VHS Horror Movie Collecting and Wizard Video: How Much is Too Much?

Given my interests in horror and sci-fi, I've seen a wide variety of collectors who have built impressive inventories of prized horror and sci-fi artifacts. Collections have been built around pulp magazines, movie posters, model kits, and items specific to a particular franchise. There are even those who prefer to collect copies of horror and sci-fi movies in a non-digital format--namely, the analog medium of VHS. Yet as with every form of collecting, one question remains the same: How much is too much to pay for a particular collectible? In the area of VHS exploitation movies, collectors have asked that very same question when it comes to the recent "special edition" Wizard Video re-releases by Charles Band. Read on for some of my thoughts about this latest exercise in nostalgia marketing.

If you love low-budget exploitation cinema and don't know who Charles Band is, you should. Like Roger Corman and Lloyd Kaufman, Band made a name for himself by churning out tons of low-budget exploitation fare, either by his creating it himself or distributing it through one of his media companies. Wizard Video was Band's initial foray into the VHS market during the early 80s and while it distributed some of Band's own work, it mostly distributed low-budget titles from the U.S. and Europe. Wizard Video built its reputation on being the first to release notorious exploitation classics such Zombie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as its usage of gruesome and erotic artwork on oversized VHS boxes.

Titles from Wizard Video's library have become prized collector's items in the years since the VHS format faded from the home entertainment scene. Thus, when Band claimed to have mint-condition copies of 36 Wizard Video titles in a warehouse a few months ago, the VHS collector market took notice. Since February, Band has been re-releasing these copies as special editions, with four titles being made available per each month. Each title is priced at $50 (not including shipping and handling), and each box is hand-numbered on the spine, autographed by Charles Band, and includes a duplicated VHS copy of the title inside of a clamshell holder.

Questions have arisen since Band's announcement, particularly as to whether these copies are authentic originals or just cheaply made imitations that Band is trying to pass off as the real thing for a quick profit. (Click here to see videos at the VHS Collector site that examine the Wizard Video re-releases in detail.) Of course, Band denies this accusation, in spite of his own history of questionable business practices. Yet VHS tape origins aside, a key question persists: For what you get from Band--an autographed and numbered big box with a VHS tape inside of it--are these titles really worth the prices that Band is charging?

Since I'm a child of the 80s, I have a certain affinity for the VHS format and the mom-and-pop rental shops that appeared around it. (Click here and here for my previous VHS retrospectives.) Like the late-night horror show hosts and the Crestwood House books that came before them, the lurid big VHS boxes that often collected dust on the shelves of video rental shops played a huge role in introducing young horror fans to all sorts of obscure and funky horror film titles. European exploitation icons such as Jesus "Jess" Franco, Lucio Fulci, Paul Naschy and Jean Rollins found their first American audiences thanks to distribution companies such as Wizard Video.

One of the most memorable aspects of the VHS craze was the artwork on the VHS box covers, particularly Wizard Video covers. Many were simply amazing, with higher production and entertainment value than the movies themselves. These covers featured some of the best pop horror art since the horror comic books from the 50s, 60s and 70s and they were on display in video stores across the country for movie fans of all ages to appreciate. There hasn't been anything quite like this to promote horror movies since most of the video stores folded, so I can understand why some horror fans who lived through the VHS era would want to preserve a piece of that time in their own homes.

On the other hand, I think that the price that Band is charging for his videos is too expensive, especially for tapes that aren't authentic originals. For $50, I would expect a special edition Wizard Video VHS package to include a production booklet about the movie itself, as well as a bio of the artist who painted the cover art that Wizard Video used to entice people to rent the movie in the first place. Since the artwork is what Wizard Video boxes are known for, the artists behind it should get their due. Without these extra features and the lingering doubts about their authenticity, Band's Wizard Video offer is asking for too much for so little. Even if you swear by the VHS format over DVD and Blu-ray, you'll get much more bonus material from a special edition DVD or Blu-ray than any of Band's special edition Wizard Video releases. For example, compare all of the extra features included in Criterion's DVD release of Equinox (read my Equinox post here) to the upcoming special edition Wizard Video release of Equinox, which was renamed as The Beast. If you love low-budget and cult classic horror, the Criterion release is clearly the better and cheaper choice.

Another dubious aspect of the special edition Wizard Video sale is Band's autograph on the boxes. Sure, Band has written, directed and produced many films over the course of his career, but many of the Wizard Video titles aren't his--he just distributed them. Thus, using his autograph to justify charging extra money for films that he did not make just feels sleazy (regardless of how tasteless and god-awful these films actually are). Sure, Band distributed a handful of Franco movies in the U.S. through Wizard Video but if I'm going to get an autographed copy of a Franco film, then I want Franco's autograph and not Band's.

