are a few sort of
genre famous artists like

Graham Humphreys.
- Graham Humphreys.

- Okay here's a VHS phenomenon

no one's ever been
able to explain to me
in my satisfaction.

Fricken clam shells.

Certain companies didn't
believe in the same

cardboard cases that
everyone else is

shipping out their VHS tapes in.

No, no, no, these guys,
their stuff is so precious

they have to develop
this technology

of this padded plastic
kind of case thing

to send their stuff out in.

Unfortunately, this case is
about one point two seven times

the size of a normal VHS
tape so you know what

it's not fitting on
your shelf kids, sorry.

- I think my strangest
VHS memory has to be

as a young boy, when
Poltergeist and ET

hadn't yet been
released in our cinemas,

a friend of the family
decided to go up to this place

in Tallah which is
a suburb of Dublin

and he decided that he was
going to get us a surprise

and he knocked on this door.

The guy behind the door,
didn't open the door

but he responded and he said
what are you looking for?

And the friend of the family
said, "ET and Poltergeist."

So he was instructed
to put some money

through the letter box and
then he just passed out

these two blank VHS tapes,
and when we got them home

to our shock and
incredible surprise,

it was Poltergeist and ET.

So we got to see them pretty
much before nearly anyone else

in Ireland in the early 80s.

So that probably is the
strangest experience

I would've had with VHS.

There's been other
odd experiences but

I think that tops them all.

- One of the most
bizarre situations

I was ever thrust into for
finding VHS tapes probably

me and my girlfriend found
this ad on Craigslist

and they said they had a
bunch of adult VHS titles

and I don't really
collect adult titles

but I have a lot
of friends that do,

so we decided to
go check it out.

So we get to this two
story house in suburbia,

fairly like rich looking house.

They opened the door
and it's just like two

harmless looking
middle aged people,

very normal looking people,

and it's already like
hm, that's kind of weird.

We walk in and they
are having like

a pseudo estate sale and
everything in their house

is marked with like
little post it notes,

and they have prices on
the little post it notes.

They're trying to
sell us a cookie jar

and a whole fireplace
and stuff like that.

So finally we get to the porno,

and they have like
20 banana boxes,

like boxes like this big
full of big box porno

and it's all from later
era like 80s and 90s

and we're going through it,
and as we're going through it,

you can just feel the
embarrassment in the room

and they're just like
super uncomfortable

and they're sitting there
like biting their nail

as we're going through it.

And we're not really
feeling it, or whatever,

there wasn't much, anything
we really wanted there,

and at the end of
it they were like

are you sure you
can't take any of it?

They seemed desperate to
get rid of this porno,

like it was this dirt
or blood on their hands

and they were just like
so embarrassed to have it

and the whole vibe was kind
of bizarre and kind of funny.

Really nice people but
man it was just weird

and really funny.

So yeah, porno at the
suburban white people's house

was pretty weird.

- Actually, I have a funny
story about adult VHS tapes.

In college a buddy of mine
found a girlfriend finally,

loved the guy, Vinny the mouse.

He was a very tiny guy,
very short, very thin,

wonderful guy.

Met this really tall
beautiful woman,

she dwarfed him in every way.

Love at first sight.

Unfortunately he had a
extensive porn collection.

She did not agree with
the porn collection.

So he had to get rid of it.

He was stashing it in friends
places because he wasn't sure,

they'd only been
dating a couple months.

So he stashed his
porn collection

with a bunch of
different friends.

I was one of them,

and I found myself
in possession of

The Ass Master.

Thanks, Vinny.

- So collecting tapes has
gotten me out of my house

and brought me to some
pretty strange places.

Two stories that
happened on the same day.

We were in New York
hosting a screening of

Desperate Teenage Love Dolls

and our friend Matt
from Horror Boobs

decided that he
wanted to take us out

to look for tapes at
the old porn stores

near 42nd St in Times Square.

The first few stores we went to

we didn't really find much.

We were buying stuff
just to buy stuff

and say we bought stuff,

but the third place we
went to we went upstairs

because that's where
they kept all the tapes

and the guy that owned the
place didn't really tell us

what else was
upstairs but there was

lap dance booths, and there
was probably like 12 of them

and there was these girls
that were walking around naked

and they were bringing
guys into get lap dances

while we were looking for tapes.

They'd be walking past us
to have cigarette breaks

on the fire escape.

It was pretty weird.

The second story
is kind of weirder.

We went to another porn
store and we asked if

they had tapes, the guy
that owned the place, said,

"Oh yeah, we get a lot of tapes
but they're in the basement.

"And I'm only going to let two
of you down there at a time."

