VHS. Home video cassette. At one point, nearly the whole world bought and rented tapes. The video store was king. Then, almost overnight, it crumbled. However, you can still find folks buying and collecting old tapes. Is it an obsession? Why do they lust after such an obscure and antiquated format? What was it about the video store and VHS that changed the way we consume entertainment altogether?This book serves as a deep dive into the world of videotape collecting. From the dawn of the video store to the tape hoarders that propagate its continued relevance, VHS collecting is much more meaningful than merely stowing away tapes in a basement!
Video cover art is a unique and largely lost artform representing a period of unabashed creativity during the video rental boom of the 1980s to early 1990s. The art explodes with a succulent, indulgent blend of design, illustration, typography, and hilarious copywriting. Written and curated by Tom "The Dude Designs" Hodge, poster artist extraordinaire and VHS obsessive, with a foreword by Mondo's Justin Ishmael, this collection contains over 240 full-scale, complete video sleeves in the genres of action, comedy, horror, kids, sci-fi, and thriller films. It's a world of mustached, muscled men, buxom beauties, big explosions, phallic guns, and nightmare-inducing monsters. From the sublime to the ridiculous, some are incredible works of art, some are insane, and some capture the tone of the films better than the films themselves. All are amazing and inspiring works of art that captivate the imagination. It's like stepping back in time into your local video store!
Adventures in VHS is a semi autobiographical journey through 60 of the films spawned by the dawn of home video. Featuring contributions from Lloyd Kaufman, Brian Yuzna, Jim Wynorski and many more, its a must read for cult movie fans who lived through the golden age of home video... as well as those who wish they had.
Once believed to be a dead format, VHS has risen from the grave and is now entering the realm of legacy to collectors worldwide. Whether you've collected video tapes since the decline of mom 'n' pop rental stores or just started building your collection, the Video Hunter's Guide (VHG) serves as an indispensable resource for serious collectors. As a robust reference guide, this volume contains more than 10,000 titles chronicled by nearly 70 distributors. More importantly, VHG offers insights to the values and scarcity of each individual release showing realized prices for many of the top releases sought after in the collecting community. Whether buying, selling or trading, keep a finger on the pulse of the VHS collector's market. And unlike similar guides and websites, VHG brings together the full spectrum of collectible genres and releases (along with more common ones). Ultimately, knowledge of what's available and what may be found is the first step in compiling a world class collection!Distributors included are:Academy Entertainment,Active Home Video,A.I.P. Home Video,AIR Video,All American Video,All Seasons Entertainment,Camp Video,Catalina Home Video,CBS/Fox Video,Celebrity Home Entertainment,Charter Entertainment,Cinema Home Video,City Lights Home Video,Coliseum Video,Comet Video,Continental Video,Cult Video (I),Donna Michelle Productions,Embassy Home Entertainment,Englewood Entertainment,Force Video,Genesis Home Video,Gorgon Video,Hollywood Home Theatre,King of Video,Lightning Video,Magnetic Video,Magnum Entertainment,Magnum Video,Media Home Entertainment,Midnight Video,Mogul Communications, Inc.,Massacre Video (NU VHS),Psycho Video (NU VHS),Uneasy Archive (NU VHS),Vultra Video (NU VHS),Paragon Video Productions,Prism Entertainment,Rae Don Home Video,Regal Video, Inc.,RM Films International, Inc.,Saturn Productions,BC Video (SOV),Slaughterhouse Entertainment (SOV),Sterling Silver (SOV),Tapeworm (SOV),Twisted Illusions Inc. (SOV),Simitar Entertainment, Inc.,Something Weird Video,Sun Video Distribution Co.,Super Video,Tempe Video,Thriller Video,Trans World Entertainment,Unicorn Video,United Home Video,USA Home Video,VCI Home Video,VCII, Inc.,Vestron VideomVideo City Productions,Chop Em' Ups (Video City),Video Gems,Warner Home Video,Wizard Video,World Video Pictures, Inc.,Worldvision Home Video
The decade of 1988-1998 was the Golden Age of VHS, a time when anybody with a pulse, a camcorder, and a few bucks could market a video. Comedy writers Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have spent the last 20 years collecting the best odd and unintentionally hilarious videotapes ever produced. Since 2004, they've resurrected them for sold-out audiences across the country as part of their touring show, the Found Footage Festival. Now, for the very first time, they've collected the greatest VHS covers into one handsome compendium -- along with their priceless snarky commentary throughout.
"SOV horror can be as simplistic, challenging, or offensive as any audience perceives it to be. It can also be enlightening, terrifying, and revealing...These are films that compare to no others in existence, and for that reason alone it’s long past time to accord them some measure of serious consideration." Long considered the dead-end of genre cinema, Shot-On-Video (SOV) horror finally gets its due as a serious filmmaking practice. Using classic fanzines, promotional materials, and especially the theories of several important film scholars, Vincent Albarano brings SOV horror into critical focus for the first time in print. Prior to this moment, Video Violence, Twisted Issues, Alien Beasts, and more have never been mentioned in the same breath as André Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer, despite their common ground. AESTHETIC DEVIATIONS delves deep into the most famous SOV horror titles to give credit for their unique and singular contributions to independent genre cinema. Informed equally by a fan’s passion and the studied approaches of scholarly analysis, Albarano offers the first-ever detailed examination of the SOV horror cycle, proving that this strain of amateur filmmaking is deserving of proper appraisal. Sure to enlighten and provoke thought among fans and converts to the unique charms of SOV cinema, as well as inspire newcomers, Albarano’s book proves an invaluable resource for a neglected area of cinematic inquiry.
This book signifies innovative developments in horror cinema research, as well as the current state of the genre within the film and media industries. It is an injection of fresh insights into horror cinema scholarship. This is a book that includes academic studies from established scholars and early career researchers, as well as fans of horror cinema.
How the VCR was transformed from a machine that records television into a medium for movies. The first video cassette recorders were promoted in the 1970s as an extension of broadcast television technology—a time-shifting device, a way to tape TV shows. Early advertising for Sony's Betamax told potential purchasers “You don't have to miss Kojak because you're watching Columbo.” But within a few years, the VCR had been transformed from a machine that recorded television into an extension of the movie theater into the home. This was less a physical transformation than a change in perception, but one that relied on the very tangible construction of a network of social institutions to support this new marketplace for movies. In From Betamax to Blockbuster, Joshua Greenberg explains how the combination of neighborhood video stores and the VCR created a world in which movies became tangible consumer goods. Greenberg charts a trajectory from early “videophile” communities to the rise of the video store—complete with theater marquee lights, movie posters, popcorn, and clerks who offered expert advice on which movies to rent. The result was more than a new industry; by placing movies on cassette in the hands (and control) of consumers, video rental and sale led to a renegotiation of the boundary between medium and message, and ultimately a new relationship between audiences and movies. Eventually, Blockbuster's top-down franchise store model crowded local video stores out of the market, but the recent rise of Netflix, iTunes, and other technologies have reopened old questions about what a movie is and how (and where) it ought to be watched. By focusing on the “spaces in between” manufacturers and consumers, Greenberg's account offers a fresh perspective on consumer technology, illustrating how the initial transformation of movies from experience into commodity began not from the top down or the bottom up, but from the middle of the burgeoning industry out.