I have very fond memories of the VHS era, and I still regret not renting more of the big box titles when I had the chance and purchasing them used from my local video store when it went bust. Yet what Charles Band is offering strikes me as a shameless attempt to cash in on VHS nostalgia, and I can think of much better ways to appreciate a bygone era of home entertainment than sending money to Band.

Classic Italian Horror Cinema Lives on in Insidious (2011)

One of the great things about being a long-term horror fan who watches both American films and films from other countries is noticing how older horror films impact newer horror films in different cultures. No, I'm not talking about Hollywood's current infatuation with remaking horror movies, both domestic and foreign; I'm talking about how filmmakers from one country adopt the look and feel of horror that is often associated with filmmakers from another country--while at the same time remaining faithful to their own cultural roots. Such mixture of styles result in horror movies that are much more engaging than those that are content to merely imitate the cinematic approach used by the most well-known horror movies.

Take Insidious, for example. When it was released in 2011, the ad campaigns promoted the fact that it produced by people from the Saw and Paranormal Activity franchises--namely James Wan, Leigh Whannell, Jason Blum, Jeanette Brill, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider. Wan directed Insidious, while Whannell wrote its screenplay and Blum, Brill, Peli and Schneider assumed producer duties. Such advertising was done to capitalize on popular American horror franchises, and the plot of Insidious does bear some plot similarities to Paranormal Activity (2007) and other popular American horror movies such as The Exorcist (1973) and Poltergeist (1982). Yet what I did not expect when watching Insidious was just how much it was influenced by classic Italian horror directors such as Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento. In other words, as American horror movies go, Insidious is the most Italian movie I've seen that wasn't made by anyone from Italy.

Insidious tells the story of Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) who have just moved into a new home with their three children. After one of their children Dalton (Ty Simpkins) slips into an inexplicable coma, strange occurrences begin to plague the Lambert family. The Lamberts move to a new address to escape what they believe to be a haunted house, but the haunting continues in its frequency and intensity. Josh and Renai soon learn that the key to ending the haunting lies with saving their comatose son, a task that requires the Lamberts to look to the past for answers.

I don't want to say too much more about Insidious because it will give too much away. What I can say is that I think it is a movie that delivers an ample supply of scares, largely through Wan's careful attention to detail: the film features many visual and spoken clues that pay off greatly during the film's final act. I also encourage horror fans who love films by Italian directors such as Bava, Fulci and Argento to see Insidious because they will find much to appreciate in this movie. As the film progressed, it reminded me of classic Italian thrillers such as Shock (1977), Suspiria (1977) and The Beyond (1981).

I think that Wan's homage to Italian horror was intentional: If you look closely in Dalton's bedroom in the second house, you'll briefly see a page from a Diabolik comic book displayed in a picture frame. The character Diabolik made his first appearance on the big screen in 1968's Danger: Diabolik, a film that was directed by horror maestro Bava. That said, I'd also advise that fans who don't care for Italian horror, which is known for balancing surreal creepiness with low-budget camp, might want to avoid Insidious for the same reason why I appreciated it. If spaghetti horror isn't your thing, Insidious probably won't be either.

Insidious is a welcome addition to the haunted house subgenre of horror, but fans who know their foreign films will also be thrilled by the movie's frequent nods to the classic Italian approach to fright flicks.

VHS Rental Memories: The Good, The Bad, and The Schlocky

This morning, I saw in the newspaper an article that discusses how the future of movie distribution largely belongs to the digital, on-demand format and how this shift in distribution will change how people select and view movies. This isn't the first article I've read about this subject, and it won't be the last. In fact, I'm a big fan of any distribution service that allows me to watch films that I want to see (regardless of the films' lacking popularity) when it best suits my busy schedule.

Because I grew up in a time when you had to wait for movies to show at your local theater or search for older and obscure movies on late-night TV broadcasts, I can't help but to think that something is lost in the process of making movies available at the touch of a button. If you're a fan of horror movies like I am, then you know that it's not just the films that keep the fandom going; it's also the stuff that surrounds the movies that give them their appeal and stoke the imaginations of both veteran and virgin viewers alike. I'm talking about stuff like books, toys, model kits, comic books, bubblegum cards and video games, as well as the places where these items are found--libraries, newsstands, toy stores, book stores, and hobby shops. These things not only satiated my interest in the films that were currently playing in theaters and the monsters that populated those films, but they also provoked my curiosity of other films and monsters that I never heard of before.