So Matt and I decided
that we'd go downstairs

and all the tapes
were in these giant

industrial size trash
bags, and the guy that

brought us downstairs kept
on saying not to look around.

Don't look around, and I noticed

that there was
probably a dozen racks

of VHS duplicators
running and they were

duplicating some
pretty interesting porn

while we were digging
around through tapes

and we actually found
some good stuff that day

in that place there was big
boxes and rare kung fu shit.

It was worth being in
a nasty basement with

gross Japanese playing.

- So my strangest VHS memory

is probably when I was
a kid and I walked into

this small Indie video
store and there it is

eye level with me, the
continental big box for

City of the Walking Dead.

Now, if you don't
know what that is

or what I'm talking
about, let me explain.

The cover of the box is
a still from the movie

and it's this naked chick
with her eye gouged out.

So here I am this pubescent
kid and I'm seeing this

and it's totally
weirding me out with this

mix of like sexuality
and repulsion,

so every time I was
in that video store

I'm staring at that box,

just kind of trying
to figure it out.

Trying to figure out
how I feel about it.

Personally I think
it traumatized me.

- Now when it comes to
strange VHS memories,

one thing I always remember
that was kind of weird

was how VHS used to be released.

When the things
used to come out,

now when a movie comes
out, it's a new release,

it comes out to Red
Box, DVD, Blu Ray,

you can buy it
everywhere, on Amazon,

everywhere you can get stuff,

it comes out the
exact same time.

When VHS first was coming out

you used to have to actually
go and rent it first.

That was the only
place you could get it.

So it was always a weird
thing because I always

me, loved to have tapes and
loved to have the collection.

So it was always
for me as a kid,

always such a strange
thing that you would

have to wait another like
six months to a whole year

to actually buy the movie,

because like I said you
could rent it first,

but you could not buy it.

So as a kid, it used to
always drive me crazy,

and if you really
really had to have it

right when it first came
out, it would be like $110

or something like that
to buy it right away.

- Well I got into a fight
once in a video store

with the clerk, after renting
a Swedish horror movie

or slasher.

God bless them.

Basically I demanded a refund
and the guy refused to.

I was furious.

I'm kind of big on bad movies.

I'm a huge Ed Wood fan
and I like Trough too

but this one was awful and
I demanded my money back.

The guy finally
just got tired of me

and told me sure, you can
have your money back but

does this work the
other way around

so you're willing to
pay double if you rent

something you really like?

And for like a
millisecond you just go.

No.

God damn it.

So he kind of won that argument.

- So that was always a
very strange thing for me

as well, as back then
too before you could go

on the internet and you
could look things up,

I didn't know things
were coming out.

Some of my favorite things
like some of the Ernest movies

I used to kind of just
discover they were out

when I went into the
video rental place.

That was the thing
that was kind of cool

about renting movies as a kid,

you didn't know what was
out until you actually

got to the video rental store.

Now you kind of know,
you can look on websites

and see upcoming new releases

and you can go on the digital
bits and see cover arts

and things like that, if
things are actually coming out.

But back then, the cool
thing was going into

the video store every
Friday, because that's when

I used to always go as a kid,

and actually go in there
and see what new things

were out on the shelves,
it was the experience

to go oh yeah,
what is this movie,

and you kind of were discovering
things way more than now.

There's not as much
discovery with movies.

- It was funny, I
think Palace Pictures,

Palace Video had to
be the most exciting

because when the logo came up,

it appeared at the
opening of the film,

you always knew you were in
for something really exciting.

You know some of the best films,

like Evil Dead appeared
on the Palace label.

For some reason every
time we get a copy

of a Palace release,
it always seemed to be

I don't know, it
always looked as though

it would never play
and then suddenly

the I can't remember
what it's called,

the tracking, the
tracking system,

when that kicked in, then
suddenly the video played

because so many people would
have rented a Palace Pictures

release so by the
time you got to it,

and our local video store
there would have been

a lot of people booking
out certain types of films,

Evil Dead being the main
one of the Palace releases

that everyone wanted
to see at the time.

It was just, I don't know,
it was always quality.

I think Palace Pictures,
they only really

acquired the very best
that came in from America

or in fact
terrestrially in the UK.

It was just always an
exciting experience.

- I don't know, I have so
many great memories associated

with so many companies, I
mean, the logo would come on

and kind of set the
mood, and you knew you

were gonna see something you
probably shouldn't be seeing.

Some of the logos themselves
were pretty spooky.

But for me, it's kind
of a tie between Gorgon,

because I mean, that logo is
probably one of the best ever

plus they released
Night of the Bloody Apes

which is probably one
of the best movies ever.

Then Embassy because
they released Phantasm

which is definitely one of
the greatest movies ever.

- So my favorite
distributor for video tape.

I've had to think about this
because there's been a lot.

I really just there's great
films, and you see one,

you start to see other
ones on the same label

and you realize right
away, oh these guys,

whoever's releasing
this on this label

must be really having
a good idea because

they're putting out great
flicks one after the other.

So there's obviously
my favorites,

but I would have to say
when it comes to videotape,

my deep down 100% favorite
company, favorite company is

Paragon Video.

Yeah, it's Paragon,
and it's everything.

It's the way that the
star field opens up,

the way the music comes in,

the way, just Paragon comes with

the many layers of
Paragon behind it.

Everything about it is so,

it's so over the top, and
it's so hard set on early 80s.

It knows it's getting
into a new field video.

Nowadays you look at it
and it's almost cliched

the way it's so
electronic, and over stars,

like almost a Superman
effect to it, but Paragon.

Their output was just wonderful.

Paragon did a smart
thing which is probably

why I love it so much, is that

not only did you have
their opening logo

but then they ran like
15 minutes worth of

other trailers before
their own movie.

- Another one here to put you.

Superb little film.

Films like Cannibal Ferox,
some of the old video nasties.

Brilliant art and super,

you've got to have these
in your collection.

Pieces, one of my all
time favorite films.

Preset of Pieces, brilliant.

Now these presets
like this video drone

stuff like that, they were
small box, not big box,

but really a valued edition
to anyone's collection.

One of my favorite
all time distributors

has got to be Wizard.

I love their huge big box,

they're like bloody twos.

I would say probably
Media and Wizard

are my two favorite all
time bloody distributors.

Both in boxes are
literally so heavy.

Look at this.

Superb.

So my two favorite distributors
are Wizard Video and Media.

- Some of my favorite
VHS distributors,

Midnight Video, they
had the best big boxes,

they put out a lot of the
Herschell Gordon Lewis movies,

Microwave Massacre.

I love Vestron, Lightning Video.

Gorgon, all that stuff,
but I would have to say

my favorite one is probably

probably Vestron because
of the amount of titles

they had and I have so many
memories about those movies.

- What does VHS mean to me?

Well VHS is happiness.

I discovered almost all
of the movies that I love

by first seeing them on tape.

I've always loved movies,
and I'd rather watch

a low budget movie with heart

than a giant Hollywood
flick made by producers

trying to appeal to
the largest demographic

so they can make a
billion dollars worldwide.

VHS is the complete
opposite of that.

It's awesome art,
it's discovery,

it's taking a chance
on something new.

Sometimes renting a movie twice

because you got fooled
by an alternate version

or retitle.

The days when VHS was king,
even if something sucked,

you could still have fun taking
about how shitting it was.

Unlike now, when
you finish a movie

and 20 minutes later you forget
you've ever even seen it.

- And my daughter, my
five year old daughter

who's turning six soon,

knows how to work a VCR.

- Honestly, VHS changed my life.

I don't think that I would
be where I am without

the hobby and without the
sub culture surrounding it.

I've traveled so much
because of tapes.

I've met so many people
because of tapes.

I've gotten into
filmmaking myself

which has been a goal of
mine since I was little.

It's crazy to think
that something

that so many people
think is obsolete

and people throw away could
do so much for someone.

So I'm grateful for that.

- The reason why I
really like VHS is

because to me when I
think of childhood,

when I think of back to us
being a kid, I think of VHS.

- I love VHS!

VHS lives!

- Look in
here, I got boxes,

I got like four or five
boxes just filled up

with tapes like this.

Let's see what's
inside this one.

It's this Nasty Hero one.

This one's Gor, I
have a lot of Gor,

it's the sequel to this Gor.

Fancy cheese ball movie,
I think it's Italian.

This one's great, we
have Ninja The Protector.

Transworld Entertainment.

I love that so good cheese.

It's not even in the
movie, this cover,

it's not even in it,
but it's awesome.

What we got here,
also a classic.

Madballs, I got this sort
of like four months ago.

I got this at a convention.

Very good one right there.

Gotta love some junior.

Great, great movie.

Not really like a slasher, more
like a revenge kind of movie

but it's still super
fun and cheese ball.

What do we have here?

Freakmaker by Vidcrest.

Donald Pleasence's great
great monster kind of movie.

Love it.

What else do we have here?

Hardrock Zombies.

Good good stuff.

Love the cover of this.

This is a great one.

One of the better heavy
metal horror movies.

The best one is Trick or Treat.

This is right up there
with some good cheese.

Look at this, Nico
Mastorakis' Grandma's House.

Also did Island of Death.