Remember VHS? The paperback-sized cartridges you used to plug into a VCR (breadbox-like player hooked up to your TV; cf. Cronenberg's Videodrome) and rent at video stores? Remember video stores?
Perhaps you don't (you coveted young demographic, you). If not, you may never know the weirdly joyous crapshoot of facing an entire wall of obscure movies, refining your selections at first by cover art — monsters a plus, little boxes filled with C-list cast photos a minus-minus — then over time by familiarity with directors who showed a little more flair, talent, or sheer boobs-babes-and-bullets chutzpah than their straight-to-video assignments demanded.
Today, such moviemakers and movies fall under a critical heading of "vulgar auteurism." And yet there's a big, hard-to-define difference between contemporary VOD exploitation movies and the go-for-broke cheesiness of vintage VHS. To some degree, the difference may boil down to the former's self-reflexive awareness of the latter: the filmmakers working on demand now had video stores as their earliest film schools. Another factor is the relative ease, equipment accessibility and inexpense of low-budget filmmaking now, which paradoxically seems to have discouraged rather than encouraged risk.
The Belcourt pays homage to the fromage that once stocked the 99-cent racks at Silver Video in a new monthly series called "Weeknight Rewind," making its debut 10 p.m. Sept. 30. Audience members will be presented with a choice of three VHS obscurities; the winning title will be projected on the big screen in all its washed-out, staticky, rewind-barred glory — the equivalent of a misspent ’80s afternoon before the giant Magnavox cabinet console in your friend's basement. The theater's website lays out the thinking behind the series:
Once upon a time, you could meander up and down the aisles of a local video store, perusing the multifarious assortment of colorful boxes, complete with outrageous art and even more absurd taglines — each begging to be taken home and enjoyed over a pizza with friends. No more. The video store is now as rare as a new David A. Prior picture. The Belcourt's Weeknight Rewind brings that experience of yesteryear back, once a month, in the comfort of your favorite art house theatre. We'll be digging up lost gems, dredging the depths of genre film, and bringing you the best in absurd action pictures, so-bad-it's-good horror films, and the occasional dose of super-sleazy schlock (best appreciated on VHS, of course). Each month's Weeknight Rewind starts with a specially assembled, all-analog pre-show reel, followed by a clip reel and a back-of-box synopsis-reading from a special selection of three videotapes. Then you, the audience, vote to decide which of these great films to watch. Don't worry — we'll adjust the tracking for you, your job is to come prepared to rediscover the insane offerings of the video generation.
The series is a passion project of Belcourt staffer Zack Hall, the montage wizard behind the theater's homemade trailers (some of which have been adopted by movie houses in other cities). Via email, Country Life asked Hall to talk a little about what makes VHS distinct as a medium, and how his love for tape came about. Below, his answers:
What is it that's aesthetically pleasing or striking about VHS as opposed to digital or celluloid? Why is it a whole different thing?
VHS is a different thing, but the fetish is pretty much the same old story ... This is physical. You hold it in your hand. You see it on a shelf. You read the back cover. There's more of a seduction that happens with this physical media. As for the quality, well ... as with other forms of physical media, there's the decay that happens with time — the rolls, the waves, the tracking adjustments, the noise. It's not that this stuff is great, it just adds another layer of texture to the experience. This all sounds a bit romantic, but that's what nostalgia is, really. It doesn't necessarily have to make aesthetic sense, it just has to get that little part of you going.
The thing that really sets VHS apart from those other types of physical media is the time at which it came out — the kinds of movies being made just weren't quite being made that way, for those reasons, before tapes. You end up with this glut of schlocky, gutbucket, insane features from low-level studios that shoot for the moon and often fail. But in the attempt, there are often a whole bunch of unheralded masterpieces — glimmers of genius, that punky gall that really defined the era — that ended up getting lost amongst the rubble when the video store died out. It's with that in mind that this whole VHS hunting thing really hit home for me. There are things out there no one would ever tell me about because everyone has already forgotten them. There are ballsy stunts, outrageous monsters, inept one-liners ... there's really everything a boy could dream of, lurking on a shelf somewhere in Goodwill.
Aren't you a little young to remember VHS with nostalgia? What are your memories of VHS, and how did they shape your love of movies?
I'm 28, so I grew up around the end of the whole scene, but I have very fond memories of wandering around the video stores at a young age. I used to be terrified of the horror section, but I always felt drawn to the grotesquerie — the various shades of red, the gleaming blades, the buxom babes, the screams. I have the distinct memory of winning some Pizza Hut contest for a VHS copy of The Land Before Time after someone broke into our house and stole our VCR with my then-favorite tape still inside.
In high school, when I was first really getting into film, VHS was the only way to see a lot of stuff. I saw Lynch and Godard and Fellini and Tarantino and Argento all for the first time on tape. I would walk the aisles of the local video store and look for the Janus stamp on the spines, and I'd immediately grab it, hurry home, and expand my mind. That said, eventually all those started coming out — restored, clean, beautiful — while all these other rotten ugly things I had grown up around, terrified by the covers, were just disappearing. And it was through that passion to find these sacred, tossed-out and lost things that I really came to VHS collecting. So the hunt is on.
Is there a specific film or filmmaker who embodies the VHS aesthetic?
[Prior's] Deadly Prey is a great example of something only found on VHS that is just totally brilliant. Inept, hilarious, excellent. And it's because of VHS collectors that it's still talked about. That whole Action International Pictures scene is just excellent — with their shoestring budgets, outrageous plots, and horrendous acting, those films still have 10 times more heart (and balls) than any big studio. It was like Roger Corman was the grandfather of this entire industry of passionate young filmmakers who decided that they could do anything without any money at all. It's the environment that birthed Troma. It was a golden age for genre cinema, and for outsider voices.
I've been especially in love with shot-on-video horror lately. That whole democratization of media really started with the VHS camcorder. Aspiring creatives could hop in a van, drive out to the woods and make something totally insane like Cannibal Campout with no money, no permits, no professional actors, and actually get some kind of distribution at video stores throughout the country.
And also, Menahem Golan ... R.I.P.