I've posted before about the books I've read as a kid that introduced me to the weird and wonderful world of movie monsters (see here and here). This post is devoted to another kind of fantastic place where I learned about many obscure horror movies: local video stores. In a previous post, I waxed nostalgic about VHS cover art; in this post, I'll talk about the unique horrors that VHS rental stores exposed to my fragile young mind, horrors that I didn't completely understand until I reached adulthood and decided to give them a second look. Read on...

To be fair, renting a movie title online is much easier than going to a location outside of your home to find and retrieve a title. Yet I believe that there's something to be said about devoting spaces and places to particular kinds of media exhibition. In the case of video stores, much of the cover art displayed there made a lasting impression on me, as well as on other horror fans; how digital distribution can replace that kind of experience remains unknown. (Then again, perhaps it never will.)

When the video rental stores first opened, my adolescent brain did not comprehend that some of the smaller video companies were trying to break into the rental market by purchasing the distribution rights of obscure, low-budget movies--both domestic and foreign--and making them available to mom-and-pop video places through low-priced package deals. (For smaller, stand-alone rental stores, these package deals made sense: It was a quick and easy way to fill shelf space without having to rely on more expensive mainstream titles.) As the result of this practice, I wound up discovering all sorts of titles that I never heard of before--and might not have heard of by any other means. Of the new horror titles I discovered via VHS rental stores, I've divided them into four categories: No-Budget Filmmakers, Oldies But Not Goodies, Eurotrash, and Giallo. See the sections below for more details about each category.

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No-Budget Filmmakers

It's impossible to be a horror movie fan and not know who Roger Corman is. Not only has he helmed his own share of well-known horror movies, but he also launched the careers of many other filmmakers. On the other hand, if you weren't lucky enough to have your career launched by Corman, then you could always try to be like Corman by directing and/or producing a series of cheapjack horror films.

Of course, VHS rental stores carried plenty of offerings from the Corman-esque Troma Entertainment, which has since gone on to become its own brand name thanks to the exposure it got in the 80s and 90s through the video rental industry and showings on late-night cable television. No, the Corman wannabes that I'm talking about are of a more obscure variety--in my case, our stores featured flicks by Bill Rebane, Earl Owensby and Fred Olen Ray.

Bill Rebane is largely known for The Giant Spider Invasion, the big bug dud where he tried to disguise Volkswagen Beetles as huge arachnids to keep his budget small. We didn't have that title, though--instead, we had Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake, his no-budget Creature From the Black Lagoon rip-off.

Earl Owensby is an exploitation flick producer/actor who is known in some circles as "the redneck Roger Corman" and "Dixie DeMille". Even though his biggest claim to fame was his involvement with James Cameron's The Abyss (Owensby owned the abandoned nuclear plant where Cameron shot his film), his own cinematic output is not nearly as impressive. (Then again, Owensby tried his hand at 3D filmmaking a few years before Cameron did, so he has that.) Our stores carried Owensby's A Day of Judgment and Wolfman.

Fred Olen Ray did loads of low-budget horror and sci-fi during the 80s and 90s, and it has been said that his films rarely cost more than $500,000 to produce. Of his work, we had Alien Dead, Alienator, Deep Space, and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

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Oldies But Not Goodies

Given the number of older horror films that read about before the VHS rental business started, I was hoping that the new trend would allow me to see more classic horror movies--movies that I regarded at that time as that were release before 1970. The way I saw it, why bother renting out films older than that if they weren't any good?

Unfortunately, our local stores only carried a handful horror and sci-fi classics, including The Fly, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, and Night of the Living Dead. Yet what we lacked in older classic movies, we made up for in older crappy movies: Castle of Evil (1966), Equinox (released theatrically in 1970, but originally shot in 1967), The Flesh Eaters (1964), The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackal (1969) and The Time Travelers (1964). These films have their own quirky appeal, but it was a disappointment at the time if you preferred to see work by folks such as Val Lewton, Ray Harryhausen, Jack Arnold and Christopher Lee instead.

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Eurotrash

There were a ton of cheap, trashy American-made horror films from the 70s and 80s available at our video stores, but I had no idea at the time that we also had quite a few cheap, trashy European-made horror films as well, such as these fine gems:

Charles Band should be on this list as a Roger Corman wannabe but like Troma, he was able to use the VHS rental business to successfully hype his own movie production studio, Full Moon Features (a company that he's still hyping to this very day). No, Band's placement on this list really belongs in the Eurotrash category because without Band's other video company, Wizard Video, made it possible for American audiences to see films by the grand maestro of Eurotrash himself, Jesús "Jess" Franco, with this selection of titles:

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Giallo

Of the categories listed here, Giallo is an actual subcategory of horror. Even though Giallo films existed long before the American subgenre of slasher films, everyone in the 80s was too busy watching the exploits of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers and their countless imitators to pay much attention to the Giallo titles that made it to American video rental stores.

I didn't discover the joys of Giallo until I was in college, but it turned out that our video stores had quite a few Giallo titles in stock. Come to think of it, between the Eurotrash and Giallo titles, the horror section in one of our local video stores might as well have been labeled as the foreign film section as well. They even had Dario Argento's classic Deep Red, although it was under the title Deep Red Hatchet Murders and it had a cover that was incomprehensible to anyone who hadn't seen the film.

There were other Giallo titles on our video store shelves (mostly from Band's Wizard Video), some of which you can see below. Many of these films are currently available on DVD under their original release titles.

Judging a VHS Tape by its Cover

When the video rental business finally made it to my town in the mid-80s, several pre-existing business tried to get in on the act, including a small, now-defunct electronics shop and the local convenience store. But the video rental place that won the battle of the boob tube was a new place called K&K. Unlike its local competitors, K&K lasted for almost two decades, until its inability to keep up with the transition to the DVD format finally drove it out of business. I can't say for sure exactly why K&K stayed in business for so long, but I suspect that much of it had to do with its willingness to stock its shelves with just about anything--especially in its early days and in the genre of horror, which brings me to the subject of this post.

Sure, K&K stuffed plenty of cheap, obscure exploitation titles in between the more well-known, bigger-budgeted, theatrically-released titles--there seemed to be no end of Rambo, Conan the Barbarian, Death Wish, Mad Max, Animal House and Enter the Dragon rip-offs. Yet the most obvious examples of video selections that no one heard of and appeared to be made on a shoe-string budget were in the horror section, which was located at the back of the store. Unlike the other genres, many of the horror movie boxes were bigger than regular VHS boxes, and the covers were some of the most lurid things I have ever seen; imagine several rows of these sorts of boxes lined up together across a wall and you have yourself a graphic display of horror imagery that was like no other. Adding to the visual impact of this display was K&K itself: Not only were the owners really into taxidermy, with various stuffed animals and animal heads mounted throughout the store, but K&K was located outside of town along a small, backwoods road, a perfect setting for an obscure, low-budget horror film--say, Video Dead 2?

I've long had a greater appreciation of movie posters that are painted than those that are more photorealistic. Even if the film itself is average, below average, or abosolutely unwatchable, a creatively painted movie poster is a work of art in my opinion. Apparently, my opinion is not unique--almost all of these big box horror videos featured painted covers, as if to compensate for their obscure, budget-impaired titles. (In fact, of the makers of these films put half as much effort into their filmmaking skills as they did in the VHS cover art, their films might actually be worth watching.) Read on . . .

Of course, there were mixed results from this obvious ploy to entice video renters through impressive cover art. The worst was that many covers had little or nothing to do with the movie itself. To show you what I mean, let's take a quick quiz using two covers.

Question 1:

The movie that features this cover is about:

1. A funeral home that is suddenly overrun by an army of zombies (like Return of the Living Dead).

2. A funeral home that is the site of sinister, paranormal happenings (like Phantasm).

3. A funeral home where visitors are terrified by a rotting, possessed hand.


Question 2:

The movie that features this cover is about:

1. An inn visited by a horribly disfigured serial killer who uses an axe to murder his victims.

2. An inn visited by a zombie that is capable of using blunt objects to attack his human prey.

3. An inn haunted by ghosts of two murdered children who re-animate dead bodies as their way of seeking vengeance among the living.

If you selected one of the provided answers for both of these questions, you're wrong. Both of these films are in fact hokey rip-offs of Psycho, the first one from Canada and the second one from Australia.

Nevertheless, among these cheap, forgettable movies were a few genuine cult classics. While the later years of the video rental industry was (and still is) flooded by direct-to-video titles, the early years featured low-budget films from all over the world from the 1960s and 70s, some of which were re-named from their original release titles. Thus, K&K had three movies from Italian horror guru Lucio Fulci, two of which went under different names:

The Gates of Hell

(Original Title: City of the Living Dead)

Seven Doors of Death
(Original Title: The Beyond)

The House by the Cemetery

Alas, the era of mom and pop video rental stores such as K&K is long gone, and these gore-a-palooza displays of horror art for the sake of moving cheapie movies have disappeared along with it. Slasher Index and Critical Condition have plenty of VHS horror title cover art and information about this period of video rentals, and Cover Browser has a huge collection of VHS cover art from a wide variety of genres. In closing, here are a few examples of creepy cover art from titles carried by K&K that I loved to look at but never gave much thought of watching:

Also, check out the covers of these two pre-Dead Snow nazi zombie movies: